speaking with Nick Friedell of the Athletic<\/a>.<\/p>\n\u201cYou know it because there\u2019s not many,\u201d Booker said … \u201cSo I know he holds a special place in everybody\u2019s heart here in the Bay. And I feel a similar type of love in Phoenix. It\u2019s something special. It\u2019s kind of hard to explain, but there\u2019s a different type of love that comes with it. I wouldn\u2019t want it any other way.\u201d<\/p>\n
Booker is embracing the legacy of being a one-team player.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe ones I think of off the top of my head: Tim Duncan, Dirk (Nowitzki), Kobe (Bryant),\u201d Booker said. \u201cI had a chance to play against all three of them guys too, close to their last seasons, or their last season, so seeing their farewell tours and the love that they got. At that point, not only from their cities, but I think every city around the NBA also acknowledged it and showed love to the loyalty and embraced it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Booker is averaging 31 points and 7 assists a game, looking every bit the All-Star and veteran team leader.<\/p>\n
He could have asked out this summer when Phoenix traded Kevin Durant, but that\u2019s not what Booker wants. He is where he wants to be. While one should never say never in an unpredictable NBA, Booker leaving Phoenix is about as close to never as it gets. He keeps saying that. Eventually people may listen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One might think that signing a two-year, $133.3 million contract extension that could keep him in Phoenix through…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":273543,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[355,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-273542","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-nba","9":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273542","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=273542"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273542\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/273543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=273542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=273542"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=273542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}