This game by Troy Williams is right up there for the “Most Unexpected Performance” award, an award which should for real be a real award that the NBA really awards. Not convinced? Here, let me spell it out for you.
For one, this is Williams’ career-high. That by itself isn’t too crazy, but it’s also a career-high in his first game with a new team. Getting crazier! Compounding the craziness is the fact that he had just gotten done playing a D-League game the day before, which isn’t as crazy as the time Chris McCullough played in both leagues in the same day, but is still pretty crazy. But the real kicker is how he got those points; six made three-pointers for a guy who had made 10 in the whole rest of his career, a total repudiation of what kind of a player he was before and an all-encompassing acceptance of how the Rockets play the game.
Devin Booker’s 70 points probably will still win the award, but we can still take a moment and reflect upon what happened here tonight. It was a beautiful thing, and I’m so happy to have been able to share it with you.