PHOENIX — When you play the way Phoenix Suns guard Devin Booker does, you are going to have your fair share of dustups and rivalries materialize.
Through the years, Booker has become teammates with some of those former opponents, whether it was Troy Daniels or Jae Crowder. He has shown that presumptions of prior tension being a problem are very overblown, and he will do it again with the arrival of Dillon Brooks.
You can read that first line up there and have it describe Brooks just as well, if not better. But in spending just a small amount of time around him, he is a very self-aware guy. He himself has used the cliche of “the player you love to hate until he’s on your team and then you love him.”
Not that it was even going to, but Brooks wasn’t going to waste a moment in letting anything fester. And it’s not even about that. Brooks wanted to make sure he and Booker were immediately connected as two of the most well-respected veterans on the roster. He knows how important that is to winning, as does Booker.
“I called him right when the trade was done,” Brooks said of it. “We already (have) had good communication, more of us on the same page — just wanting to win, wanting to compete. And have been in constant communication all the time. … Being the two leaders that are together, not separate.”
What allows that to happen so naturally?
“It’s respect at the end of the day,” Booker said. “That’s what we’re out here to do, is to compete at the highest level. And I’d rather it more that way, to where things get chippy, than the softer route. The fans are gonna love it. Everbody’s going to be happy that he’s on our side of it now and I’m excited to get out there and compete with him.”
The two have met a total of 15 times. In watching all those matchups, it was always clear that those were the ones both of them got up for. Brooks’ scoring will fluctuate wildly throughout a season, and while it does on this scorecard, he did put up 30 points in 2022 and 27 in 2019. Booker also scored 30-plus in six of those meetings, including 41 in that same game Brooks had 30.
It speaks to the intensity their duels reached that there isn’t really a memorable moment on the court to point toward when things overheated. It was more about the constant high-level competitiveness.
In 2022, Booker hit an and-one on Brooks and gave him a quick word or two, enough to warrant a technical foul, which Brooks obviously loved. The best (and most memeable) came this past summer, when following a Team USA exhibition win over Canada in Las Vegas, Brooks walked right through postgame media sessions for both Booker and Anthony Edwards upon exiting the building.
Booker barely missed a beat, showing great poise, while you could tell Edwards had to remind himself where he was before acting reflexively and then also impressively got right back to answering questions.
My angle lol pic.twitter.com/uWz1jpMVQN
— Kellan Olson (@KellanOlson) July 11, 2024
Dillon brooks walking by Anthony Edwards 😭😭😭😭😭😭 pic.twitter.com/CNV5200ndC
— brad stevens is a fraud (@EuroHarden) July 12, 2024
Now, as someone who was there, Brooks would have had to walk around a conglomeration of folks instead of taking the straight-line path out of the building. But as is the case with everything Brooks does in this facet, he knew what he was doing.
These two are still going to be themselves. Brooks while answering on Booker’s game noted how Booker “didn’t like physicality back then” in their earlier face-offs and when Booker was asked if Brooks is his bodyguard, he said he might be Brooks’ instead.
In a time of great infatuation with “leadership” and “accountability,” those will be the two guys fronting that charge. Brooks did it with that call and Booker did it in getting the group together in Flagstaff before training camp.
“We had a new team, just get everybody together and out of some of their comfort zones,” Booker said. “Being outside together, on the golf course and we definitely got some time in in the gym. … I know how valuable those off- court relationships directly affect being on the court together.”
