Do NBA Officials Overlook Suns Guard Devin Booker?

Phoenix Suns shooting guard Devin Booker has accomplished quite a lot in his career thus far.

All-NBA first team. NBA All-Star. NBA Three-Point Contest winner. Led Phoenix to the 2021 NBA Finals before a franchise record 64 wins in the regular season.

Booker's well respected among his peers, but perhaps the same can't be said for some officials.

"Our stars don’t get no calls. Just how it be. Been like that for three years. Ain’t nothing new. Navigate, navigate; got to find out a way to win," said Suns guard Cameron Payne.

The Suns are currently in the midst of a three-game losing skid. All three games saw Phoenix trail in free throws with two games having quite the disparity:

Free Throw Count:

Kings 37, Suns 22

Warriors 24, Suns 22

Bucks 37, Suns 16

Particularly, Booker as of late hasn't gotten a handful of calls his way. He shot just three free throws in the loss vs Milwaukee:

“I just did it the other day. I can sit here and go through what you guys already know. You just got to put my name on the quote, you saw it. It’s not fair. (Devin) Book has three free throws, if I’m reading this right and Jrue Holiday is one of the most physical defenders in the game and he has three. Giannis (Antetokounmpo) has 24 free throws," said Suns coach Monty Williams.

"It’s ridiculous, there is no other way to put it. DA (Deandre Ayton) can’t play. When a guy just runs into you the whole game, it’s like we dealt with this so many times with this team and credit to him, he saw the way the game was being called and he kept doing it, but that’s hard to swallow and this has happened a number of times when we play them. For me, it’s hard for me to tell our guys to keep their level of poise cause that’s frustrating. They beat us, make no mistake about it, but that’s a hard one to swallow and it’s happened too many times.”

GM James Jones backed that sentiment up on Arizona Sports:

“We know certain players get certain treatment. I think that’s always been the case in this league. The human element comes into play. I think everyone sees that, as much as Devin (Booker) attacks the paint, as much as our guys attack, we draw a lot of contact," Jones said. The Suns are third to last in team free throws attempted per game with 21.6.

“We just don’t get the calls. But we can’t blow the whistle for the referees. … It’s just unfortunate that it’s something that always goes against us. That’s no excuse. We know what we have to deal with, we know what we have to overcome. It’s on us to figure it out because we’re not going to get help from anywhere else.”

Even Booker himself commented on the issue:

“I don’t know what to say, man. It is tough. One player is shooting more free throws than the whole entire team. You are right, we have seen this movie before," said Booker after the Bucks game.

"I am not saying all of them weren’t fouls – probably over half of them were fouls – but 24 free throws to 16 as a team. That is uncalled for, especially in my opinion at least a couple of those could be called offensive fouls. None of them were.”