There are two ways to approach playing time during a 10-day contract in the NBA. You can play within yourself as much as possible, limiting mistakes and showing you can sacrifice individual success for the team. Or, you can call your own number whenever you get the ball, shooting ballsy shots and making the coaches respect your offensive game. There is also a third option, which is to not ever get playing time and then get released, but that one isn’t really relevant here.
Yogi Ferrell chose the second option, and I think that’s a good idea. If he played passively, there’d be no way the Mavs would keep him once their regular PGs came back. On the other hand, the way he’s playing now heightens his chances of being retained at least a little bit. It didn’t work for Jonathan Gibson (how did he score 26 I still don’t understand), but times are different now. Don’t believe me? Just look at a calendar; today’s date and the date when Gibson dropped 26 are totally different.
Ferrell didn’t make it easy on himself tonight. These were some tough shots he was making, shots that most NBA coaches don’t want their players taking. Especially that transition pull-up three. Gotta admire the pendulous scrote of this guy, that was a ballsy shot. If it didn’t go in, I don’t think we’d see him again in a Dallas uniform, but it did, and he ended up with 19 points. 19 points (while kind of outplaying Kyrie Irving) for a guy I thought we’d seen the last of when the Nets let him go, I swear teams should play 10-day guys more often. This is way more fun than whatever Westbrook is doing.