If you were to ask Suns fans why they love Devin Booker the list usually contains his loyalty to the franchise, his contributions to the community and of course his play style. After being drafted in 2016, Devin Booker has endured a lot of challenges on the court. Turnover on teammates, losing records and far from full stands, but he never left. Instead, he stayed the course, worked on his game, and helped bring the franchise to what it is today.
A not commonly known fact about Booker is his dedication to the community and the city can be seen by fans throughout the state. In 2019, Devin Booker made a 5-year commitment to the community to donate $2.5 million to nonprofits throughout the state. To this date, in collaboration with the Phoenix Suns Charities, Devin Booker’s Starting Five initiative has donated to 20 different organizations throughout the state. Due to his efforts, Booker was named the 2020-2021 season-long NBA Care Community Assist Award. He also has been a Special Olympics Global Ambassador since 2015 making time to work with the organization and the people who benefit from it.
Take a look as Phoenix Suns Charities and @DevinBook surprised five nonprofits with $100,000 each for the fourth consecutive year; continuing Book's $2.5M pledge to support the local community.
Congratulations to this year's Devin Booker Starting Five organizations! pic.twitter.com/bxtVIOB3w9
— Phoenix Suns (@Suns) December 9, 2022
During this season, in a partnership with 2K Foundations, Booker was able to be a part of a court dedication ceremony at Chicanos Por La Causa Community Center, an organization dedicated to serve the Mexican-American community, in Phoenix. There he was able to dedicate his time to the community and made an effort to create memories for the children there.
And the best part about Devin Booker? He is pretty good at basketball. He is a world-class competitor and the NBA community is just finding out. From starting in the league, Booker has never been afraid of the moment and the grind. From being the youngest player to score 70 points in a game to being named an All-NBA first-team member after leading the Suns to a 64-win season, Booker has always been one to put in work in his game.
Booker has recently passed Shawn Marion in the Suns all-time leading scorer list and he continues to climb. Since the start of March, Booker has been for a lack of a better word, incredible. He has been averaging 38 points, scoring 152 points in 4 games! Just recently, against the OKC Thunder, he scored 44 points, had 4 rebounds and 3 assists in just 28 minutes of playtime. I guess we can say he has recovered well from the groin injury.
In a now-famous interview, Booker stated how he hopes to build a super team but he wanted them to come to him. Flash forward a few losing seasons and a lot of hard work, Chris Paul and Kevin Durant are his teammates.
Maybe I’m a biased Suns fan, but the reputation Booker has throughout the league and with other fans is way off from the realities of having Booker on your team and representing your franchise.
Devin Booker is highly underappreciated…Both for his community efforts and his position of being a top 10 player in the NBA.
Dude does everything his defensive focus when playing with KD gave me hope.
But handcuffing Book with two older players like Paul and KD may shorten Booker career because dude never rest.
He puts the team on his back every night.
I was hoping Ayton would eventually progress into a star player but dude doesn’t seem to have the heart or the motivation to be a star player at center.
Suns are going to have to find a way to get some youth that can help Booker carry the load through the season next year in hopes of keeping Durant healthy for the Playoffs.
I am assuming this is Paul last year as a Sun.