Another game against the New Orleans Pelicans, another massive performance by Devin Booker. Last night, he put up 52 points on 19-for-28 from the field to lead the Phoenix Suns to a 124-111 victory at the Smoothie King Center. That puts Booker’s career scoring total at 14,358, good for 185th on the NBA’s all-time scoring list, just ahead of Al Jefferson and just behind Jo Jo White.
Booker is already looking likely to break the Suns all-time scoring record of 15,666, currently held by Walter Davis. If he continues his career average of 24.3 points, he’ll pass Davis towards the end of the 2024-25 campaign.
In his ninth season, Booker has become one of the league’s premier scorers — and he’s doing it quite efficiently. He won’t hit the famed 50-40-90 milestone this season, but he’s at .496/.368/.881, which is fantastic. For some context, Stephen Curry is at .449/.403/.924 and Luka Doncic sits at .489/.380/.782.
Projecting out Booker’s career trajectory is tricky, in large part because he’s battled some nagging injuries over his career. He’s played a steady 34 minutes per game over his career, but he hasn’t played more than 70 games since 2016-17. He’s also lessened his usage percentage in each of the last four seasons, going from 32.7% in 2020-21 down to 30.2 this season. Having Kevin Durant and Bradley Beal flanking you can have that effect.
We also have to figure in skill degradation. Not everyone can have the longevity of a LeBron James or John Stockton. Usually, getting into one’s 30’s will trigger a decline (Booker is still just 27).
So, let’s figure it out. Let’s give Booker a career that lasts until he’s 35. His last three seasons he’s averaged 27.3 points per game, playing 60.6 games per season. We can conservatively give him three more years at that level, so let’s say he scores 4,963 more points over the next three seasons. That puts him at 19,321.
His last five seasons we’ll predict a decline. Playing an average of 60 games per season is already on the low end so we’ll keep that number intact. For scoring, let’s put Book on a sliding scale, going from 26 down to 20 in his final season. For the sake of this exercise, we’ll call it an average of 23 points per game. That gives Booker another 6,900 points, putting his career total at 26,221.
If our crystal ball is telling the truth, that puts Booker around 22nd overall, just ahead of Kevin Garnett and just behind John Havlicek and Paul Pierce. More than likely, James Harden (25,820), Russell Westbrook (25,134), Curry (23,520), DeMar DeRozan (23,429) and Damian Lillard (21,035) will end up ahead of Booker’s estimated total.
How did we do? Where do you think Booker will end up? Let us know in the comments.
