With Ivica Zubac possibly out for the rest of the season, and Timofey Mozgov definitely out for the rest of the season (suffocated under a pile of hundred-dollar bills), the time is ripe for Tarik Black to prove to Laker fans that he’s worth the six million dollars he got paid this year and will get paid next year. That’s assuming that a.) Laker fans even know who Tarik Black is (unlikely), and b.) averaging 6 and 5 in fifteen minutes counts as underperforming on a twelve-million contract in this salary environment (perhaps it isn’t).
Black got off to a good start against the Timberpuppies, scoring eleven points in the first quarter and giving everybody hope that he might eclipse his career high of eighteen points and maybe even get to the fabled twenty-point mark. Then the wheels fell off and he only scored one bucket in the second quarter and one more bucket in the entire second half. Black is the kind of player who needs looks set up for him (unless he’s getting putbacks), so I’m going to assume that it wasn’t Black’s fault that he didn’t score much after the first twelve minutes. Instead, I will blame the selfish “point guards” on his team for being me-first scorers. Huertas would have ensured that Black scored twenty. Just saying.