“My Mexican culture has taught me a lot about myself,” he told ABC15. She just always talked about his character and how loving he was, and just how he was the backbone of the family.”īooker has really been focused on exploring his Mexican roots, especially since moving to Phoenix, which has a big Hispanic population. “He always helped my mom out when she was in need, which was really important for me. “He was just a really caring guy,” Booker described his grandfather to the Athletic. He had a large family with 15 brothers and sisters and lived in Los Nogales in Nuevo Leon, northeast Mexico, but eventually settled in Michigan. Booker’s maternal grandfather, Jesus Gutiérrez, was born and raised in Mexico. Booker has two half-siblings from his mother’s other relationships and the four of them grew up together in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Devin Booker Lived Mostly With His Mother, Victoria Gutiérrez, When He Was YoungerĪ post shared by Devin mother is Victoria Gutiérrez, a cosmetologist. But he said that me being drafted is better than him being drafted.”Ģ. The Suns star added, “He is not living through me. I am a very proud father and I know my son is living his dream,” he told the publication. When Booker was drafted into the NBA, Melvin Booker said he got really emotional. His dad is now one of his closest friends, he told Andscape, and said, “As a father, he’d do anything I wanted to do. Luckily, the father and son are very close today, thanks in large part to Booker going to live with his father in his hometown for the majority of his high school years. It was hard for me to understand then why we couldn’t communicate so much.” “The only real time with communication I had with him were the two to three months out of the year when I would go down to Mississippi. “It was tough,” the younger Booker told Andscape. However, the distance due to his career made it hard for Melvin Booker to be close to his son, who was living with his mother in Michigan. Afterward, Melvin Booker spent just over 10 years playing overseas in Italy, Turkey and Russia. He played a few dozen NBA games in his career, a handful for the Houston Rockets in the 1995-96 season, as well as with the Denver Nuggets and the Golden State Warriors in the 1996-97 season. Instead, Booker’s father played in the minor leagues for a few different teams. It’s unheard of for a player of the year in his conference and a second-team All-American to go undrafted for reasons I don’t even know today.” I felt like and thought I would be drafted. “My draft night was one of the worst nights ever,” Melvin Booker told the publication. The point guard attended the University of Missouri and was the Big Eight Conference Player of the Year in 1994, his senior year, according to Andscape.ĭespite Melvin Booker’s talent, he was undrafted at the 1994 NBA draft, with his height of 6’2″ likely held against him. A post shared by Devin father, Melvin Booker, was a basketball star as well and was a top talent in high school, averaging 28 points as a senior at Moss Point High in Mississippi.
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