The Phoenix Suns exit the All-Star break with their two All-Stars — Kevin Durant and Devin Booker — being disappointments, per Brad Botkin of CBS Sports.
Botkin dropped his ‘Ranking NBA’s top 25 players this season’ article on Thursday, and also dropped both Durant and Booker from where he (along with his colleagues James Herbert and Jack Maloney) had them ranked in his ‘NBA top 100 player rankings’ article before the season. That preseason article was a “futures post … based on how we see them performing this upcoming season.” Durant and Booker evidently have not performed up to their preseason expectations.
Durant was listed as the No. 5 player on the preseason list, and now is ranked No. 6 on the updated ranking. Booker was slotted in at No. 8 on the preseason list, but now ranks No. 9 in the updated ranking. Interestingly, Botkin mentioned Durant’s ignored MVP case this season, but did not include him in his top five.
“Two players are having legit MVP seasons while being totally ignored in MVP discussions. One is Durant,” Botkin wrote.
What’s most notable about his description is that Botkin raves about who Durant has been as a shooter this season.
“Durant’s shooting splits, relative to his difficult-for-anyone-else shot diet, are out of this world at 53/44/87,” Botkin included.
Yet, Botkin ranked the current play-in Dallas Mavericks’ Luka Doncic in his fifth spot in part because, he writes, one is no longer “able to ding Luka for his subpar shooting.” He then writes that Doncic is shooting 37.5% from deep on the season. Durant is shooting 44.3% from deep on the season.
Durant is also converting on 53.8% of his field goal attempts on the year compared to Doncic’s 49.2%. He also has hit on 87.1% of his free throw attempts to Doncic’s 77.7%.
As Botkin himself even admitted, “Durant lulls us into believing what he does is as easy as he makes it look, but there is nothing easy about averaging 28 PPG on 19 shots.”
Speaking of three-point shooters, Botkin had a surprising take on Booker. Botkin writes that “Booker is now comfortably categorized as a knockdown 3-point shooter.” It’s a perplexing take, as Booker has been categorized as “a knockdown three-point shooter” throughout all basketball spaces since his second year in the Association.
In that second year, Booker shot 36.3% from downtown, and also shot 36.4% from deep in a game against the Boston Celtics en route to a 70-point scoring performance. The very next year, Booker won the three-point contest in a season where he also shot 38.3% from beyond the three-point arc.
He has continued that three-point shooting proficiency throughout the rest of his career as well, most notably in the postseason. Booker owns a 39.2% playoff three-point shooting percentage. In fact, just last postseason Booker shot 50.8% from beyond the arc..
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It’s a bit surprising to see Botkin begin to acknowledge that Booker is indeed “a knockdown three-point shooter,” yet bump him down in his ranking. Especially when a player like Doncic is all the way up in the top five, who per Botkin, cannot be dinged “for his subpar shooting” despite having worse shooting percentages across the board than the Suns’ “your-turn/my-turn pairing of midrange maestros,” per Botkin himself. Keep in mind, Booker is shooting 50% from the floor this season, and also nailing 87% from the free-throw line.
The best news for Phoenix is that they are the only team with two players in the top nine of Botkin’s ranking, and even the only team with two players in the top 15 of Botkin’s ranking.
