Which Devin Booker Will the Phoenix Suns Get the Rest Of the Season?

Which Devin Booker Will the Phoenix Suns Get the Rest Of the Season?

Devin Booker finally took the lid off the basket in New Orleans with a 52-point performance on Monday night that only poses more questions on today’s episode of Locked on suns what can the Suns expect from book the rest of the way more of that or more of what we saw

Before we’ll give you the answer let’s go you are locked on suns your daily Phoenix Suns podcast part of the lock on podcast Network your team every Day we are back this is locked on Phoenix Suns we are part of the locked on podcast Network I’m your host Brendan clean a credential media member covering the Suns for the past seven seasons a writer over at Dime magazine the host of the just basketball show wherever you

Get your podcasts and I also create written and video content for the lock on suns Insider Community which you can sign up for at the link in the show description below thank you for making locked on suns your first listen here on this Wednesday happy Suns game day a

Home game for the first time in a long time wherever you’re finding us thank you for being here don’t forget to hit follow or subscribe we are free and available everywhere including YouTube so just hit that button get a new show in your feed every single Monday through

Friday become an every dayer and get locked on to the Phoenix Suns all season long and Beyond today’s episode looking at Devin Booker to start and we’ll get into Matt isia and this home stand but Devon Booker season has been very confusing I was the

Hater and I’ll just come out and say it right who made the case against book being an All-Star that was me I’m I’m stupid whatever you know I’ll take all of it but now we are coming off of a stretch where okay book did have 36 in a pretty solid performance individually against

The Spurs but that was a loss that they shouldn’t have lost other than that I guess he was good in both Spurs games other than that you’ve been seeing a pretty inconsistent guy and I think particularly the concern from Suns fans was his three ball he had

A a good game against the Hawks in that capacity um but in that game was four of seven from two you know nothing Elite there and that three-point shot was kind of the only thing he had going only two assists and then in a bunch of other

Games one of seven one of eight two of six three of 10 from three so he breaks the seal on all of that finally gets eight of 16 from Deep to go in against the Pelicans and and nine assists and and only three turnovers so that is kind of

The up and down we’ve seen from book since he returned from the four game absence he had from the ankle sprain you know you look back further there have been 62o games this season there have also been two separate well really only one separate eight-point game a 10-point game on low

Efficiency we have had games from book this year of seven turnovers of multiple three different ones of six turnovers so the highs have been very high but there have also been a lot of lows and a lot of curious performances that was the case that I had a against book from an All-Star

Standpoint obviously the team success was not fully his fault but wasn’t really there and the defense I think for him it’s it’s been a disappointing year on that end but let’s move off of just the bad because again the guy just scored 52 the guy has seemingly gotten back on track he is

Healthy he’s also on track to potentially actually get to 65 games and become eligible for all NBA which did not seem likely when he bre when he sprain that ankle a little bit ago so this is not Doom and Gloom this is not the end of the world the question is

What version of book are the Suns goingon to get are they going to get the guy who is taking and making a lot of Threes are they going to get the guy who is you know more of a table setter are they’re going to get a version who plays

Fast a version who plays slow can he buckle down on defense for playoff series you know consecutively I think these are all questions he’s going to be very good he’s had an had an incredibly efficient season for sure but what version of of book are the Suns going to get I think

What this Pelicans game showed me more than anything is and I will say what this Pelicans game showed me more than anything is that it really is all still about balance for this Sun’s team book did not take that many shots on his way to 52 points it was just

Driven by such efficiency and a lot of threes and a decent amount of free throws that he just piled him on but he only took 28 shots Durant took 19 Allan uh nurkic took 11 Allen and be each took eight Gordon took seven so book took about

Less than a third of the sun’s total shots in this game he also did get a number of assists and in the second half made the right play Kevin Durant was largely an off ball guy throughout all of this game they had some moments where they tried to get him mismatches

And you know even early on when he was making threes that was a concerted effort to get those shots for him but he was not really featured with the ball in his hands Beal a lot of games is going to be kind of a third scorer playmaker defensive

Guy I think the version of the Suns of of of book that the suns are going to get is he needs to be hyper efficient on the shots that he does take but he he should not be dominating it too much or forcing it and the mentality that Frank vogle has

Had with this team all season is probably the one he needs to embra Embrace right they are a score F they all have a Score first mindset and they use the gravity that comes from when they are aggressive and when they do get into the teeth of the def defense to

Then get the ball moving get the assists up and you know ideally generate some open threes and I would say the defense has been better since coming back from the ankle sprain and just the embarrassing losses they’ve suffered I think he’s kind of realized he needs to step up

And as far as the playmaking goes I trust that it will be there I mean I think book and Beal and Durant can all make the passes that they need to make that’s never really been my concern so when I kind of boil it down that way

Book’s mindset doesn’t need to be much different from a lot of point guards in the NBA these days use the threat of your own scoring to open up opportunities for your teammates play with good Tempo emphasize the three ball compete on defense and make good decisions I think the Suns need less

From him on defense than we might have thought I think the development of Grayson Allen and having guys like O’Neal and Gordon to be kind of three in D types of players I thought they were going to put a lot on him maybe it’s even less than I

Thought but the name of the game is being efficient with the Reps he does get and having that mindset of aggressive and then look to pass if he can do all of that I think we will see more games like last night now does he make 19 of his 28 shots every

Time no but if he can get up even close to double digit threes make 50% of his shots and get somewhere around nine assists they’re getting everything they need so last night doesn’t need to be a sign of a million more big huge games it just needs to be

A sign of the mentality and the efficiency that book has to have next another odd questionable difficult Sun story popped onto the table on Tuesday courtesy of both bter Holmes of ESPN and Pablo Tor of metalarc media looking into what MH Matt ishbia has been up to at his other

Company I’ll give you my thoughts on that whole situation and why it’s not outside of the ordinary in Pro Sports coming up next first Today’s Show brought to you by eBay Motors my favorite place to go looking for car parts because they have everything you could possibly want and

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Customers keeping it rolling let’s look at the fairly big interactive deeply researched piece by a investigative journalism outfit called hunterbrook the authors are Matthew terman Sam copelan William Cohan and Grace scolan I believe is the name and basically what they found is a leaked voicemail some imperson um stories uh some

Some primary sources that were able to talk about working with ishbia and United Wholesale Mortgage which is his company that he got rich from his father’s company originally and he took it over and really blew it up over the course of 10 years I mean blew it up in

Terms of made it really big it is now the biggest Wholesale Mortgage Company in the country in terms of deals done and this article goes into how he went about doing that and basically underlined the fact that being uh the company that has the most favorable relationships with these independent

Brokers who do business through his company but don’t work for his company that um doing the most deals period that making the most money off of a mortgage I I guess you could make the case it does not always have to come through unseemly means but given the way that the business is

Structured what it means to be the best at this business is unethical at best and potentially fraudulent as this article kind of hints at at worst now here’s the deal I read this article I listened to Pablo tor’s interview with the Gent man at the center of it who authored it

And I just don’t feel comfortable necessarily navigating the ins and outs of the of the finance side I I’m not I don’t even own a home okay like I I don’t want to pretend to be a source of authority what I will take o issue with to a

Degree is and not even an issue right but some of the clips that have gone viral on social media and whatnot Um I’ll read this clip uh this quotation from the end of the kind of intro portion of the investigation and this speaks to some of what those clips got at hunterbrook media’s editorial board believes that WM has potentially committed fraud would likely lose business and gain on sale margin if

Brokers fulfill fulfilled their fiduciary duties meaning this is my words finding the best rate for a mortgage that favors the client as best as possible not just going straight to wwm and locking clients into a higher rate that puts takes more money out of their pocket in order to profit from it

Back to the quote from the editorial board and could face material legal and Regulatory consequences from civil state and federal accountability uwm’s contracts with its credit lenders contracts with its mortgage purchasers like Fanny and Freddy and the CEOs that’s Fanny May and Freddy Mack and the

CEO’s ownership of an NBA team which was reportedly collateralized by billions of dollars in uwmc shares may also be at risk Hunter Brook media believes Hunter Brook media also does not view wm’s large dividend as sustainable particularly in light of the company’s net loss last year due to this

Editorial opinion with compliance review Hunter Brook provided the article to its investment affiliate they went short on U stock and purchased derivatives on and on and on but obviously the NBA team part of this is what matters the most and that’s where we will go now that idea right that the ownership

Of the team may be at risk given that the fraudulently as this article outlines the revenue to be fraudulently acquired fraudulently generated if Federal bodies were to take action against UWM because of the way that it worked with independent Brokers to lock clients into unfavorable not uh you know negotiated

Or Bartered upon rates for their mortgages that the wealth of ishbia the money that he used to uh lock in the purchase that he’s obviously using to fund the business could go under I don’t know sure that’s scary that doesn’t sound great but where I’m uncertain and and

Obviously you know we’ll see how this plays out my very unprofessional opinion is within this industry I find it hard to believe that this would not be fairly common practice that is not to let it off the hook that is to say that I think a lot

Of businesses that are basically used to issue lines of credit or kind of financially subsidize people’s purchases or their livelihood in some way shape or form ensure them and take money from I think we all know that’s a little scummy maybe we all looked it look at it

As a fact of life I’m sure an economist would tell me hey you’re not getting a house unless something like this exists you’re in a much worse situation if there’s no forms of insurance on this and that fair I don’t necessarily act as if as an NBA podcast host I know what’s

Better for the financial sector however I I would find it hard to believe that this is an exception Baxter Holmes’s piece which also came out today outlines this rivalry with David um with the Cavaliers owner whose name is Dan Gilbert and they both are in this industry together I’m not accusing

Rocket mortgage of anything Quicken Loans or any of these other places of similar Behavior All I’m saying is that it would not surprise me if a similar d d into those companies showed equally bad things there was a clip that surfaced um or sorry a report from Bloomberg shortly

After ish babata the team maybe summer of last year that talked about um things like allegations of cocaine use and general uh buffoonery on the part of the male mortgage brokers and a you know can’t f with me type of attitude and just being kind of dirt

Bags some other more extreme things as well in there and that came and went I’m not saying I’m sure there’s investigations uh from the company there was some kind of legal action being going on point is this is what this all is about so far be it for me to predict the

Outcome of any sort of federal government action against ishia but you look even Beyond this right the NBA has owners who are involved with in the case of Tom gors um profiting off of private prisons there are people who um in the case of James Dolan have been involved

Allegedly there have been articles written that include them in heinous allegations of you know impropriety with women and far worse there are people who derived their wealth from Walmart which has a whole history of breaking down small businesses in local communities and do do they pay their employees what they should

And there was controversies over selling guns when we’ve had shooting you know I personally am not so galled by what ishia is alleged to have done that it puts him in a special Camp separate and apart from the numerous billionaires who acquired their wealth in exploitative Industries up and down every major

American Sports League that doesn’t let him off the hook but that is why you will not ever one time find me playing cheerleader for any owner it is nice to have the team you cover the team you care about the team in your community an owner who spends an owner who has the

Wealth to go out in the community and do things to treat their employees better to spend on the team and try to feeli a winner of course I love all of it but these people all do this stuff and to me rather than being some sort of exception or a

Scandal let it play its course if he has found to have done things that are illegal and fraudulent we may have a bigger conversation on our hands but as far as my response to this doesn’t surprise me and I would even say I expected something like this given the context the history and

What’s going on up and down the corporate world closing out the show with a preview of the Suns 4 game home stand what to expect what’s on the line what matchups am I looking out for all coming up next first Today’s Show brought to you by Amazon Fire

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From mortgage broker world to this but nevertheless I do think the four home games the Suns have are hugely important games they can win any game they can lose any game we know that so right now this is on Tuesday night by the way if you want daily updates on the

Standings and the games that are going to impact the standings you can sign up at join sub.com locked on suns or go to the link in the show description below and click there then you join the locked on suns insiders where I’m giving you the daily breakdown the suns are seventh in the

West the Pelicans do not play on Tuesday night the Mavericks do play on Tuesday night against the Golden State Warriors so we’ll see how that fares but everything is on the table still the Pelicans game is going to be huge the Kings game is going to be huge

But every game is basically a must-win from here on out the sun show up with the level of defensive intensity that they did against the Pelicans and play with their head screwed on they will have as good of a chance of anybody to get to six and and and avoid the play in

But here’s what I’m looking at specifically and it is the two matchups that we saw the longest ago all right which is the Clippers and the and the wolves the Suns haven’t played the Wolves since November I believe the Clippers was either late December or early January so we’re three months to five

Months from the last time we saw the team’s match up now the first Minnesota game I feel pretty comfortable saying cat will not be playing that’s on Friday of this week so that is an advantage I think so long as the Suns can score on on Minnesota which I feel

Good about them doing they should be able to win that game I don’t think Minnesota can score well enough to keep up with the Wool with the Suns but at the same time Anthony Edwards is at a different level they have good Wing Defenders I just

Feel like if the Suns can move the ball utilize nurkic in ways that are effective to get goar out of the action whether that’s using nurkic as a playmaker on the perimeter whether that is using nurkic as a screener and creating separation that way and not having to worry about

Goar the the Wolves just do not have enough defensive Personnel to make it happen right you’re talking about you know Jaden McDaniel’s having to do a really great job on Durant one-on-one you’re talking about guys needing to switch you’re talking about ant probably needing to buckle down and guard a

Booker or a Beal not to mention the three-point shooting Advantage the Suns would have that should be a win we’ll talk about the cat game to close out the year once we get closer but that one I feel decently about it’s at home everything else they’re all at home the

Cavs game to me I mean the Suns just blew out the Cavs right and they have Mitchell back but frankly I’m not sure that makes them a lot better that should be a win so they should be able to win the next two games they have a good track record against

Those teams they have clear advantages they should be able to do it now the Pelicans I I think that game was close I’m not sure about Ingram’s status it wasn’t the Suns got out to a 20 plus point lead but it got close at the end it got within seven I believe

And you had Devin Booker making 19 of 28 shots so I would not Overlook that I do feel like the Pelicans can keep up from a three-point shooting standpoint if CJ McCullum has a better game in particular I can see that being close it’s a midday

Game it’s a team you just saw it’s not quite you know got to beat the same team twice type of thing like we saw with San Antonio but it’s close that one would make me nervous and that brings us to the final game that we have not seen in

A while which is the Clippers now the Suns have just been horse crap against the Clippers this season I mean there’s no cute way to say that it’s been ugly but the Clippers are playing a lot worse lately they are currently without kawhai we don’t know you know he’s supposed to be back

Thursday I that if that lingered would it surprise you he’s already clinched the 65 games to be Awards eligible they are pretty much not going to fall below four crazier things have happened than Kawhi Leonard resting so we’ll see but I think the center rotation is exploitable

I think that could be an opportunity for the Suns drive and kick offense to really go to another level and you know depthwise the sun should have advantages against the Clippers then again LA’s stars when they are playing full boore pedal to the metal and especially PG and kawhai

Are you know intense locked in defensively that team just takes over games they slow and grind it out and make tough shots and are connected in a way that obviously really screwed the Sun so that’s some of what I have my eyes on you know I think breaking even and going

Four and four over their final eight which they’ve already won one of was a reasonable goal they already have one in their pocket so let’s say you do beat Cleveland and and Minnesota the kings are a beatable team is that your four could you steal another that’s kind of

What I have my eye on the suns are going to have a chance in every game they’re a good team are they good enough to string this together and finally be consistent I think that’s what this will show us they have one last chance at home we’ll see what they

Do that’ll wrap us up for the day thank you for finding locked on suns wherever you get your podcast don’t forget to hit follow or subscribe I’ll have another show to close out the week with Steven pjone on Friday so look forward to that we’ll talk about how this first game of

The home stand has looked and more I’ll talk to you guys coming up Friday

Devin Booker put up 52 in New Orleans after a strange stretch for the Phoenix Suns star. Will it continue?

Brendon Kleen of @justbasketballfans breaks down all the ups and downs of Book’s season and what the Suns will need from him the rest of the way. Then, a look at new allegations against Mat Ishbia and UWM plus a preview of the upcoming homestand.

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