Melvin Booker’s basketball career lasted just 32 NBA games, but his fingerprints are all over the career of one of the league’s current stars.
He is the father of Phoenix Suns guard Devin Booker, a former Missouri All-American who went undrafted in 1994 despite being named his conference’s Player of the Year, spent more than a decade bouncing between minor leagues and international clubs, and eventually returned to his Mississippi hometown to coach the high school program that raised him, mentoring his own son through the process.
Melvin Booker Biography
He was born August 20, 1972, in Pascagoula, Mississippi, and grew up in nearby Moss Point. Melvin Jermaine Booker stands 6 feet 2 inches tall and played point guard throughout his career.
His father, Willie Booker, was himself a former player who went on to serve as an assistant coach at Moss Point High School, and it was under his father’s early influence and coaching that Melvin developed the skills that eventually carried him to Division I basketball.
Booker starred at Moss Point High School, averaging 28 points per game as a senior and being named his division’s Player of the Year, yet none of the major four-year programs in the region recruited him.
He ultimately signed with the University of Missouri after Tigers assistant coaches spotted him while scouting other Mississippi prospects, Litterial Green and Chris Jackson, during a separate recruiting trip.
Devin Booker’s Father
Melvin Booker met Veronica Gutierrez in Grand Rapids, Michigan, in the mid 1990s while playing for the Grand Rapids Mackers, and the two had a son, Devin Armani Booker, born October 30, 1996.
The two never married, and Melvin’s basketball career kept him overseas for long stretches during Devin’s early childhood, meaning Devin spent most of the year with his mother in Michigan and typically visited his father only during summers.
After retiring from professional basketball in 2008, Melvin returned to his hometown and joined the coaching staff at Moss Point High School, his own alma mater, as an assistant coach starting in 2011.
That timing coincided directly with Devin’s own high school years, and Melvin encouraged Veronica to send their son to live with him in Mississippi so he could develop under closer supervision heading into his final years of high school.
It was not an easy transition for Devin, who did not want to leave his mother, but the family ultimately agreed it gave him the best path toward a serious basketball future.
Melvin has remained connected to the Moss Point program since, drawing on his own experience playing at the Division I, NBA, and international levels to help train the next generation of players to come through the school.
Career
Melvin Booker played for Missouri from 1990 to 1994 and became one of the most productive guards in program history. As a junior, he averaged 15.8 points per game.
As a senior, he averaged 18.1 points per game, earning Big Eight Conference Player of the Year honors and consensus All-American recognition, a first-team selection by some outlets and a second-team consensus All-American by others.
He was a two-time first-team All-Big Eight selection in 1993 and 1994. He set a Missouri school record with 13 assists during a triple overtime victory over Illinois in St. Louis in 1993.
He scored a career high 35 points on two separate occasions during the 1993-94 season, once in an 81-74 upset of fourth-ranked Kansas in Lawrence and again in a 109-96 win over Wisconsin in the second round of the NCAA Tournament.
That senior season, he powered a 14-0 run through Big Eight play and helped Missouri reach the Elite Eight of the NCAA Tournament.
He finished his career ranked fifth in Missouri scoring history with 1,697 points, and second in both three-point field goals and assists, a resume significant enough to earn his induction into the University of Missouri Athletics Hall of Fame.
Draft Night Disappointment
Despite that resume, Melvin Booker went undrafted in the 1994 NBA Draft, a result he has described as one of the most painful moments of his life.
Speaking to The Undefeated in 2016, Booker called it one of the worst nights ever, saying he had genuinely expected to hear his name called and could not explain, even years later, how a conference player of the year and All-American had gone unselected.
Booker spent the next several years working his way through minor league and international basketball. He played for the Hartford Hellcats and Pittsburgh Piranhas in the Continental Basketball Association and United States Basketball League during the 1994-95 season, then joined the Grand Rapids Mackers of the CBA for the 1995-96 season, the team and city where he met Devin’s mother, Veronica Gutierrez.
His NBA opportunity finally came in 1996, when he appeared briefly for the Houston Rockets and Denver Nuggets that year, returned to Grand Rapids for the 1996-97 CBA season, then closed out his NBA career with the Golden State Warriors in 1997.
In total, his NBA career spanned just 32 games across the 1995-96 and 1996-97 seasons, producing 166 total points, 38 rebounds and 74 assists.
Booker’s basketball career did not end there. He spent the next decade playing professionally overseas, first with Sony Milano and Scavolini Pesaro in Italy from 1998 to 2002, then with Ülkerspor in Turkey from 2002 to 2004, followed by a stint with Khimki in Russia from 2006 to 2007, and finally back to Italy with Olimpia Milano for the 2007-08 season, after which he retired from professional basketball entirely.
