At the end of last season, when the Grizzlies were so devastated by injuries that they had to give large amounts of rotation minutes to made-up players like Briante Weber and Xavier Munford (try telling me with a straight face that those players really exist…you can’t), Tony Allen put up multiple games scoring in the mid twenties. I’m too lazy to verify this, but I feel like he was sniffing his career high almost every night. He had to be. There was nobody on his team who could score the rock, and the very essence of basketball is that the rock must be scored, so Tony scored it. A lot. It was actually a little weird to see him displaying any offensive skill at all.
This season Tony is back to his usual self. He’s scored twelve a few times so far this season. This game he scored nineteen, but it seemed like a lot of the buckets were almost accidental. For some reason he kept deciding to drive to the basket, and it worked more often than not, even with Anthony Davis standing there in his way. Unlike last season’s scoring outbursts, in this one Tony definitely doesn’t hit any jumpers except for one jumpery thing at the beginning.
I fully expect not to have to make another Tony Allen video this year. The Grizzlies have enough scoring on their roster even with all their injuries. That two-month stretch of surprising offensive versatility is never going to come back. And if it does, I’m going to ignore it, because watching Tony’s unaesthetic attempts at scoring points sort of gives me a headache.