Wesley Matthews is currently averaging 19 PPG, which would be the highest PPG total of his career by far if he finished the season at that mark (his previous high was 16 PPG back in 2013-14). For all my talk in the past few seasons of his achilles injury ruining his career, his career sure doesn’t look that ruined.
Looking deeper into the numbers (which is my specialty, since I understand a lot about numbers and math; just ask my friends in MENSA about how much of a genius I am), the uptick in scoring can be attributed to Matthews’ newfound willingness to just chuck shots like he’s the second coming of Monta Ellis to Dallas. Not only is he Dallas’ current scoring leader, but he’s their leading shot-taker as well, edging out Luca Doncic in both categories. Is it possible that he’s angling for one more big payday before his career winds down? His last payday was a very big one (four years, seventy million), so he’s not going to get another one that big, but if he shows that he can still bomb threes with the best of them, he could secure at least one more multi-year deal from a team that needs shooting. And that means playing like “the man” on this Mavericks team that is still waiting for the real “men” to develop more.
I would just like to point out here that my highlights efficiency would not be reduced in the slightest even if you surgically excised both of my achilles tendons and replaced them with banana peels. I feel like that should count for something.