By Gerald Bourguet
Dillon Brooks had a career year, we didn’t see enough of Jalen Green to get a feel one way or another for how he fits, and Bridges is another 20 points-per-game scorer who can occasionally make plays. But none of them is an efficient 3-point shooter or plus playmaker for their position, and looking at the numbers, the notion that Green and Bridges will help put more pressure on the rim is pretty inflated.
In other words, surrounding Booker with three guys who should be third or fourth options but will be competing to masquerade as second options on a night-to-night basis — and doing so inefficiently — will almost certainly pigeonhole the Suns’ best player into more of a facilitator, “Point Book” role, rather than optimizing him with a more appropriate balance between “off-ball killer” and “on-ball initiator.”
Granted, anything is possible in this league, and we’ve seen plenty of players meaningfully improve or adapt their games for the betterment of their teams. While it’s hard to see any of these guys suddenly becoming 3-point snipers or changing in seismic ways, it may be possible for this starting lineup to come together with a few important tweaks.
To that end, and barring acts of God or on-court miracles, we’re going to embark on a weekly series that takes a look at all five members of the Suns’ projected starting lineup with the goal of pinpointing one specific area where each one must improve in order to make this work.
Today, we begin with Devin Booker, and the never-ending quest for a serviceable pull-up 3.
If you’ve been following my work over the years (or just Suns coverage in general), you’re probably already aware of the importance of Devin Booker’s pull-up 3…and how disappointing it is that it hasn’t materialized to this point. It’s no exaggeration to say Book probably would’ve had a 30-points-per-game season under his belt by now if he had been able to add that shot as a consistent weapon in his arsenal.
Back in October of 2021, it was the “next step in his evolution.” Two years later, it came up again, only this time, it wasn’t just some scrub beat writer bringing it up; coach Frank Vogel and Devin Booker himself touched on the importance of letting those pull-up 3s fly more often.
“I personally am winding him up to shoot that shot,” Vogel said after a noticeable uptick in Booker’s pull-up 3s during the preseason. “First of all, he’s beyond capable. You saw tonight. I mean, he’s lethal with that. And I think he’s been a little bit hesitant — just talking to some people that have been here the last couple of years — to take that shot in a high volume.
“One of the things we talked this summer is that that’s a shot that I really want to encourage and to extra ‘green light’ for him. Because when he’s knocking down that shot, the big’s gotta come up. And when the bigs come up, that just opens up even more stuff. So it’s a hell of a weapon, and it’s something I’m encouraging him to take.”
Even when the pull-up 3 wasn’t falling, the mere threat of an All-NBA scorer like Devin Booker taking that shot changed the way defenses were forced to guard not only him, but the Suns as a whole. He was the head of the snake as Phoenix’s main initiator, and if he were willing to pull at any given moment, defenses had to play farther up on him…opening up real estate for everyone else.
“Make or miss, I think it puts pressure on the defense,” Booker explained. “A lot of the coverages in the NBA are drop coverage, and I think that’s gonna be tough to do against us with some marksmen out there, some people that can shoot the ball. Whenever we can get one up, the bigs are doing an incredible job of not letting guys shoot under the screens.”
Back then, the Suns were blessed with an abundance of deadly 3-point snipers to space the floor. Phoenix finished the season ranked fifth in the NBA in 3-point percentage, flanking Booker with elite catch-and-shoot options like Kevin Durant, Bradley Beal, Grayson Allen, Royce O’Neale and Eric Gordon.
Now? There are serious doubts about how well Phoenix can spread the floor when this is their projected starting lineup:
- Devin Booker: 35.2% from 3 for his career, 33.0% last year
- Jalen Green: 33.9% from 3 for his career, 31.3% last year
- Dillon Brooks: 35.3% from 3 for his career, 34.4% last year
- Miles Bridges: 33.8% from 3 for his career, 33.3% last year
- Mark Williams: 5 3-point attempts in his entire career
Booker will always have gravity for the obvious fact that he’s Devin Booker, and it’s worth noting that Green, Brooks and Bridges are all willing 3-point shooters. The combination of sheer 3-point volume and elite offensive rebounding — two areas where the Suns ranked in the top-five in the league last year — could help mitigate some of the efficiency concerns. But it won’t compensate for all of those concerns, so Booker finally adding that pull-up 3 to his arsenal in a meaningful way couldn’t come at a more dire time.
Given the “square peg in a round hole” feel of this starting lineup, it’s vital for Book to elevate his game from “fringe All-Star” back to “unquestionable All-NBA guy” again. Considering he’ll turn 30 in October and has historically boasted a low rim frequency, his game will continue to get more and more jump shot-reliant as he ages.
That’s not to say Booker is cooked athletically just yet, but he’s never possessed dynamic speed, handles or elevation to create separation on his drives to the basket. His midrange prowess is still a beauty to behold, but as a 3-point shooter off the bounce, he’s left a lot to be desired.
It’s a pity, because Booker is an efficient spot-up threat. Over his 11-year career, he’s made 39 percent of his catch-and-shoot 3s, never shooting worse than 36.5 percent in a single season. The problem is he usually doesn’t get very many, because of how often the ball is in his hands and how defenses obviously won’t just leave him open once he gets off it.
Unless Jordan Ott has some real tricks up his sleeves, it’s hard to see this year’s supporting cast generating a ton of spot-up looks for Booker. His 122 catch-and-shoot 3-point attempts last year were already the second-lowest total of his 11-year career, and that was before the Suns replaced connective passers like Grayson Allen and Royce O’Neale with Miles Bridges, not to mention the fact that Collin Gillespie’s playmaking in the starting lineup will likely be replaced by a healthier Jalen Green.
That brings us back to the importance of Booker’s pull-up 3s. With the exception of his first two years in the league, Book has attempted more pull-up 3s than catch-and-shoot triples every single season. Unfortunately, the results on those pull-up 3s haven’t been great outside of 2-3 seasons:
- 2025-26: 30.1% on 3.7 attempts per game
- 2024-25: 30.7% on 4.0 attempts per game
- 2023-24: 36.2% on 3.9 attempts per game
- 2022-23: 30.9% on 3.9 attempts per game
- 2021-22: 35.7% on 3.8 attempts per game
- 2020-21: 30.8% on 2.8 attempts per game
- 2019-20: 33.6% on 3.3 attempts per game
- 2018-19: 29.1% on 3.7 attempts per game
- 2017-18: 36.0% on 3.7 attempts per game
- 2016-17: 32.8% on 1.7 attempts per game
- 2015-16: 23.2% on 1.3 attempts per game
Overall, Book is only a career 32.2 percent shooter on pull-up 3s. That simply isn’t going to cut it, especially combined with such low volume. A look at a few comparable players around the league paints the picture of how far Booker needs to elevate his game in this regard.
Obviously no one is expecting him to turn into a Steph Curry or a James Harden in Year 12 of his career. That’s just not realistic. Those are two of the greatest 3-point shooters in NBA history, but even as outliers, they help give us our bearings.
For reference, Curry has never had a season where he’s attempted fewer than 4.5 pull-up 3s per game; Booker’s career-high for a season is 4.0 attempts per game. Curry is also a career 40 percent shooter on pull-up 3s, while taking nearly twice as many (4,576) as Book has in his career (2,347). Harden, meanwhile, has almost made as many pull-up 3s in his career (2,120) as Devin Booker has attempted (2,347), and despite attempting nearly 6,000 of those pull-up triples, Harden has still made 35.6 percent of them.
Keep that 35-36 percent threshold in mind, because it’s the ideal benchmark that Phoenix would love to see Booker hit once again this season.
For more clarity on why that number is important, take Anthony Edwards and Donovan Mitchell, the two star shooting guards Devin Booker is compared to most. Here’s Ant’s pull-up 3s for every season of his career so far:
- 2025-26: 35.3% on 6.0 attempts per game
- 2024-25: 38.5% on 7.6 attempts per game
- 2023-24: 33.4% on 4.5 attempts per game
- 2022-23: 33.8% on 4.6 attempts per game
- 2021-22: 32.5% on 5.1 attempts per game
- 2020-21: 32.9% on 3.5 attempts per game
And here’s Spida’s:
- 2025-26: 33.7% on 5.4 attempts per game
- 2024-25: 34.3% on 5.5 attempts per game
- 2023-24: 35.0% on 5.8 attempts per game
- 2022-23: 39.2% on 5.7 attempts per game
- 2021-22: 35.6% on 6.2 attempts per game
- 2020-21: 36.3% on 5.5 attempts per game
- 2019-20: 32.1% on 4.1 attempts per game
- 2018-19: 33.2% on 3.8 attempts per game
- 2017-18: 29.0% on 3.9 attempts per game
Overall, Edwards has made 34.9 percent of his pull-up 3s for his career, attempting nearly as many (2,295) as Booker (2,347) despite having played five fewer seasons. Mitchell, meanwhile, has made 34.4 percent of his pull-up 3s, attempting nearly 1,000 more than Booker (3,051) despite having played two fewer seasons.
Still need more evidence? Luka Doncic is a 35 percent pull-up 3-point shooter, hovering right around 7-8 attempts per game for his career. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander sits at 34.6 percent on much lower volume, but that’s because his rim rate and general slipperiness put him on a different level compared to Booker (and pretty much everyone in the league). Hell, even Jayson Tatum and his frequently questionable shot selection have yielded 34 percent shooting on pull-up 3s, with the Boston Celtics star taking 5-6 of them on a nightly basis.
If there’s a picture that’s coming together, it should be that for star-caliber players, it really doesn’t take too much more to become a serviceable pull-up threat, especially if Booker’s catch-and-shoot efficiency were to remain as high as it’s been throughout his career. The Suns really just need him to hover around 34-35 percent with a slight uptick in volume, somewhere between 4-6 attempts per game.
Elevating his percentage and attempts per game by one or two really doesn’t sound too difficult on paper; after all, in the season where Vogel was in his ear about taking more pull-up 3s, Booker had a career year in that respect, canning a career-best 36.2 percent of his pull-up triples on a then-career-high 268 attempts.
But it may be asking a lot from a guy heading into his 12th season, especially since he’s hovered around 30-31 percent on pull-up 3s in three of his last four seasons. It was just last December we were fretting over his concerning results from 3-point range, and he might just be a subpar shooter from long range.
With that being said, the uptick in volume should be easier to achieve. Booker has only cracked 4.0 pull-up 3-point attempts per game once over his 11-year career, but unless Ott can surround him with more playmakers like Collin Gillespie, Luke Kennard and Oso Ighodaro — or Green, Brooks and Bridges somehow make unprecedented leaps as passers — he’s not going to get many catch-and-shoot opportunities.
That will put the onus back on his pull-up 3s, especially since he’ll be setting the table for everyone else. Booker wasn’t nearly aggressive enough in hunting his shot last year, and while it’s commendable that he wants to make the right play, sometimes Book calling his own number will be the best shot Phoenix can hope to generate.
And boy would it be nice if defenses had to worry about that shot coming from beyond the arc at a moment’s notice.
For more of Gerald Bourguet’s Suns work, check back with Sports360AZ on a weekly basis, subscribe to his Patreon articles and podcast at Suns After Dark, or follow him on Twitter.
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