PHOENIX — In the final minutes of USA Basketball’s gold medal victory over France, Devin Booker marched down the baseline, drew the defense and threw a pass to the best shooter in the building. Stephen Curry sank a 3-pointer from the free throw line.

The Phoenix Suns guard had made similar plays throughout the Olympics. An extra pass. Strong defense. That’s the main reason why coach Steve Kerr named him the “secret MVP” of the US team. On a team of superstars, Booker had become a role player who sacrificed points for whatever was necessary – a performance that deserves praise.

Will it matter once the NBA season starts?

Now in his tenth year, Booker has established himself as an elite player, one of the league’s best scorers and a four-time All-Star. And yet he isn’t as highly regarded outside of Arizona, where he is one of the most popular athletes in the state’s history. For those who have watched Booker since he entered the league, that’s puzzling.

Booker, 27, isn’t selfish. In recent years, Chris Paul and Kevin Durant have cited playing alongside him as a reason they wanted to come to Phoenix. For a star, Booker isn’t afraid to share the spotlight. His game is adaptable. In media interviews, he talks more about making the right basketball play, as he did throughout the Olympics, than making shots.

Tyson Chandler, a 19-year veteran, was with Phoenix for Booker’s first three seasons. From day one, he noticed how easily Booker found the game and how the shooting guard rarely forced much. He thought that if Booker clicked, he could become a top-10 scorer in his career. (Interestingly, if Booker reaches the 14,529 points he has already scored over the next nine years, that scoring total would rank eighth on the current NBA list, just ahead of Durant.)

As for the lack of national respect, Chandler wasn’t sure.

“I don’t know,” he said in an interview with The athlete during the All-Star break last season. “Because he puts up the numbers. He’s efficient. He’s on a winning team. He understands exactly how to play. You see how he adapts to different personnel, whether it’s CP or KD. And now Bradley Beal. He can play with different players and different styles. I honestly don’t know. … I honestly don’t know why people don’t put him in the top tier of NBA talent, because to me, it’s a no-brainer. It’s obvious.”

It’s a hot topic in the desert. Booker is viewed in one way here, where he endured dark times, and in another, less positive way elsewhere. Part of that stems from fandom, bias, and false social media narratives. As LeBron James, Luka Doncic, and Durant well know, no player is absolutely revered across the league. (Well, maybe Curry.) But those players have at least achieved some level of universal respect. Booker hasn’t reached that status yet, despite being the league’s best-selling jersey last season, which he sold on the 7th.

Team USA is coming within FIVE. We have a game at Bercy Arena.

📺 USA Network and Peacock | #ParisOlympics pic.twitter.com/mGrkXZ8PNu

— NBC Olympics & Paralympics (@NBCOlympics) 8 August 2024

He may have some catching up to do. In Booker’s first five years, the Suns were so bad that hardly anyone was paying attention. Averaging 25 a night on a 20-game winning team is only enough for an early vacation. Although Booker put up numbers, it was dismissed nationwide as empty talk.

Not helping: Booker’s reputation was formed early in his career, and perhaps not entirely deservedly so. Coming out of college, Booker was considered a shooter, but his most defining trait was his combativeness. Even as a 20-year-old, Booker didn’t let anyone get him down. Chest-to-chest confrontations were commonplace, leading to accusations that he was a “fake tough guy.” Chandler disagreed.

“That’s what I loved about him, because I saw the fire in him,” he said. “You see young players come in, and there’s one particular player that, no matter how old he is, demands the respect he needs to be successful throughout his career. He was one of those rookies.”

Booker never waited for others to recognize him as a star. That was how he saw and acted himself. During a game in Memphis in 2017, the Suns objected to Troy Daniels badmouthing him after he sank a late three-pointer in a 110-91 loss to the Grizzlies. After the game, Booker didn’t let Daniels get away with it. “I don’t know why he would talk to me,” he said, sitting at his locker with a white towel wrapped around his shoulders. “He’s been on five teams in three years and he has the nerve to badmouth me.”

Booker was in his second season.

A more memorable moment came six weeks later at Boston’s TD Garden. Phoenix was in the midst of an 11-game losing streak. The Suns had eliminated key veterans to better position themselves for the draft. That night, Booker scored 70 points in a 130-120 loss to the Celtics. In the final minutes, with the outcome all but decided, then-coach Earl Watson had called timeouts to give Booker extra touches to increase his scoring.

The Suns celebrated despite the defeat. In the locker room, Booker posed with his teammates and held a white sheet of paper with the word “70” written on it, a replica of Wilt Chamberlain’s legendary “100” photo. That didn’t go down well.

Chandler wasn’t sure how the photo came about. Word had spread around the locker room that Booker was the sixth player to score 70 points, joining Chamberlain, Kobe Bryant, David Thompson, Elgin Baylor and David Robinson. As one of Phoenix’s most pressured players, Chandler said he might have thought differently had he played that night, but he was glad to have witnessed Booker’s performance. Asked afterward if the photo was a mistake, Chandler said, “Absolutely not.”

The Suns have been in the Western Conference since the 2020-21 season. Although Booker has played a prominent role – he finished fourth in the MVP voting in 2021-22 – he could be more blamed for the poor performance in Phoenix’s elimination losses to the Dallas Mavericks (2021-22) and the Denver Nuggets (2022-23). ​​That part is fair. Stars need to shine on the biggest stage. And that hurdle is often the hardest to overcome.

But that shouldn’t change what happened in France and the role Booker played in it. He not only accepted the assignment, he volunteered for it. In September 2023, after the U.S. team’s disappointing performance at the FIBA ​​World Cup, Washington forward Kyle Kuzma posted on social media that USA Basketball needs stars willing to make sacrifices. “Anyone can be nice when they have the ball in their hands, but can you afford to defend and go to the corner for a few possessions?” he wrote.

Booker simply replied: “I will do it.”

And he did.

(Photo: Sarah Stier / Getty Images)