Devin Booker has agreed to a two-year, $145 million contract extension with the Phoenix Suns, according toESPN's Shams Charania, keeping Phoenix's face of the franchise under contract through 2030 as a hoped-for stabilizing agent amid a period of uncertainty in Arizona. The collective bargaining agreement between the league and its players stipulates that a contract covering a term of five or six seasons (including option years) can't be extended until the third anniversary of the signing of the contract, and that it can only be extended up to five years out from the date of the new deal's signing. Booker has three seasons left on thefour-year, $224 supermax extensionhe agreed to in 2022, putting pen to paper onJuly 6. In total, Booker will be paid $316 million over the next five years. Which is to say: The Suns are giving Booker as much money as they are allowed to give him, as soon as they are allowed to give it to him. They will also pay him an average annual salaryhigher than any player in the NFL. That should come as no surprise, given how emphatic Suns owner Mat Ishbia was earlier this season about viewing Booker as the cornerstone of whatever came next in the Valley — even as rumblings about the Rockets' interest in trading for him grew louder and louder as Phoenix dropped further and further in the Western Conference standings. "Never happen," Ishbia said, according toESPN's Tim MacMahon. "It's silly. So here's what I'll tell you: I have Devin Booker in the prime. In order to win an NBA championship, you got to have a superstar. You got to have a great player." It's also very much in keeping with Booker's own public statements about wanting to be one of the "rare breed" of players who spends his entire career with one franchise — even if that franchise has rarely tasted success during his tenure with it. "I take pride in the community in Phoenix, the people that have supported me since I was 18 when things were ugly," Bookertold MacMahon. "And the people that are with us, we just fell short of accomplishing what we want. So I want to do it, and I want to do it here. That's the responsibility of being a franchise player, and I wear that with honor. So it might not look the most pretty right now, but we got to get it done and I'm going to do it." The Suns enter the 2025-26 NBA season feeling pretty far away from getting it done, after failing to qualify for the playoffs for the first time since 2020,trading away one-time-all-in-bet Kevin Durantand rolling the dice on yet another new head coach … which, in its own way, brings us back to giving Booker as much money as possible, for as long as possible, as soon as possible. As he neared the end of a profoundly disappointing Suns season, Booker sounded … well, profoundly disappointed. "It's been a slow bleed-out," Bookertold reporters. "I've been feeling this way for the majority of the season. I think the small glimpses of good stretches that we've played gave me hope, and probably gave everybody else hope. You never want it to be squeezing into the last spot of the play-in in the first place. … I think that's one of the steps that we skipped: Learning through the wins and the losses. Just continue to get better every day, no matter what the circumstances are. We had spots where we did it, but it has to be something that's turned on at all times." Attitude reflects leadership, and extending Booker firmly cements him as the central figure in establishing that culture of learning, improvement and constant engagement. Hitting him with the largest possible extension at the earliest opportunity is about as good a way as any to say, "Hey, sorry about the whole 'dismantling a team that went to the NBA Finals and going from 64 wins to under .500 in three years' thing" — and a pretty strong indicator of Phoenix's commitment in rebuilding around someone who, 10 years into his career, has established himself as one of the greatest and most beloved Sun players ever. Booker, 28, is Phoenix'sall-time leaderin points scored and 3-point field goals, and ranks in or near the top five in franchise history in a slew of other categories, including games, minutes and points per game. He's a four-time All-Star, two-time All-NBA selection and two-time Olympic gold medalist. He's one of the league's premier three-level scorers: a high-efficiency finisher in the paint, an elite midrange marksman, and a five-alarm threat beyond the arc, whether he's firing off the catch or pulling up behind a ball screen. The Kentucky product has also developed into a high-end, low-mistake primary playmaker, joining Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Damian Lillard and Donovan Mitchell asone of just four NBA players over the last five seasonsto use at least 30% of his team's offensive possessions, dish assists on more than a quarter of his teammates' baskets, and turn it over less than 12% of the time. Even in a down-by-his-standards 2024-25 campaign, Booker averaged 25.6 points and a career-high 7.1 assists per game on .589 true shooting — marks that put him in the company ofNikola Jokić, Luka Dončić and Jalen Brunson. The Suns will need Booker to be every ounce that good, productive and efficient as a No. 1 option next season to have any hope of returning to the playoffs after yet another tumultuous offseason. Phoenix hasfired its head coachfor thethirdstraightspring, sent Durant to the Rockets for Jalen Green, Dillon Brooks, No. 10 overall draft pick Khaman Maluach, and five second-round picks, dealt itslast two tradable first-round picksto Charlotte forenticing but oft-injured center Mark Williams, added a couple of promising second-round prospects inSt. Joe's wing Rasheer Flemingand Kentucky shooter Koby Brea, and reportedlyremains at an impasse on The Bradley Beal Situation. Booker will have to get on the same page with new head coach Jordan Ott — whom Ishbia and new general manager Brian Gregory hired after a process in which Booker reportedly"had a level of involvement."He'll have to get re-acclimated to life alongside Beal in a now-Durant-less context, find synergy with another similarly styled combo guard in Green, and develop chemistry with a new battery of pick-and-roll partners in Williams and Maluach. He'll have to rediscover his 3-point stroke while facilitating at a higher level as, in all likelihood, Phoenix's primary ball-handler and playmaker. If he can do all that, and produce at the All-NBA individual level that he played at over the previous three seasons … then maybe the Suns will have a chance at climbing back into the West's middle class, vying for the chance to escape the play-in tournament in the next couple of seasons. That's the task facing Booker; it is not an easy one. If nothing else, he'll be awfully well compensated to do it.
