Devin Booker has been the best player on the West’s best team this season. Despite all that, his team endured in the playoffs and over the summer, and even with some injuries this season, Booker has led them to the top seed in the conference and is showing no signs of slowing down.
Interestingly, however, Booker’s name has been surprisingly absent from the MVP conversation early on. Why is that? When posed with the same question, Booker himself revealed that he really doesn’t care about the MVP race at all.
Last one for you: MVP. So you’re fourth in the voting last year — best player on the best team in the West. This time around, you’re in the mix and playing some incredible ball. But is that award something that gets you up in the morning in terms of goals?
Booker: “No.”
How do you see yourself in that race?
Booker: “I’m not even in that race. I just let these people say what they want. Like bro, I focus on hoops only.”
I’m just trying to give you the microphone here though…
Booker: “I know. I feel you, but I’ve never been that type. And historically speaking, if you look at last year, like somebody (else) might have got MVP (in his situation) if it wasn’t me. Best team in the league with whatever (production). But the criteria changes, the media changes. I think it’s good for the NBA, (but) there’s just certain people that they want to push more than others. And that’s just the nature of life.”
No matter how Booker feels about his own MVP candidacy, he’s got to be feeling good about where his team is right now. With a solid play on both ends of the floor, Phoenix has looked like the team that made the Finals a few years ago. But can they close the deal this time?
The Suns Are Locked-In This Season After Embarrassing Playoff Failure
While everyone was counting them out over the summer, the Suns have proved everyone wrong with their performance so far and look to be on the road to a deep playoff run.
Through it all, Book is doing his best to navigate the storms and ignore the growing number of haters.
“I just realized the situation,” Booker said. “Now, I’m more on the bigger stage, where people know about me, so there’s gonna be more haters. That’s life. There’s people that hate on LeBron James and Steph Curry — still, to this day. So once you embrace that (reality) and just realize that there’s different types of people, you get it. There’s haters, and there’s supporters.”
With only a quarter of the season in the books, the West is still rounding into form. For now, it’s the Suns, Nuggets, and Pelicans who are looking like the teams to beat.
And whether Devin Booker wins MVP or not, you can bet that he’ll continue to put up the same dominant number he always has. Unlike others in his field, he needs no validation to demonstrate the perfection of his craft.
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