Suns, Devin Booker Get Backlash After Massive Extension

Reports of the Phoenix Suns and Devin Booker reaching a massive contract extension yesterday are still reverberating through the NBA world.

Booker's two-year, $145 million extension is the highest annual extension salary in NBA history - and though many within Phoenix are excited for Booker to remain in the Valley, some who cove the league aren't as amped.

Not Everybody Loves Devin Booker's Extension

CBS Sports' Sam Quinn was fairly critical of the move on X:

"I wouldn’t have done this. I just wouldn’t want Devin Booker as the highest paid player in NBA history for his age-32 and 33 seasons. I know the Suns are hell-bent on winning now and I know he’s a homegrown guy and they love him. I just think this goes badly for them," he said.

In a response to PHNX's Espo, Quinn dove deeper into his reasoning:

"... But they just have so few ways of meaningfully improving. They don’t have picks to trade and the ones they have to actually use are so bogged down with swaps. The dead Beal money and the supermax for Booker make it harder to generate cap space (my thought had been, if they wanted to win, don’t buy out Beal, just plan for 2027 cap space when he expires organically). They sort of have to hit a home run in some unexpected way to make any sort of substantial jump.

"And though this is subjective… I also just think Booker’s not as good as people in Phoenix think he is. I think he’s more like the 20th best player right now than the 10th. And I suspect he’s worse by age-32/33, which this contract covers.

"I understand why they did it. They are just substantially more optimistic about their future than I am. Even if they did some of the right things this summer, they’re digging themselves out of such a colossal hole and have so few resources with which to do that I just don’t see a viable path to them being a true contender anywhere in the near future. It sucks to say this with a homegrown guy, but I just don’t think they have a plausible path to real winning together anymore."

Quinn's opinion isn't rare - though it's tough to quantify Booker's importance to the Valley to those that aren't here.