Every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, we pose a question to a panel of ESPN fantasy basketball experts to gauge their thoughts on a hot topic.
Today's contributors are ESPN Fantasy's Joe Kaiser, Jim McCormick, Jim Cregan and Kyle Soppe.
The 21-year-old Devin Booker is averaging 24.7 PPG, 2.7 3PG, 4.8 APG, 4.6 RPG and 0.9 SPG during his third NBA campaign. That's good enough to rank 25th on the Player Rater (averages). What do you think his long-term ceiling is as a pro - has he already hit it?
Kyle Soppe: I think Booker still has room to grow as an NBA player, especially in terms of better shot selection and being more aggressive. However, in terms of fantasy numbers? This is as good as it gets.
The 2017-2018 Phoenix Suns are the perfect storm for a bucket getter. They possess a bottom-five defense and play at a top-five pace, which leads to the team routinely playing catch up. With all of those stars aligned, Booker's usage rate is in the LeBron James/Kyrie Irving tier -- a level of involvement that raises both his floor and ceiling to heights that will be hard to match in the future.
Booker is going to be a tough guard for years to come, but there is realistically only room to regress in the usage department. That has me thinking that his age-21 season will be the best one fantasy managers will ever see.
Jim McCormick: Wunderkinds who produce at a high level on the professional stage at a very young age do tend to eventually become full-fledged superstars. Booker is just one of 11 players age 21 or younger to average at least 24.9 PPG. All of the players on this list, save for fellow prodigy Karl-Anthony Towns, are already in the Hall of Fame, or are no-brainers for future induction.
Evidence of his growth is everywhere. Booker's assist rate jumped by 52 percent this season and he's No. 8 in the NBA in points per game on pull-up jumpers. He also ranks just behind Chris Paul (and ahead of Kyrie Irving) in pick-and-roll plays initiated per game. He's essentially on par with, or perhaps even statistically superior to DeMar DeRozan. Well in possession of the keys to the Phoenix franchise, Booker's ceiling is still years away -- and it's quite high.
Joe Kaiser: What Booker is doing as a scorer at his age is pretty incredible, and it's very difficult to imagine him leveling off at the age of 21. I expect him to continue to improve in the years ahead, especially in terms of his efficiency from 3-point range. We all saw what he could do in the 3-Point Shootout during the All-Star festivities.
As long as he stays in Phoenix, he is going to be the main guy that the Suns build around, and that means we could be seeing seasons ahead with Booker averaging 25-plus points, taking 20-plus shots a game and making over three 3-pointers per game. From Day 1, Booker looked like a Klay Thompson-type player and, while he may not be quite the sharpshooter or defender that Thompson is, he has both his age working in his favor, as well as no future Hall of Famers with whom he has to share the ball on a nightly basis.
Jim Cregan: I think Booker has one more fantasy growth spurt left in him. As with many young stars, Booker's peak volume has arrived -- in the form of a 30.7 usage rate in 2017-18 -- before his peak efficiency. His PER is making incremental year-to-year jumps, from 12.00 to 14.64 to his current 18.67. The 3-point production is there, but he can crack fantasy's top 20 if he refines his field-goal percentage (which is still a subpar 42.9 percent) by shifting even more attempts to beyond the arc, and continuing to up his assist rate (4.8 per game in 2017-18).
