Phoenix Suns: When will Devin Booker’s play help them win?

Despite his incredible talent, whether or not Devin Booker can lead the Phoenix Suns to a winning season is a debate worth having.

The production from Devin Booker so far in his three-plus seasons in the NBA has been a delightful surprise for the Phoenix Suns and their fans. Drafted 13th overall back in 2015, the organization surely hoped he would turn into a productive player, but they likely never expected to give him a max contract.

In the 2018-19 season, the 22-year-old continues to stuff the stat sheet with numbers on par with some of the game’s best, averaging career-high marks in points and assists per game with defenses geared to slow him down on a nightly basis.

And yet, after finishing last season with the worst record in the league at 21-61, the Suns have actually regressed from that abysmal showing, with just 17 wins and only seven games left to play.

It isn’t fair to heap all of Phoenix’s problems squarely on the shoulders of Booker, but one would think that with such incredible statistical production, he’d help his team to more victories, and since he hasn’t, it raises the question of whether or not he even can.

In just over 35 minutes a night, Booker is currently top 10 in scoring with 25.6 points per game, with a newfound playmaking ability at 6.8 assists per game as well. Those numbers are on par with perennial All-Stars such as Damian Lillard, Bradley Beal and Kyrie Irving, but there’s an obvious reason the former Wildcat’s name isn’t grouped together with that trio.

Phoenix hasn’t won more than 24 games since Booker’s arrival nearly four seasons ago despite his continued improvement as a tough shot-maker and late-game closer. All of that doesn’t fall on him. It can’t, not when you consider the dysfunction that continues to reside within the Suns organization.

The team has had four coaches since 2016 and has whiffed on a number of high draft picks. The Suns are one of the youngest teams in the league that shipped away two of its veterans earlier in the year, with little established talent remaining. To expect Booker to carry this heap of garbage to success is ridiculous, but is it really so crazy?

Against the Utah Jazz just last night, he dropped a season-high 59 points, and yet the Suns lost by a whopping 33 points. Just a couple years ago in March of 2017, Booker dropped an incredible 70 points on the Boston Celtics, but the game had already been decided heading into the final frame, with those final 12 minutes allowing him to stuff the stat-sheet and run up his total.

This isn’t to say Booker should be leading this team to 50-plus wins and home-court advantage in the brutal Western Conference, but if he is indeed that guy, the franchise talent his numbers suggest he is, is it too much to ask for a steady increase in win total? What about just passing the 30-win threshold? Or maybe, in these games featuring this scoring binge, losing by single-digits?

This is a very tough argument to make, and it may very well be wrong when you consider his supporting cast, where not a single teammate scored in double-digits against Utah. For as much as the NBA embraces its stars, the game still requires five players on the court playing at a high level at all times.

To be fair the Suns were within 14 points heading into the fourth quarter, and were missing Kelly Oubre Jr., Tyler Johnson, T.J. Warren and Josh Jackson, leaving them to play five rookies and mostly G League talent.

However, looking at the bigger picture, Irving’s Cleveland Cavaliers showed steady improvement in each of his first three seasons in the league before LeBron James returned home. Despite a number of injuries, Beal has dragged the Washington Wizards to 30 wins so far this year.

That difference in team success can’t simply be chalked up to the disparity between the two conferences. No, the Suns’ continuous failures have to be at least somewhat impacted by Booker’s style of play, particularly on the defensive end. It’s possible he may need to tweak it. Or maybe, he’ll simply never reach the status of those other guys who haven’t had many issues in elevating their franchises, if only by the slightest of margins.