The Next Generation: Phoenix Suns guard Devin Booker

Every season the draft brings a fresh infusion of talent to the NBA. In theory this is an even, steady process. In practice, hindsight and historical perspective show that there are borders and boundaries — talent doesn’t just arrive in the NBA, it arrives in generational waves. Sometimes we can’t see these aesthetic dividing lines for decades, sometimes you simply can’t miss them.

The present day NBA appears to be on the cusp of welcoming a remarkable new generation to its forefront — players who are not just incredible but incredibly unique. Players who will not just excel but transform the roles and responsibilities of basketball players as we understand them. Over the course of this week, The Step Back will be examining many of the players who could figure prominently in The Next Generation. Not every player we turn our attention to is destined to be a star, but all could play a role in defining the future of the NBA. Read the whole series here.

Art by Matthew Hollister /

The Next Generation: Devin Booker

Devin Booker had a plan. When Kobe Bryant picked him up on defense for the first time, he cut to the block on the right side of the floor and demanded the ball for an isolation opportunity. Jon Leuer helped make it happen with an entry pass from just inside the 3-point line while everyone else on the Phoenix Suns overloaded the weak side. With about 10 seconds remaining on the clock and only Bryant standing in front of him, Booker got the 1-on-1 opportunity he was looking for.

Unfortunately for Booker, Bryant seemed more motivated than usual at that stage of his career to get a stop. Perhaps it was his way of sending a message to the shooting guard who was on his way to becoming the fourth youngest player in NBA history — the others being LeBron James, Kevin Durant and Bryant — to score 1,000 points. Whatever the case may be, Bryant got in his face and forced Booker into a tough fadeaway, which ended up touching more of the backboard than the rim.

When asked about the exchange after the game, Booker came clean: He was trying to use Bryant’s own move against him. “I remember me catching the ball and I had it in kind of the short post,” he said (h/t Bright Side of the Suns). “I missed the shot, but I used one of his moves against him and that’s the first thing he said against me. ‘You’re trying to use my own move against me?'”

Bryant went as far as comparing the moment to the first time he played against Michael Jordan, which was fitting seeing as Booker’s background is similar to Bryant’s. Like Bryant, Booker is a 6-foot-6 two-guard who was drafted with the No. 13 pick as the youngest player in his class with a father who once played in the NBA. Booker even posted similar numbers to Bryant in his rookie season and drew comparisons to the Los Angeles Lakers legend from his head coach following a pair of dominant quarters this season. All things considered, Booker stealing Bryant’s move and using it against him almost felt scripted.

To be clear, that’s not to say Booker is necessarily next in the Bryant and Jordan lineage. Booker wants to be remembered as someone like Bryant when his playing days are over with, but expecting him to be on par with one of the greatest players of all-time would be foolish. There are, however, noticeable similarities between the two that could help Booker become the closest thing to Bryant we’ll likely see out of this crop of rising stars in the NBA.

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Booker is slowly developing into a threat on the low post. As a rookie, he attempted 28 shots out of the post in 76 games and averaged 1.11 points per possession. As a sophomore, he’s bumped that number up to 33 attempts in 56 games with an average of 1.00 points per possession. It might not sound like much — it represents 3.9 percent of Booker’s total offense on the season — but there are only a handful of guards who have scored more points out of the post than Booker on the season.

Considering Booker is 20-years-old, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see him at the top of the list when he’s in his prime.

For now, Booker relies mainly on step backs to score over players in the post. He has a size advantage when matched up against many players at his position and he can use his height to shoot over them. He likes to face-up to the basket, take a hard dribble or two towards the basket and then peel back for a midrange jump shot. Just watch him do it to E’Twaun Moore, who is a couple of inches shorter than him at 6-foot-4.

Booker needs a consistent turnaround jump shot to become a real threat in the post, which is a shot he has struggled to make consistently since he was drafted: 6-for-17 this season after going 6-for-24 last season. The good news is he has the potential to improve despite not having the same length as Bryant. At the very least, he should be able to punish smaller defenders on switches with turnaround jumpers once he grows into his body.

Expect shots like this to become automatic in time:

Bryant was the king of turnaround jumpers. When he averaged 35.4 points per game in the 2005-06 season, he shot 66-for-85 on turnaround jump shots according to NBA.com. He posted similar numbers in the following season (52-for-74) before coming back down to earth ever-so-slightly in 2007-08 (52-for-94). With those levels of efficiency, it’s no wonder it became his go-to shot later in his career when he wasn’t able to attack the basket with the same explosiveness.

That shimmy was Bryant’s bread and butter. Jason Richardson had to respect it because Bryant was equally capable of fading over his right shoulder. Bryant would even mess with his defender by shimmying multiple times on a single possession. Notice how he used it to get J.R. Smith off balance before draining a fadeaway in the following clip. Smith defended it about as well as you could expect from someone without otherworldly length.

Being able to do those two things — fade over his right and left shoulder — opened up a world of possibilities for Bryant because it meant he had a counter to every type of defense. If they defended him straight up, he could choose which direction he wanted to turnaround. If they shaded towards a particular side, he could then use their momentum against them by turning over the opposite shoulder or spinning around them.

Although Booker is still developing his post game, we’ve seen him pull the same move a couple of times this season. Once against Patrick Beverley:

And once against Sergio Rodriguez:

Booker obviously has a long way before he comes close to being the post-up scorer Bryant was, but he has the potential to be a threat in the post. Bryant talked about how sound his footwork is for a young player and praised his fundamentals once he got a closer look at his game. When Booker figures out his counters, Bryant said, he’ll be a nightmare for teams to slow down.

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Bryant once mentioned how a good scorer can comfortably do two things: shoot 3-pointers when their defender gives them space and drive to the basket when their defender presses up on them. But to be a deadly offensive player, Bryant said they also need a reliable pull-up. That way the defense is basically at the offensive player’s mercy because they can take whatever is given to them.

As simple as it might sound, only seven of the 26 players who are averaging at least 21 points per game this season are shooting 35 percent from the perimeter, 40 percent on pull-ups and 60 percent at the rim. It’s somewhat of an arbitrary list, but it goes to show how rare it is for a volume scorer to shoot efficiently in those three areas. And while Booker isn’t one of those seven players, he’s on the cusp of joining the likes of Kawhi Leonard, Bradley Beal and Gordon Hayward.

Booker entered the NBA as 3-point shooter with about half of his attempts coming from the perimeter when he was in Kentucky. Booker still shoots a lot of 3-pointers — he’s 26th on the leaderboard in attempts this season — but 37.9 percent of his total shot attempts this season have come from pull-ups. At his height, it’s a good shot for Booker to have because he can easily rise up and shoot over defenders.

Here’s Bryant making almost the exact same shot against the Orlando Magic. Once he got Mickael Pietrus on his hip, he knew he’d be able to get off a clean look from around the elbow with a slight fade.

Bryant was more of an isolation scorer than Booker is, and it was the little things in those situations that made his pull-up so difficult to defend. One of his tricks was he’d dip his shoulder into his defender when attacking the basket as a way of creating additional space. With their momentum already carrying them away from Bryant, a little nudge was often enough for him to create an uncontested look.

Booker is still growing into his body — Earl Watson said he doesn’t have “grown man strength” yet — but he can still pull off similar moves against weaker guards. With a high release point, he doesn’t need much space to get off a shot.

Bryant was also comfortable getting to a spot and pump faking a couple of times before shooting. If the defender jumped, Bryant could lean into them and draw the foul. If they didn’t, he knew he could pull-up for a midrange jumper without anyone jumping in his face.

While we’re unlikely to ever see an NBA player take and make those shots as frequently as Bryant did, Booker has the control and confidence to use it when operating out of the pick-and-roll.

Booker has even used it to test his defender out of the post.

This one in particular on a drive against the Oklahoma City Thunder…

…is straight out of Bryant’s playbook.

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With those similarities in mind, it explains why some of the biggest names in the NBA right now can’t stop talking about Booker. LeBron James, for example, believes he is going to be “a really, really, really good, All-Star player in the league.” Booker becoming the third youngest player to score 30 points in an NBA game and the youngest ever to post consecutive 38-point games helps his case, but James grew up wanting to be like Bryant. Now that there’s someone from this generation molding their game after his childhood idol, it makes sense that James would gravitate towards him.

Again, that doesn’t mean Booker will even be 50 percent of what Bryant was, but he’s taken Bryant’s mold and put a modern NBA spin on it with a greater focus on 3-pointers and shots at the rim. It’s served Booker well in his first two seasons with the Suns and there is still plenty of room for growth until he becomes the All-Star many expect him to be. And once he’s ticked that box, who knows what he’ll have in store for us.