For the first time in four months, a sweat-soaked Devin Booker answered media questions after practicing the Phoenix Suns.
A lot has happened since the last time Booker stopped at the microphone after the last game of Suns, we have filled him with a wide range of questions from the first quarantine routines to their recent difficult practices.
Quarantined
Booker claims to have spent the first month of quarantine following recommendations and to remain at home alone, without training fully without access to a gym or field. He said he didn’t even have a home gym, so all he could do was lunges and squats and other body resistance exercises to stay in place. It looks like the rest of us, in fact.
After a month, he felt comfortable enough to create a “tight-knit bubble” with his father and brother, and they trained on their own until the Sun reopened the gym to access the players in early June.
“He brought me back to high school,” Booker said. “It was a really good time for us.”
Back on the field!
He was excited about the Orlando bubble, for sure.
“Coming back on the pitch, you feel free,” he said of their four team trials over the past five days. “Going back to this routine is a nice thing to be in.”
He said he understands all sides about the players’ feelings about the bubble and self-quarantine, but he knows his job is only to do whatever it takes to continue playing basketball.
“I see both sides of everything that’s going on, believe me,” Booker said, after mentioning Bruno Caboclo that leaves the bubble and is now subject to a 10-day quarantine. “But my job is to keep my head down and work. Tunnel vision for me, but I pray for everyone’s safety. “
He says that all he has done in Orlando is spending time on the field for 3 hours rehearsal plus time in court alone, or in his room playing Call of Duty “5-10 hours a day”.
Bonding with teammates
When he leaves his room, he is spending time with his teammates.
“This is our recovery time,” he said of his teammates. “We are spending a lot of time together … Real quality time together. Not just basketball. “
Deandre Ayton spoke last week about loving this Bubble moment to get closer to his teammates, on and off the pitch, and Booker agrees.
On Sunday night, on their first day off without a quarantine protocol, the team gathered to watch a documentary recommended by Monty called “Uncomfort Truth” by a white man who discovered that his ancestors were participating in the slave trade. The film was an opportunity for the team to discuss racial issues and the deep and painful history of black people in America.
Getting closer with DA
I asked Booker about his relationship on the pitch with Deandre Ayton. Both Ayton and Williams have commented in recent days that Booker and DA are talking more than ever on the pitch.
“I feel like I’m in my third or fourth year and I know what I’m doing now,” said Ayton a couple of days ago. “So it’s not really me who is told what to do, but I understand and find what’s available and be a director. Book and coach see it, so we only collaborate on our differences and we simply make things, whatever is best for the team. “
Booker accepted.
“It’s a growing relationship we’re still working on,” Booker said. “We are still young in this championship. The dialog is open between us. I am trying to understand him more, and he is trying to understand me. “
Booker said it’s not just him and Ayton who talk the most, but it’s the whole team that learns each other and gets better every day.
Goals for this 8-game race
Asked if he is pushing for All-NBA honors during this eight-game stretch, Booker shrugged him off.
“Not at all in my mind,” he said, without hesitation. “I’m just trying to take my game to new levels, to bring my team to new levels.”
Booker is all about the team right now, despite their long chances of making a run in the playoffs (6 return games with 8 first legs).
“When it comes to people who matter to us,” he said, “it’s just for us that we’re trying to improve and make some noise. We just want to be known as a team that plays hard and plays together.”
Booker, Ayton and coach Williams have all had the same message in recent interviews and that message matches GM James Jones’ words: work hard, play more, don’t treat it like a vacation. This is another possibility to grow the program and make this short season a step forward towards playoff level basketball.
