On the heels of the existential crisis that followed Team USA’s semifinal loss in the 2023 FIBA World Cup, four-time All-Star Devin Booker offered to do the dirty work that 2024’s top-heavy roster would sorely need in the Olympics.
Booker, who recently left Team USA’s gold medal celebration party on a bicycle—his preferred method of traversing the narrow streets of Paris—has always had a knack for finding productive lessons in cramped confines. He did it a lifetime ago for Kentucky, shooting movement 3s off the bench that garnered comparisons to Klay Thompson. This summer, he reprised that role for Team USA as an overqualified 3-and-D player—and set himself up as a cornerstone of the program in the process.
After LeBron James, Steph Curry, and his Phoenix Suns teammate Kevin Durant—three legends who will presumably be working on their golf games full-time in 2028—Booker had Team USA’s highest cumulative plus-minus. He claimed a spot in the starting five, shot a blistering, team-high 57 percent from beyond the arc, and had the highest assist-to-turnover ratio in the tournament, all while clamping down on defense and applying full-court pressure on opposing guards. “He was our unsung MVP,” Steve Kerr told reporters after the gold medal victory against France.
Stateside, things have been far less rosy for Booker, whose Suns traded everything for Durant and Bradley Beal and have just one playoff series win to show for it. In a couple of months, Booker will return to a regrouping squad with a new (read: real) point guard and a new coach with a proven offensive philosophy. The way Booker seamlessly maintained his ability to be a threat in Kerr’s system could prove both instructive and inspiring for Phoenix.
There is often a too-big-to-fail rigidity to the developmental track of superstars. Once a star finds a way to dominate, the machinery around them—the system, the coaches, the routine—resists change, out of fear that tinkering will harm productivity. Booker, one of the game’s great understudies, has never been such a superstar. He entered the league mimicking Rip Hamilton’s off-screen shooting exploits while building out a one-on-one game inspired by his idol Kobe Bryant. But when the Suns traded for Chris Paul—one of the greatest pick-and-roll practitioners the game has ever seen—before the 2020-21 season, it took Booker just one year to master the Point God’s reads and cagey tricks. When Paul was traded for Beal last summer, Booker took over point guard duties full-time, straying further from his origins as a movement shooter. But with Team USA, Booker hearkened back to his past as a floor spacer, playing alongside and sometimes standing in for the player who should be his next muse: Steph Curry.
