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Suns Weekly (Sept 4): On dumb summer narratives, like Book struggling in the playoffs

It’s the offseason, where bad narratives are shouted into the void for reaction and we... react.

Today, I’ll talk about the small narrative (no link provided = deliberate) that “Devin Booker is a bad playoff player”. That, in fact, Mason Plumlee has had better elimination games than Book.

Sure yes, I took the bait, read the article, fumed a bit, and decided to cover it in this section of Suns Weekly. Mr. Hot Take rightly points out that Booker has not been good in elimination games. Nothing wrong with that take. Book’s three elimination game appearances are all bad performances that led to ugly losses:

  • 19 points (8 of 22 shooting), 5 assists, 3 rebounds, 7-point loss to Bucks in 2021
  • 11 points (3 of 14 shooting), 2 assists, 3 rebounds, 33-point loss to Mavericks in 2022
  • 12 points (4 of 13 shooting), 8 assists, 1 rebound, 25-point loss to Nuggets in 2023

Blech.