{"id":88816,"date":"2024-08-04T13:10:53","date_gmt":"2024-08-04T17:10:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=88816"},"modified":"2024-08-04T13:10:53","modified_gmt":"2024-08-04T17:10:53","slug":"four-time-all-star-devin-booker-believed-heat-would-draft-him-in-2015","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/08\/04\/four-time-all-star-devin-booker-believed-heat-would-draft-him-in-2015\/","title":{"rendered":"4-Time All-Star Believed Heat Would Draft Him In 2015"},"content":{"rendered":"

It has been nearly a decade since Devin Booker<\/a> was selected in the 2015 NBA Draft. The six-foot-six guard was taken 13th overall by the Phoenix Suns<\/a>. He is getting ready to enter his 10th NBA season, all with Phoenix. At the moment, Booker is attempting to help Team USA<\/a> win a gold medal<\/a> in the Summer Olympics.<\/p>\n

Booker has been one of the more productive scorers since entering the league. He has averaged 22.3 points per game for his career and at least 24.9 each of the last seven seasons. Booker has accumulated plenty of accolades as well. He is a four-time All-Star and two-time All-NBA member (first team in 2021-22). He was the best player on a Suns team that reached the NBA Finals in 2021.<\/p>\n

Entering the 2015 NBA Draft, Booker expected a different team to draft him.<\/p>\n

4-Time All-Star Believed Heat Would Draft Him In 2015<\/h2>\n

Devin Booker Thought He Would Be Drafted By The Heat<\/h3>\n

The 27-year-old Booker had a chat with Los Angeles Lakers<\/a> point guard D\u2019Angelo Russell<\/a> on Russell\u2019s YouTube channel<\/a>. Russell was also in that 2015 NBA Draft as he was selected second overall. Booker revealed that he believed the Miami Heat<\/a> were going to draft him.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s where I was hoping\u201d Booker said. \u201cMiami was my best workout, and then I remember, I think Pat Riley came into he did an interview and he\u2019s like \u2018we\u2019re looking for a player like Klay Thompson, we need to up our shooting.\u2019 And I just shot 40 in college\u2026 I\u2019m like \u2018oh yeah\u2019, I\u2019m looking at spots right down there by the arena\u2026 Draft is crazy, your life changes like that, you have no control over it really.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The Heat owned the 10th pick in the 2015 NBA Draft, three picks before Booker was selected. The season before that draft (2014-15) was the first season for Miami after LeBron James<\/a> left to head back to the Cleveland Cavaliers<\/a>. It was apparent then that they needed more outside shooting. In that season, the Heat finished<\/a> 21st in made three-pointers and 24th in three-point percentage (out of 30 teams).<\/p>\n

Who Did The Heat Select Instead Of Booker?<\/h3>\n

With that 10th overall pick in the 2015 NBA Draft, Miami selected forward Justise Winslow<\/a>. While Winslow had seasons averaging double figures in scoring and showed playmaking abilities, he was nowhere near as impactful as Booker. Winslow often dealt with injuries and did not play in the NBA last season.<\/p>\n

Winslow isn\u2019t the only player that Booker has performed much better than that was drafted in front of him. Jahlil Okafor<\/a> was selected third and has been out of the league since 2021. Mario Hezonja<\/a>, the fifth overall pick in 2015, has been playing overseas the past few seasons. Willie Cauley-Stein<\/a> was taken sixth, and he hasn\u2019t played in the NBA the last two seasons. Emmanuel Mudiay<\/a>, Stanley Johnson<\/a>, and Frank Kaminsky<\/a> were also drafted ahead of Booker without making much of a mark in the league.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s an interesting hypothetical to think of Devin Booker under head coach Erik Spoelstra with the Heat as a successor to Dwyane Wade<\/a> at shooting guard.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It has been nearly a decade since Devin Booker was selected in the 2015 NBA Draft. The six-foot-six guard was taken 13th overall by the Phoenix Suns. He is getting ready to enter his 10th NBA season, all with Phoenix. At the moment, Booker is attempting to help Team USA win a gold medal in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5060,"featured_media":88871,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1608,16,62,28],"tags":[606,307,352,419],"class_list":["post-88816","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-basketball","category-heat","category-nba","category-suns","tag-2015-nba-draft","tag-dangelo-russell","tag-devin-booker","tag-pat-riley"],"modified_by":"Kenny Kluska","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88816","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5060"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=88816"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88816\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/88871"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88816"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88816"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88816"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}