Phoenix Suns: Chris Paul trade will elevate Devin Booker to new heights

Booker won’t be the first star to benefit from Chris Paul

In Houston, James Harden was arguably the most efficient version of himself with Chris Paul on the floor. Granted, the two may or may not have wanted to break out into locker room fisticuffs on a handful of occasions during their two-year marriage, but the closest the Rockets have been to reaching the NBA Finals since 1995 unsurprisingly came when Chris Paul was Harden’s backcourt counterpart. If it weren’t for Paul’s injury in the 2018 Western Conference Finals, there is a legitimate case to be made that the Houston Rockets—with Harden and Paul as co-stars—would have won an NBA title.

Then, as a member of the OKC Thunder, Chris Paul elevated fellow guards Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Dennis Schroder to levels either player has never performed. Before the NBA bubble began, that three-headed monster (usually along with Danilo Gallinari and Steven Adams, making one of the most unconventional ‘death lineups’ in recent NBA memory) outscored their opponents by 268 points in just 401 minutes played.

This same trio also led the NBA in net-rating for any three-man lineup that played over 200 minutes together. Chris Paul, as he has been for the entirety of his NBA career, was the de facto leader of that unit. In his one season in Oklahoma City, Paul turned Shai Gilgeous-Alexander into a future star, revitalized the career of Dennis Schroder, and maintained Oklahoma City’s NBA relevancy by catapulting a team with a preseason playoff probability of .2 percent to a 44-28 record and a fifth-seed in the loaded Western Conference.

And now, Paul has inherited Devin Booker—the human embodiment of an M2 flamethrower. To think anything less than “This is going to be awesome” of the Chris Paul-Devin Booker pairing would be a strong suggestion of one’s basketball knowledge (or lack thereof). On paper, the two seem perfectly ideal for one another.