I will attempt to make it through this entire description without once mentioning the contract situation of Cristiano “Useless Brazilian Shaq” Felicio. Can I do it? Let’s find out!
Felicio had a career-high of 17 points tonight. I could’ve sworn he had scored 18 when he was in his rookie season and not yet ridiculously over… played. But he hadn’t. A couple 16 point efforts, clearly bested by the free-throw that he managed to earn against Enes Kanter. Who, by the way, couldn’t hold Felicio at all. Most of his damage was done during a run in the third quarter, and most of it was perpetrated on Kanter. In fairness to the big Turk, Felicio actually managed a couple nice moves. That jumper off the glass was, according to Stacey King, “Hakeem Olajuwon”, but I thought it was more of a “Tim Duncan”.
Bulls fans are probably not breathing a sigh of relief right now concerning Felicio, because they’ve already seen enough of his general uselessness to know that he’s going to be a deadweight on the franchise for years to come. But they can at least know that there may be times in the future, times separated by great lengths, where he puts it somewhat together and has a good game.