Hey there, Last Night In Basketballers — I am, as I do every year, re-appropriating the Three Things I Noticed on League Pass format to preview the upcoming season. Instead of three things I noticed, it’ll be something more along the lines of three things I’m looking forward to, interested in, or want to see. Some of them might be narrative-based, some might be stats, and some might include video. But they'll all be focused on the 2026-27 campaign.
The schedule for those posts will be as follows (podcasts previewing each division with Mo Dakhil are in parentheses):
- Atlantic Division (BOS, BKN, NYK, PHI, TOR) (Podcast)
- Central Division (CHI, CLE, DET, IND, MIL) (Podcast)
- Southeast Division (ATL, CHA, MIA, ORL, WAS) (Podcast)
- Pacific Division (GSW, LAC, LAL, PHX, SAC) (Podcast)
- Northwest Division (DEN, MIN, OKC, POR, UTA) (Podcast)
- Southwest Division (DAL, HOU, MEM, NOP, SAS) (Podcast)
So without further ado, let's get to the Phoenix Suns, who were one of the most pleasant surprises of last year and ruined the vibes with a trade this offseason.
Devin Booker, not a shooting star
Devin Booker's jumper is so aesthetically pleasing. Seriously, watch him rise and release on a regular basis. It's so pretty. It's so pretty that you would think the ball would go in the basket more often than it does.
Would you believe that Booker is only a 35.2% three-point shooter for his career? Would you believe that he's been at 33.2% and 33.0% over the last two years, or that he hasn't been above 38% since the 2021-22 season, or that he's only ever topped 37% twice in 11 years?
His mid-range numbers are better: 49% from 10-16 feet and 43.9% from between 16 feet and the three-point line. And those numbers are weighed down by some really bad early-career mid-range shooting. Since his first All-Star season, Booker is at 51.5% from 10-16 feet and 46.4% from between 16 feet and the three-point line. And he's always been a very good free-throw shooting making between 83% and 92% of his tries every year and connecting on 87.3% of them for his career.
So what's up with the threes? Most of it, honestly, is that he's for some reason just not very good at shooting off the dribble. For his career, he's made 39.1% of his catch-and-shoot threes and only 32.2% of his pull-ups.
That's not that unusual a split; almost everybody is better off the catch than off the bounce, not least because off-the-catch attempts tend to be of higher quality than those that originate from the dribble. But when you're taking between 55% and in recent seasons, more like 65% of your threes off the dribble rather than off the catch, it's going to weigh your percentages down.
There have been a few seasons, though, where Booker actually made around 36% of his off-the-dribble threes. Can he get back to connecting around that rate? He's probably going to need to in order to see his three-point shooting bounce back, because it doesn't necessarily seem like the Suns are going to start Collin Gillespie, which means that Booker is once again going to be the de facto point guard and probably taking the significant majority of his threes off the bounce as opposed to off the catch.