PHOENIX — “I don’t care anymore. It’s like 2,000, 3,000, 4,000 — it’s almost the same thing. Now I’m just at the point in my career where I just want to be a winner.

“I’ve done the individual accolades countless numbers of times so for me now it’s figuring out how to win and we’re not doing that right now so until we start winning that’s when all those things will matter to me.”

That’s Phoenix Suns shooting guard Devin Booker after a loss to the Portland Trail Blazers in which he became the second-youngest player to score 5,000 points.

Winning — more on that later — has become the only thing that matters to Booker when you talk to him about pretty much anything. Seasons out of the playoffs, let alone under 30 wins, are gnawing at the competitor he is.

But with that being said, both Booker and the public’s mindset being prioritized toward the goal of making the Suns a competitive team overshadow what he is doing as an individual.

More specifically, as a scorer.

At 22 years old, Booker is on pace to be one of the best scoring guards ever. The numbers back it up. The eye test backs it up. His personality backs it up.

The only thing left for him is to do it and naturally grow.

So where is he on that road right now and where does he have left to go?

I asked one current player and two former pros who know a bit about scoring: Sixth Man of the Year award winner and Suns guard Jamal Crawford, who is known as one of the most skilled one-on-one players to play the game; NBA champion and Arizona State’s all-time leading scorer Eddie House, who once scored 61 in a game at ASU; and Eddie Johnson, who averaged 16.0 points a night over a 17-year career.

Booker also chimed in about his journey turning into one of the NBA’s best scorers, the hurdles in becoming that and where it takes him next on the court.

‘HE’S GOT EVERY SHOT’

Booker entered the league as a two-guard with a gorgeous shot and highly-thought-of when it came to his intangibles.

What we didn’t know at the time was Booker’s capabilities as both a scorer and a ball-handler, which quickly went from nice accents for his game to him being “next up” among young NBA guards. From breaking into the rotation his first year to handling the ball more and becoming a No. 1 option his second year to running and leading the team the past two seasons, it’s been a meteoric rise.

That’s all possible because of Booker’s supreme skill.

“He’s unique,” Johnson said of how Booker projects compared to most young players. “He’s an exception to the rule.”

“They come in already natural-born scorers, so they’re already going to be able to get it done just off of their natural ability,” House said of young scorers arriving into the league. “Then it’s about the work they are putting in and the adjustments they are making to the adjustments the defense is making to them, and then it’s the time they put in in the film room understanding guys’ tendencies.”

The work is there and presents itself through how outstanding of an offensive player Booker has become in such a short amount of time.

Going through only his fourth year, Booker can positively change a game offensively in just about every way imaginable.

“Devin has all the shots [on] every part of the court,” Johnson said. “That makes him unstoppable.”

This goes far beyond Booker’s second straight year averaging at least 24 points a game, something only two other guards have ever done at the ages of 21 and 22.

In the season that would have been his first had he stayed in college all four years, Booker has been remarkably efficient from two-point range.

Booker is shooting 52 percent on twos this season. When factoring in over 12 two-point attempts a game and a usage percentage above 30, he’s the only guard in the NBA managing that. Look at the last 10 NBA seasons and the guards that meet the qualifications were Dwyane Wade in 2010-11 and Victor Oladipo last season. That’s it.

As Johnson said, that’s because he’s “got all the shots” and he shows it off the dribble creating for himself.

“He’s comfortable with his game,” Crawford said. “His pace, his growth — he’s comfortable in that regard because he puts the work in and he’s maximizing that.”

Once Booker gets space from his initial man, he’ll sometimes pick a spot in the mid-range and launch from there at an unguardable angle.

If his man sticks and he gets a sliver of space, the game is what they call over.

His man is behind him? Now he’s putting him in jail and leaving him there.

If there’s a path to the rim, he’s gonna get there and finish through contact.

He’s built up his physique the past three seasons so he can take bumps on the way to the basket and at the basket itself, still being capable of difficult finishes after doing so.

He’s taking more floaters and getting better there.

Get him off the ball and Booker can square up from the mid-post and take his opponents’ lunch money in a variety of ways.

Bottom line, he’s one of the best bucket-getters we’ve got going today and he’s only just getting started.

“I was in college at that age still, getting ready (for the league),” House said. “He’s still so young and still so raw to where there’s so much more that he’s going to be able to tap into and he’s still learning. But everyone is looking at him, because he is the face of the franchise, they don’t understand that he’s still super young.”

LEARNING THROUGH ADVERSITY

Through his climb and the current situation in Phoenix, Booker’s had to get better while the way opposing teams scout him constantly changes.

“When I started in my rookie year at the beginning, I was getting a lot of open shots,” he said.

“And then defenses started locking in on me. It got a lot harder. Then I started being the ball-handler a lot more and then that’s when I started seeing the double-teams, the face-guard without the ball — pretty much everything.”

Booker said right around the end of year two is when he felt like he had seen every defense and that’s before the specific gameplans designed to stop him and only him.

Looking at years 2-4 when Booker was a “high-volume scorer,” he’s had to do more with less.

With Eric Bledsoe and Brandon Knight as backcourt partners in his sophomore season, Booker attempted 26.7 percent of his shots via catch-and-shoot. This year that number is all the way down below 18 percent.

Because there’s been nobody to set him up outside of designed plays off the ball, he’s had to do it himself and that takes a whole lot of energy. After taking 38.3 percent of his shots after three or more dribbles in 2016-17, the percentage has risen all the way up to roughly 54 percent this year. Somehow, he’s shooting above 48 percent on those looks, because of course he is.

On shots in which he takes zero dribbles this year, Booker is shooting above 46 percent. That’s pretty great! The issue is he got nearly a third (32.8 percent) of his looks that way in his second season and now he takes below 23 percent of ’em not off the bounce.

We’ve seen him go through the trials and tribulations of how to go about this.

And when looking at his development on a grander scale, it’s all about Booker’s thought process in every spot.

“He’s his worst enemy,” Johnson said. “If he becomes stubborn and forgets that then he’s gonna suffer. Because he knows if they’re trapping him up top and he’s got the ball, he knows that, ‘You know what, I need to get off the ball, get below the free-throw line and use my teammates to get open.’ He knows this.

“Now, he can be stubborn and say, ‘Oh, I’m gonna keep trying, I’m gonna keep trying’ and now he’s gonna look bad. He has it all. Now it’s about him really looking at the situation, analyzing it and saying, ‘OK this is what I need to do. To stop this, I need to do this and then they can’t stop me.'”

That — and injuries and the whole being 22 years old thing — have led to some staggered performances and also a decrease in his three-point shooting.

Booker’s percentage has dropped from 38.3 last year to 32.9. It’s a product of his current environment.

“Just tougher shots,” Booker said of the dip. “I’m not getting many catch-and-shoot threes or any open looks. It’s mostly off of pick-and-roll, late shot-clock shot. I don’t think any team’s scouting report is, ‘He shoots 30 percent from three, let him get open threes.'”

This is one of the tight windows and a high degree of difficulty Booker talks about.

Even when he gets room, it’s only for a moment most of the time, and he’s going further beyond the line to get that room.

Booker and Crawford are not worried about it, as should nobody else given Booker’s pedigree as a shooter.

“I don’t even look at that,” Crawford said of the percentages, instead referring to the reputation of Booker being that shooter and how it makes defenses move.

“As long as I’m making the effect on the defense, causing two people to guard me and make a play easier for a teammate, I’m fine,” Booker said. “I’m not too worried about shooting percentage.”

And let’s not forget about how much extra energy Booker exudes when carrying the load against these defenses.

“Of course it hinders him because he’s always the focal point, the main guy that everybody pays attention to,” House said. “They’re taking the opportunity away from him, the defense is.”

As you can see on the next couple of assists, Booker’s just got to accept what the defense presents, which is what best benefits his team. Booker fully understands that.

“Teams are sticking with the double team and I just have to keep making the right play,” he said. “If I go through a quarter shooting only two shots, three shots, I’m fine with that if our team is getting open looks.”

Here, the Spurs put three guys in Booker’s path, even with Isaiah Canaan less than 10 feet away.

Sometimes they are flat-out double-teaming Booker.

There’s cutting off his option to get to the open floor and then there’s continuing to pressure him backward, essentially trapping him like you’ll see in junior varsity. “Run and jump” was the precise term Booker used for it.

“It’s something that you have to adjust to,” he said of the way defenses are scheming for him.

“I say when we’re playing those dynamic scorers, ‘Just get the ball out their hands.’ Especially late in the game or late in the shot clock. Get the ball out their hands and make somebody else do it.”

As Crawford delicately puts it, “you gotta be at peace with your game” to pick your spots with everything defenses throw at you.

That’s where we arrive at Booker’s growth as a passer accentuating his scoring.

‘TAKE THE DOUBLE TEAM. IT’S FINE’

There is little to no precedent for Booker’s production as a playmaker given his circumstance.

Looking at players 22 or under with a usage percentage at 30 or higher while averaging at least 22 points and six assists a game, Booker’s 2018-19 is alongside two LeBron James seasons and Derrick Rose’s 22-year-old MVP season from 2010-11. And by the way, if we sort by true shooting percentage, Booker is the most efficient even with his off-year shooting from deep.

Speaking on that adjustment Booker mentioned, even in crunch-time situations he’s drawing three defenders.

So, adjust by finding the open man.

That forces Booker to be more inventive at finding scoring opportunities and he’s already figured that out in the past 18 months, too.

That developing skill is attacking defenses that aren’t set.

“The thing is, you want to play more out of random than anything else,” House said. “You want to play when the game is kind of helter-skelter.”

The way House highlighted it is there’s no gameplan yet to execute because everyone’s just trying to find their man and go from there.

So on a make or miss, if Booker looks up and sees what he wants to see, “he’s going,” as Crawford described it.

Watch him against the Atlanta Hawks here. Booker is pushing the ball full speed and Atlanta’s Taurean Prince is just turning around to face him as Booker speeds past the halfcourt line.

Booker elaborated on picking those spots to push.

“Just realizing that’s the only time that they’re not aware and I”ll (only) get single coverage probably in transition,” he said. “Trying to force that contact, just being the aggressor for my team, trying to get to the free throw line — that’s the highest, efficient shot in the game.

“Nobody is gonna give me a free look if I just stay in the halfcourt and try to run through plays. A lot of the things I have to do have to be earned and I have to work really hard for, which I’m fine with it.”

He’s even doing it multiple times a game.

To go back to the double team strategy, this isn’t permanent. And even if it is, Booker’s ability to punish defenses with his passing will open back up his scoring.

“Once you take those double teams and you make the right read and then guys make plays for you out of that, then it becomes, ‘Oh, we can’t double him’ so now he gets the single coverage again so it does help his scoring,” Crawford said. “I always tell him that, like, ‘Take the double team. It’s fine.’ Sometimes I tell him to run a pick-and-roll early just to see how they’re gonna play it.”

Eventually, the Suns’ young talent is gonna develop and become good-enough threats to open it up, like Crawford said. That’s just gonna take time, as Booker puts it.

“It’s gonna keep helping our team,” he said. “Mikal (Bridges) is a rookie. Even if he’s shooting 40 (percent from 3-point range), teams are probably gonna still live with that from now until he proves it a little bit more to where he has that label as, ‘You can’t leave him open.’

“And he’s gonna have that label, it’s gonna come soon, it’s just in the NBA, you have to earn that reputation.”

That wraps back to Booker’s overall philosophy on getting through this ridiculous amount of attention from defenses.

“I think it’s helped, honestly,” he said. “Once this team makes the jump that we’re gonna make and get into the playoffs — you can’t run and jump anybody.”

“He’s not concerned,” Crawford said of Booker’s scoring numbers. “He’s like, ‘What do I do to give my team the best chance to succeed?’

“I told him I was proud of his growth because they were doubling (and) he was still making the right play,” Crawford said of a win over the Spurs in which Booker scored only 13 points but had 12 assists. “And it wasn’t because he was scoring.

“Winning’s the only thing driving him.”

WINNING: THE NEXT STEP

Ah, yes, back to the winning.

Naturally, the next step in Booker’s career trajectory is leading a team that wins. That will get him more credibility and start to create buzz about his legacy as such an immense talent at his age.

“When you win, everything’s bigger,” Crawford said. “Winning really cements everything else.”

“He’s not comfortable with losing. He knows.”

But this might be happening a little more organically than you assume.

Leave it to a player of Crawford’s high reputation to explain it the right way.

Booker idolizes Crawford, and to no surprise, the two are constantly talking basketball. That’s not as common as you think among teammates, who, you know, talk about stuff besides their occupation from time to time.

But as Booker portrayed them, they’re “both students of the game,” and so when the player who Booker describes as “one of the most dynamic scorers to ever touch the basketball” speaks, you bet your a** he’s listening.

As you can tell by now, Crawford has been in Booker’s ear about everything. From in-game reads to the bigger picture.

For the Suns’ overall progression, it’s simple. They are going to improve based on where Booker takes them, and he can raise his game off that as well.

“How can I lead this group to wins?” Crawford projected as the thesis for Booker’s role as top dog.

“The better they are, the better I’ll be because my job will be a little bit easier.”

Ah, but of course.

If Deandre Ayton gets a dump-off here and a mid-range jumper there via Booker, he’s going to play with more confidence. That makes him more of a threat. That makes defenses respect his game more.

It goes on from there, not only from a game-by-game perspective but when Booker enhances them along the way. Ayton, after all, scored one of the more crucial baskets of a big win over the Milwaukee Bucks on Monday off advice Booker gave him earlier in the day.

In a way, it’s all about scoring and it’s not.

Like Crawford laid out, Booker making everyone else better makes him better.

You can see that mindset has passed off.

“Just keep playing basketball and making the right plays every time down the court,” Booker said. “That’s my job.”

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