ESPN recently released its bubble rankings for the NBA return without any major surprises until now. You can disagree with the first spot or the top 3 players at the bubble, but that’s normal and it’s been a recurrent debate around the league for quite some time now. However, there some decisions that raised a lot of eyebrows.
Arguably the biggest surprise of the top 50 is seeing Devin Booker at 31. Sure, he’s not in the best team in the league, the Suns have struggled a lot this season but Booker has become a better player every time he’s been in the league. Proof of that is his first All-Star appearance this season as a replacement.
Yet, ESPN only sees him as the 31st best player in the bubble. Moreover, they ranked Booker behind three players that haven’t been as good or impactful as him, Domantas Sabonis, Montrezl Harris and Fred VanVleet.
Sure, Sabonis also was called for the All-Star game, Harrell has a pretty good case for the Sixth Man of the Year award and his Clippers are favorites to win the title and we all know how helpful VanVleet has been for the Raptors, even in the Finals, where he stopped Stephen Curry.
The thing is, none of these players has a better skill-set than Booker. He’s the leader of his team and the only player with a similar role is Sabonis, the other two are role players, who are great at their job, but don’t carry the same expectations as Booker.
This season he’s improved his game, becoming a more efficient scorer, has started playing some defense and even though the Suns are not the most competitive team in the league, Booker is the reason why they got invited to the bubble.
