Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images
Devin Booker and the Phoenix Suns hit a new chapter on Tuesday.
Even including their 3-0 start in the NBA bubble, the Phoenix Suns are 10 games below .500. They’re 1.5 games out of ninth place in the Western Conference, which only comes as consolation in a quirky year where finishing ninth, and within four games of the 8-seed, will earn a play-in scenario for a postseason berth.
And yet, the context behind those daunting facts is important — just as important as the eye test confirming on Tuesday that Devin Booker and these young Suns had entered a new chapter in their quest to return to relevance.
It is not hyperbolic, nor does it take a prisoner of the moment, to identify Booker’s game-winning buzzer-beater over Kawhi Leonard, Paul George and the LA Clippers as one of the most memorable moments in Suns franchise history … and easily the greatest since Steve Nash left town.
“Our guys just grew up tonight,” head coach Monty Williams said. “We played against a team that could possibly win a championship, and they sent everything at us with George and Kawhi and the physicality. And our guys took it. We put ourselves in a position to get a win.”
Indeed, that triumph — and giant middle finger to the moronic double-teams “controversy” — was sweeter than Nash’s somber curtain call during his final home game in Phoenix. Better than Goran Dragic earning “MVP” chants against Anthony Davis in a 48-win season that earned the Dragon All-NBA Third Team honors. And more profound than winning the No. 1 overall pick for the first time in the 2018 NBA Draft Lottery.
For the first time since a sorrowful U.S. Airways Center chanted “We want Steve!” to give Nash his 2012 sendoff, Suns fans were not bracing for the worst or looking to the horizon. When Booker’s impossible turnaround jumper found nothing but net, they weren’t watching the promise of hope; they were seeing it actually materialize into something worth believing in.
“I said it after the Dallas win, I think wins like this are important for us to gain that respect in this league,” Booker said. “I think right now a lot of people are just looking at us like the 22nd or 21st team in the bubble and we’re just here to be here, but that’s not the mentality we have as a team. We’re here to win. Every time we step out on the floor, we’re here to compete, make a name for ourselves, and you’re seeing a common theme with everything I’m saying. We’re approaching every game with the right mindset.”
There have been signs of tangible progress throughout the 2019-20 campaign, of course. The Suns had won 26 games — the most of Booker’s career thus far — when the NBA suspended its season, with 17 games remaining at that point. Booker became a first-time All-Star. Despite his 25-game suspension, Deandre Ayton drastically improved on defense. Mikal Bridges developed into a stifling defender. Kelly Oubre Jr. injected infectious energy, Cameron Johnson spread the floor from day one, Aron Baynes filled in superbly well for Ayton and new arrival Ricky Rubio was everything the Suns could’ve hoped for as a floor general.
But when Phoenix got the bubble invite, few understood what this group could gain from the experience, and even fewer gave them a chance to actually compete for a play-in spot.
“We came into this thing with a level of gratefulness and humility that we were even in this,” Williams explained. “We know that we’re not an upper-echelon team, consistently. So these are the times where you have to manage your excitement and fun because that’s what the really good teams do. So we’ve gotta keep the same mentality. We said we wanted to get better and we were just gonna attack this thing every day.”
So far, the Suns are attacking hard and well. At a perfect 3-0, they’re one of only three undefeated teams in Orlando, and they’ve pulled within 1.5 games of the Portland Trail Blazers for ninth place in the West.
But even after such an unbelievable high for this young group, Williams won’t let his team lose focus.
“It’s an amazing feeling, and yet, I’m already turning the page, I’m getting ready for the next game, and that’s the mentality that we have to have,” he said. “I’m glad they’re having fun right now in the locker room, but we have to grow in these moments, and I’m looking forward to teaching out of this experience and in this situation.”
Finishing with 35 points, eight assists and four rebounds on 13-of-25 shooting from the floor and 6-of-9 shooting from 3-point range, Booker submitted one of the finest — and most important — performances of his career. Through three games in the bubble, he’s averaging 30.7 points, 5.3 assists and 4.0 rebounds per game on .470/.450/.875 shooting splits.
People wondered how the 23-year-old would respond to the spotlight in the first meaningful games of his young career. He’s putting those doubts to rest about whether he’s more than just a “good stats, bad team” player.
“I want a reputation in this league as being a winner,” Booker said. “Through five years, I haven’t gotten to that part of my career yet. But I’m gonna work extremely hard as I can to get there, and I feel like we have a really good bunch to do it.”
And therein lies the beauty of the Suns’ approach to the bubble: No matter what happens over the next five games, Phoenix has stable ground to build on for the first time in a decade. The Suns have their foundation in Booker, Ayton, Bridges, Rubio and Johnson, all of whom have shown tangible signs of growth this season and especially in Orlando under such unusual circumstances.
Tuesday’s win represented a culmination of everything the young Suns have aspired to all season long: bringing it for a full 48 minutes, competing with the NBA elite, and giving the younger guys an opportunity to learn how to minimize mistakes in tight contests, how to protect leads and how to finish games strong.
“The ability to pull it out is really cool and we’re thankful to be on this side of it, but we can talk to guys all day about situations, but until guys like Cam and Mikal experience it, it’s just hard to know what coaches are talking about,” Williams said. “The physicality, dealing with calls that don’t go your way, watching guys like Kawhi and Paul George just make shot after shot and play after play, and they make it look so effortless — they can only learn from being in those situations. So that’s the stuff that I believe will help us grow as a program. Those guys are gonna grow up exponentially faster than they would have just sitting at home.”
Even if they don’t wind up pulling off this miracle run for a play-in spot, the Suns have overcome a myriad of injuries, suspensions, new faces, new coaching personnel, a global pandemic and rampant social injustice over these past few months.
And still, we’re seeing Booker blossom into a national name. We’re seeing Ricky Rubio stabilize the 1-spot, Mikal Bridges emerge as a two-way force, Cam Johnson excel under the radar, Cameron Payne fill the void at backup point guard … and Oubre and Baynes haven’t even played to this point.
Coming together like this, after four months off, to provide an entire city with hope that the future is finally here is nothing short of remarkable.
“We’re taking it one game at a time,” Booker said. “That’s not our mindset that we set coming into here — we didn’t have 8-0 on our mind, that hasn’t been our target; just coming in and playing the best basketball we can every night. So people can say that we have a ‘nothing to lose’ mentality, but we don’t look at it like that. We have games to lose, games to win. So we come out here with that attitude and we play that way.”
The Suns’ next game is against one of the bubble’s other two undefeated teams, the Indiana Pacers. It’s a meeting between the two biggest surprises of the NBA restart, where Phoenix will face off against early bubble MVP T.J. Warren and his Orlando-leading 39.7 points per game. It’s a contest of unstoppable force vs. immovable object, with context-devoid jokes about “cash considerations” on the line. The Suns could easily lose to this well-coached, red-hot team if they’re still stuck in a state of bliss, reveling in this coming-of-age moment.
But as one would expect, Monty Williams and his team seem to be on the same page: the one they’ve already turned over from Tuesday.
“I’m happy for him,” Williams said of Booker. “But he’d be the first one to tell you: We’re not done.”