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Devin Booker, Phoenix Suns

Offensively, Devin Booker probably deserves to be the highest on this list. Anyone who has scored 70 points in an NBA game (in a loss and with his team never really being in the game) is a special type of player. The most impressive part about that game, to me, was that he only made four 3-pointers.

He did most of his damage in the mid-range, and at the free throw line, finishing the game shooting 24 free throws on 26 attempts.

Also: he’s not the one dimensional scorer he was pegged as coming out of college.

Last season, he raised his offensive averages across the board to career highs. He averaged 25 points per game, with 4.7 assists and 4.5 rebounds. He had a usage rate of 31.7 percent, and an assist percentage of 24.4 percent. Simply put — he was the Phoenix Suns offense last season.

No one is arguing that Booker isn’t a great offensive player. There may be an argument that his stats are a bit inflated by being on one of the worst teams in the NBA who leans heavily on him, but he would still be great on a winning team.

The argument against Booker is that he is a poor defensive player, and he doesn’t seem to make his team any better.

He had a net rating of minus-10.1 last season, and Phoenix had a defensive rating of 111.6 while he was on the floor. You can choose to believe that is just because the Suns were a terrible team last year, but they actually performed better defensively when he was not on the floor.

It’s not just last year though. He has seemingly not improved on the defensive side of the ball since coming into the league. His defensive box plus/minus has gone from minus-2.4, to minus-2.7 and then back to minus-2.4.

I think Devin Booker is a fantastic player, and he is only going to look better as the Suns begin winning basketball games. Until he starts playing defense and the Suns start winning games though, he is not better than the next player on this list.