Rocio Robles
Injuries are a nightmare for professional athletes, and this is especially true in Devin Booker‘s case. Physical wear and tear at the highest level of sport always takes its toll sooner or later, and in the case of the star player, the physical discomfort comes again at an extremely important time for him and his team, the Phoenix Suns.
The star point guard for the NBA’s best team in the Western Conference could miss a significant amount of Playoff action after suffering a Grade 1 strain in his right hamstring. The injury is expected to keep him out of action for two to three weeks.
The revelation, which was shared by ESPN’s Brian Windhorst, has the Phoenix organization worried since it would extend Devin Booker’s absence well beyond what had been previously announced. It was expected that he missed only Game 3 and 4 of the first-round series against the New Orleans Pelicans, which is tied at one win apiece.
According to this new information, if they beat the Pelicans, the Suns could be without Devin Booker in the first matchups of the next round against the Dallas Mavericks or the Utah Jazz.
Additionally, Devin Booker is no stranger to this kind of discomfort, having missed time due to hamstring problems on various occasions over the last two seasons.
Last season, during the 2020-21 regular season, he suffered a similar injury that kept him out of four games. Moreover, during the NBA Finals against the Milwaukee Bucks, he injured his hamstring in Game 3, but kept the injury under wraps and eventually overcame it. As for this season, he injured his left hamstring in November on a play similar to Tuesday’s and missed seven games.
Before retiring to the locker room with 4:45 remaining in the third quarter of Game 2 against the Pelicans, Booker had been an offensive juggernaut, registering 31 points during the first half of the game.
Devin Booker and his importance for the Suns
Although the Phoenix Suns have a pretty complete team and during the season they were able to overcome Devin Booker’s absence by posting an 8-6 record in those games, not having their best scorer in vital playoff games is a real test.
With 34.5 minutes played per match, Booker was the second player on the team with the most minutes played behind Mikal Bridges’ 34.8. In addition, the 25-year-old was the team’s leader in points per match with 26.8, (taking into account that no one else surpassed 20 points) and eighth in the circuit in that category.
He was also third among his teammates in long distance shooting percentage with 38.3%, while among the starters he was the best shooter from the free throw line with 86.8%.
