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The Suns have signed Devin Booker, this year’s No. 13 overall pick, to his rookie scale contract, the team announced. He’ll make nearly $2.128MM this coming season and a total of more than $9.985MM over the four-year contract if he signed for 120% of the rookie scale, as almost all first-round picks do.
The two-guard from Kentucky is an elite outside shooter, and his high basketball IQ will also help him, but a lack of an ability to consistently drive to the hoop and less than impressive defense figure to hold him back, as Charlie Adams of Hoops Rumors wrote in his prospect profile. He was nonetheless the 10th-best prospect in Chad Ford’s ESPN Insider rankings and came in No. 12 with Jonathan Givony of DraftExpress.
His official signing was a question of “when,” not “if,” but it indicates that the Suns may well be finished with significant free agent spending this summer, since formally bringing Booker onto the roster ups his cap hold by more than $300K. That’s not a significant amount of flexibility to sacrifice, but it’s nonetheless a move that many teams under the cap don’t make until their other major business of the summer is done, and that’s especially true once summer league is already well underway. Booker has been playing with Phoenix’s summer league team despite the lack of a signed deal.