Devin Booker talks commitment to the Phoenix Suns

Devin Booker talks commitment to the Phoenix Suns

Good to see you, man. It’s been a while. How you doing, De? It has been good seeing you. Thanks for having me. I I love how far you’ve come. It’s been a pleasure to watch you play. Become one of the great sons of all time. Become one of the great icons in sports in this market out of all sports alto together. I remember many years ago I sent you a photo. I was in Vancouver. I’m walking around and there’s this big gigantic bull billboard in Vancouver about Devin Booker with a Nike shoe in him and uh and I remember I sent you the photo and you’re like, “Wow.” And look at you now. You got your own signature shoe. You’ve got a new one coming out in the, you know, in the next few months. Tell me about the excitement of your new shoe and just having this great deal with Nike. I love it a lot. Um, a little bit too much. I say, yeah, the problem we’re in right now is, you know, I’ve been wearing the fit and feel pairs they call it, which is like a sample pair to make sure. And I want to start the season in it. I’ve done a lot of workouts in it, but we still have a lot of, well, not a lot, but a few book ones left that are still going to market. So, we’re still trying to find the right date. Um, for sure before Allstar break, hopefully before New Year’s. Um, but yeah, I hope everybody feels the same way about it as I do. The book one took off because people felt like, hey, I could play in this, but then I could also casually wear it around cuz it looks so good. You had to be very happy with the how well how well it went. Yeah, that was, you know, that was the startle initial plan, you know, be able to transcend the court with it. And you know, a lot of people have tried it, but I think sometimes the shoe looks too too technology advanced for somebody to wear off the court. And I think the book one hit it with the sweet spot in that regard. Devin Booker is our guest here on the Burns and Gambo show. We just got done talking with Matt Ishb a second ago and he mentioned you had the guys up to your place in Flagstaff showing leadership, getting the team together. Tell me about how with all the changes that have gone on, how you feel your role this year specifically might change with this roster and leading them. Yeah, I think that’s the probably the biggest part of it. You know, always being the young guy on the team and it switching quick to, you know, now I’m one of the oldest. Um, and a lot of these guys, we have a lot of potential. We have a lot of talent. Um, so it’s my job to, you know, communicate what’s been successful for me. um what I see around the league is being successful for other teams because the game is evolving and changing as we’ve seen. Um so, you know, that that’s my main responsibility. Um but like I said, you know, I like where we’re at. I like the youth that we have. I like the energy that we have through the locker room. Do you feel like that’s a responsibility that has changed for you given the changes that went down on the roster over the last few months? Yeah, I think the younger you get um and with the experience that I’ve have had had and you know how close I’ve been to it. Um so, you know, just communicating that hurt um how much it would mean to this city, this fan base, um is going to be important to set that tone early on. We’ve seen so many players, especially the NBA, when things go south, they leave. You’ve been committed to this organization from day one. You’ve never asked for a trade. You’ve never wanted out. You keep reupping. Why? Why do you stay here through the ups and downs, the highs, the lows? Why? Um, I’d say I was embraced as a 18-year-old kid. Um, even when, you know, I was definitely not playing my best. I was able to play through mistakes, learn through mistakes, been thrown in the fire, and people still support me. So, you know, once the success came, um, in 2020, 2022, um, you know, you just felt, you know, you felt the energy change, you felt that everybody seen me grow, you know, into that type of player. So, you know, I owe it to this city, this fan base. Um, I still feel it it’s untapped. We need to bring a ring here. And, you know, that’s my main objective. It was it was the bubble for us with with UB and and Rubio and Bane. You guys went 8 and0. It’s like this could be something special. Chris comes. You had so many lean years when you were first here. Then you reached the mountain top. You got to the NBA finals. What was it like the last two and a half years? What what can you pinpoint as the struggles this organization had? Now obviously you changed a lot of players and coaches, but from being at the top to then struggling and not even making the playin to you what happened? M yeah I mean a lot has to go wrong for you know it to fall off that drastically. Um but I think it makes you appreciate more the you know the the details of the game, the chemistry of the game, the the relationships that you know matter off the court to on the court. You’ve seen you know with our finals team just the the vibe and the energy um was totally different. So, you know, I don’t want to thrash the last couple years, but they have been the hardest of my career of, you know, being at that almost top and not getting there and then going to this. But you guys were all I I had heard you guys were all really good off the court. Like off the court, everybody was good, but then on the court just something just didn’t click. Yeah, there was a disconnect. I don’t think there was any hatred in our last groups amongst the guys, you know. I think just when you’re all on a different plan and you know you don’t have the the same common goal or same objective then that’s what it turns into. Even harder than those few first few years. Oh yeah. Way harder. Way harder. Even though the wins were so hard to come by those first few years. Way harder. That was I mean we we had started a rebuild then you know and and this last couple years it was a win a championship or bust and you know we didn’t even make the play in. So definitely the toughest two years of my career. It was widely reported that you were very involved in the coaching search and that you gave your endorsement of Jordan not to be the next head coach. From your perspective, tell me about how involved you were and what you saw about Jordan Kn that made you want to endorse him to be the next coach. Uh yeah, they I mean they they did an extensive search. you know, there there was a lot of guys involved and I think they cut it down to the last five candidates and, you know, before they gave their last meeting of a couple or two, three hours, you know, I just stopped in for 15, 20 minutes and and broke bread with them and um all the guys are great. The process was actually fun just to see, you know, how different guys were looking at the game, you know, kind of getting some insiders from different teams. But, you know, coach, man, he, you know, he has that assassin type mentality. You know, I think one thing that he said with me and stuck with me was, you know, the evolution of the game and being able to keep up with it. Um, you know, so he doesn’t feel that there’s one right way to do everything. He understands that, you know, this league is changing and you have to not only watch what your team has going on, but, you know, the nuances of what’s being successful around the league right now. And I think he’s up to date. From Ricky to Chris to you, point guard. It’s one of the biggest debates we have. Can Book be the point guard? Of course he can. Should he be the point guard? That’s the debate. Most likely you are going to be the point guard of this basketball team. Do you want to be the point guard? Do you do you like playing point guard? And how have you changed as somebody running the team? I do I do enjoy playing the the point. Um I love making plays. you know, I know my godgiven ability is to score the basketball. Um, but, you know, I can also set guys up. You know, I think I’ve shown it um over and over again, you know, where I can make plays and it starts with the scoring. You know, once you become a threat, you attract defenses and, you know, you open up opportunities for everybody else cuz it’s going to take a team. It’s going to take more than the starting five too is what you’ve seen with Indiana and OKC. You know, the deeper you are, the better you are, the longer runs a team make. You’ve been around a lot of leaders, whether it was guys that were stars like Chris or just role players like JD, Jared Dudley. You’re going to be asked to be the leader of this team. There’s so many young players. Where are you, how have you matur How have you matured as a leader? And are you ready to take on that role? I think I can I can relate with these guys. I’m not too old. I’m five, six years older than them, but you know, I I’ve already been communicating to him like the the evol like I keep talking about the evolution of the game that I’ve seen and and what it’s turned to and the false summit we made to with the finals that, you know, this it starts literally right now. It started a month ago and we’ve been in there, we’ve been working, the energyy’s high. Um, and that’s what it’s going to take. It starts now. Last question real quick. Is there one of the new players that you’re excited about? Not more excited than the others, but that you’ve seen something in. You go, “Okay, watch out for this guy because he’s gonna be something.” Ryan’s been working this summer. Um, and we’ve seen that a lot in his open gyms. Um, Colin is solid. Solid as he’s been. We’ve seen glimpses of it late in the late in the year. Um, there’s a few guys, man. Yeah, they every everybody’s been here. Everybody’s been in market and getting after it. So, I thought he picked the Kentucky kid, Kobe. I thought he I thought he’s I thought he just automatically throw a Kentucky kid in there. I was kind of putting it on a tea form. I was curious. Yeah, he had he had he had a great summer league, too. I I was keeping up. Um and then we just we just took a trip to New York. He’s from there. I was headed there already. Kobe I’m talking about. And I met his family. He asked the right questions and you know he’s ready to get better. Very cool. Great to have you on. We appreciate the time, man. Best of luck this season. We truly mean it. Okay. Thanks for coming on. Devin Booker here on the Burns and Gambo show. Thanks for watching Burns and Gambo. Click to see more from the guys and hit the button in the middle to subscribe so you never miss a video from Arizona Sports.

Devin Booker joins Burns & Gambo at Phoenix Suns media day to discuss the upcoming season and close the book on last year.

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