The Phoenix Suns continue to look like a three-alarm dumpster fire.
The Suns got embarrassed during their preseason game against the Adelaide 36ers of the NBL on Sunday. They lost by double figures (134-124) to a 36ers team that went just 10-18 last NBL season. To make matters worse, Phoenix played all of their starters (Chris Paul, Devin Booker, Mikal Bridges, Cam Johnson, and Deandre Ayton) in the loss … and were the home team.
Phoenix Suns falls to the Adelaide 36ers at home, 134-124 🤯
Craig Randall II and Robert Franks combined for 67 PTS and 15 3PM
(via @NBATV)pic.twitter.com/nvJwnKUC0c
— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) October 3, 2022
It was the first time an NBL team had ever beaten an NBA team as well as the first time since 2016 that an NBA team lost an international exhibition.
The Suns got roasted into the ground for the humiliating loss, which led to an interesting response from Booker. In a post to his Instagram Story, Booker shared a screenshot of LeBron James with the caption “Mood.”
Devin Booker's IG story 👁 pic.twitter.com/s9LBz5E0B6
— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) October 3, 2022
For those unfamiliar, the screenshot is from James’ press conference after he and the Miami Heat lost in the 2011 Finals to the Dallas Mavericks. Most infamously, James blasted his haters by saying, “All of the people that was rooting on me to fail, at the end of the day, they’ve gotta wake up tomorrow and have the same life that they had before they woke up today. They got the same personal problems … I’m gonna continue to live the way I wanna live and continue to do the things I wanna do with me and my family and be happy with that.”
James was widely denounced at the time for the comments, which came across as telling his critics to go back to their miserable lives while he continued to enjoy his hundreds of millions of dollars. But at least his remarks came after a hard-fought loss in the Finals. For Booker to be channeling that energy after a loss in the preseason comes across as monumentally soft.
For Booker, whose Suns also got run off their home floor the last time that we saw them with their 33-point defeat to Dallas in Game 7 of the Western Conference semifinals, his life is elite by any just about any measure. He is 25 years old, recently got a $224 million supermax contract from the Suns, and gets to go home to Kendall Jenner every night.
But there is one major thing that Booker is still prominently without — an NBA championship ring. That won’t be changing any time soon if Booker’s response to a little bit of adversity is what you see above. Granted, the fetid stench in Phoenix right now is probably less about Booker individually and more about the entire Suns organization.
