It’s one of the best turnaround stories in all of professional sports: the revival of the Phoenix Suns. It was a long, hot journey through the desert of irrelevance for Phoenix to become an oasis of winning basketball. But, finally, the Suns have risen. Here’s the fourth chapter in a six-part series about how they did it.

Previously:

Part I, Robert Sarver:  “I thought the business was easier than it was” 

Part II, James Jones, the man they call “Champ,” is here

Part III, Monty Williams: Goals are “on the other side of hard”

Part IV: The legend in making

Devin Booker is poised to become the NBA’s next breakout star.

He’s always had a letter-perfect jump shot. He’s always been a dog of a competitor. And now, he’s got a team that will prop him up, rather than hold him back.

So where did it all start?

That’s hard to say.

But how about his first NBA game, a 16-point loss to the Dallas Mavericks on Oct. 28, 2015, two days before his 19th birthday?

Booker’s first NBA game

Devin Booker was the youngest guy in the league and maybe the least likely rookie to become a force.

He wasn’t a top prospect coming out of college. Booker hadn’t even been a starter at that level, and three of his teammates were taken before him in the 2015 draft.

But on opening night of the 2015-16 season, the man called Book (presumably because his mother and father knew he would always be open) read the situation and scored 14 points on 6-of-7 shooting. He also had 3 rebounds and a steal in 21 minutes on the court.   

That couldn’t have been the start of his legend, though. Because the next night, Booker played just 2 minutes, and he didn’t check in at all in three of the four games after. It would be a month before he started getting anything close to regular playing time.

Plus, it was a horrible season.

Booker played with a whopping 22 teammates, experienced just 23 wins and his first coach, Jeff Hornacek, was fired midway through the season.

So maybe Devin Booker’s story starts that next season, when he put 70 on the Boston Celtics in the Garden?

Earl Watson and Book’s mark

Devin Booker had been having a strong season under coach Earl Watson, threatening to put up 30 points or more anytime he stepped on the court.

But he always seemed to stall out at 38 or 39 — the 20-year-old couldn’t crack a 40.

March 24, 2017, looked like it was going to be another one of those nights. He had 19 points at halftime, on pace for 38 in yet another Suns loss.

The Suns were down by 23. They had five players on the inactive list and just eight guys in uniform for the game. Nobody but Booker had made more than two shots.

Watson decided at right then that a figurative green light to shoot wasn’t enough. He wanted Book to read a neon sign, saying “be legendary.”

It was a year and a day from March 23, 2016, when Book got that message in a handwritten note on his sneakers from his idol Kobe Bryant. (Booker now has “be legendary” tattooed to his arm in Bryant’s handwriting.)

Watson, who facilitated the meeting, reminded his young star of that torch-passing moment and all the work they had done in the pursuit of greatness. He had been Booker’s skills coach and remembers asking the teenager, “How good do you want to be?”

Anybody who knows Booker at all can guess the response.

Booker wanted to be one of the best, and Watson remembers him putting in the work every day in practice.

That behind-the-scenes grind is what got Booker ready for primetime, and in the second half against Boston that night in March, Book got Earl and Kobe’s the memo then stacked 23 on the Celtics in the third quarter. Then he added 28 more in the fourth.

Booker had 51 points in the second half! (If he put together two halves like that, he would have passed Wilt! WILT!)

By that point, most of Booker’s teammates weren’t even shooting the ball. They were just looking at the open Book.

Still, it was another drought of a season for the Suns.

They finished in last place in the West.

It’s hard to announce one’s presence as a star under those circumstances, but people were starting to notice the story Book was writing.

Booker responds to snubs

There were plenty of moments that could be considered as the start of the legend of Devin Booker.

He won the 3-point shootout at All-Star Weekend in 2018.

Around the same time, Drake, the biggest pop music star in the world, used Book’s name in a metaphor for “cool” like the shooting guard were Arthur Fonzarelli in purple shorts.

About a month after being a 2019 All-Star snub, he put up 157 points in a three-game stretch.

He made his first All-Star team in 2020.

A few months later, he hit a game-winning fadeaway over Kawhi Leonard and Paul George in the Disney Bubble.

Any of these moments could qualify, but the best answer to the question of “where did it all start for Devin Booker?” is in a story he told at youth camp in suburban Phoenix in 2018.

Booker recalled that he had been having a tremendous senior season at Moss Point High in southern Mississippi, and the school threw a pep rally to show him some love. This would have been sometime in 2014.

Book’s dad, Melvin, was there, as proud as a Moss Point Tiger with new stripes.

Melvin Booker, in his day, had been the Big Eight player of the year at Missouri and was good enough to hoop professionally in the NBA and overseas.

In that high school gym seven years ago in the Deep South, father and son ended up in a shooting competition in front of the whole school — and Melvin won.

Devin seethed.

And then he got to work, shooting and shooting and shooting until he got so good that no one in the world — and especially not his dad — could beat him.  

He responded the same way when he was asked to come off the bench at Kentucky.

He responded the same way when he wasn’t playing early in his rookie season.

He responded the same way every time he was snubbed for an All-Star roster.

And it’s how he’s responding now as everyone is noticing the youngster out in the desert and wondering where his legend all started.

The answer is obvious — on the practice court.

Reach Moore at [email protected] or 602-444-2236. Follow him on Instagram and Twitter @SayingMoore.