The Suns Don’t Need a Point Guard If Devin Booker Plays Like This

The Phoenix Suns' newest "new era" seemed as if it might get off to an inauspicious start.

The phrase "Big Three" gets thrown around far too often. That said, there's quite a bit of talent among Devin Booker, Kevin Durant and Bradley Beal. If all three are healthy, the Suns are championship contenders — as evidenced by their current +550 odds to win the title at FanDuel, same as the Nuggets.

As every NBA fan knows by now, though, that's a massive "if". Beal, of course, missed the Suns' opener on Tuesday night, a 108-104 win over the Warriors. And Beal is dealing with a back injury, which can linger.

Oh, and beyond the injuries, there's the pesky question of who is going to play point guard for this team.

Neither Beal's absence nor that positional deficit was a problem on Tuesday, though, as Booker simply took over — and, in doing so, showed both glimpses of the Suns' ceiling and what they'll be up against this entire season.

Ideally, Beal will get healthy and make the type of elite contribution one would expect from him (again, when healthy). And ideally, Kevin Durant will have better nights than he did on Tuesday, tallying 18 points on 22 shots in 37 minutes.

Realistically? Realistically, Devin Booker is going to have to carry this Suns team for them to have a chance of reaching their ceiling.

As my colleague Malik Smith wrote before Tuesday's game, we "saw a version of this Suns team without a true point guard during the playoffs last season, with Booker and Durant running the offense, but they needed superhuman performances from their two stars to make that work."

Now, Durant is a year older, and the Suns are a very different team. They're integrating new pieces and figuring out how to make up for some they lost.

If Booker can play like he did on Tuesday — like a top five player, like a quasi-point guard, like the best version of himself — then maybe that can lighten the load on KD and Beal enough for both to stay healthy. And maybe, in turn, that renewed health will let Booker take the breather he's going to need here and there, 26-year-old lungs and legs aside.

And if that all lines up? Then yes, maybe these Suns can finally win the franchise's first championship. Maybe.

None of that is to say Booker can do it alone, naturally. Phoenix's win over the Warriors showed that in equal measure.

How did the Suns solidify their 1-0 start?

Three straight assists from Booker on Phoenix's last eight points (including two 3s), capped by a high-leverage decision to drop it off to Jusuf Nurkic for an easy bucket on the Suns' final possession, that's how.

In the end, Booker trusted those around him, and the result was golden. He'll need that kind of help from all of Phoenix's rotation players throughout this season.

But even that result revolved around Book. If — there's that word again — if Suns like Nurkic and Josh Okogie are going to play at the level we saw on Tuesday, it will be in large part because of Booker.

I don't know if Devin Booker actually is a top five player in the league today. He's certainly the best shooting guard by a country mile. And he very well might be in that top five; there are just a lot of really, really talented (and young!) players in the league right now, and I haven't given a proper ranking the proper thought.

As NBA fans, we'll debate and probably answer that question over the rest of the year. After one game, one thing is crystal clear. That rest of the year for the Suns will depend even more than we might have expected on Devin Booker.