In the immediate aftermath of a decisive four-game sweep at the hands of the reigning NBA champion Oklahoma City Thunder, Devin Booker doesn’t necessarily deserve the benefit of the doubt.
By his standards as one of the NBA’s top scorers, the perennial All-Star was pretty uninspiring in the series. Booker shot just 46 percent from the field while only making 5-of-18 from behind the 3-point line. With the Suns already such a massive underdog against the heavyweight Thunder, Booker’s performance simply isn’t going to cut it. Phoenix needs more from its long-time franchise player.
At the same time, is it really Booker’s fault he’s mired on a Suns team with so little help surrounding him? Booker deserves credit for even dragging an effort-based Phoenix squad with limited talent and depth to the postseason.
Which makes me wonder. Should the star shooting guard be trying to find a way off the Suns this summer? He’s already given Phoenix so much over his 11-year career. He stuck with them through a dark period in the late 2010s, where they never won more than 34 games. He became their talisman on a team that reached the 2021 NBA Finals. Now, he’s working with them during a period of transition and retooling as they dust themselves off after the recent Kevin Durant era.
Booker has given so much to the Suns over the years, and they have helped him with his development. For now, he seems content with their current direction:
“People had us projected at 28-29 wins on the season, we ended with 45.”
Devin Booker reflects on the season for the Suns. pic.twitter.com/ecM8IAslMO
— PHNX Suns (@PHNX_Suns) April 28, 2026
But Booker’s also not getting any younger, with over a decade of NBA experience under his belt. He will be 30 by around the start of the next NBA season. I do think there’s a reality where Booker tries to pressure the mostly hopeless Suns into doing more to win now, so they have a better chance of competing with teams like the Thunder. Unfortunately, unless Phoenix does something drastic like acquire Giannis Antetokounmpo somehow, there isn’t an easy path for the franchise to do something like that.
If the Suns can’t build a winner around Booker very soon, or make an earnest effort to do so, the least they could do is recoup value on him and give him a chance to win elsewhere. A good example would be Booker forcing his way to the offensively challenged Detroit Pistons, who need a dynamic creator like him, as he is a Michigan native.
This is where I pour cold water on the idea of the shooting guard leaving the Arizona desert. Booker has never expressed any real desire to leave the Suns. By all accounts, he seems to love the franchise and loves playing for Phoenix. Booker also still has four guaranteed team years left on his Suns contract, with a player option coming in the summer of 2030. He’s making a lot of money to play in a warm-weather city for half the calendar year for the foreseeable future. He also seems to love the romantic idea of being a one-team star for his legacy.
For many NBA stars, that’s the dream.
Booker does deserve better than these current Suns. Whether he wants to leave or use his influence to force the team to make some roster upgrades is a question we won’t have an answer to until this summer.
This article originally appeared on For The Win: Why Devin Booker leaving Suns in trade to win would be so complicated