Montrezl “Cznzdz” Harrell is straight-up stealing minutes from Boban Marjanovic and I’m not even mad. He’s also stealing minutes from Marcin Gortat who is stunningly irrelevant this season. Maybe “stealing” isn’t the right word. “Earning”, more like. He’s earning minutes because he offers a decent fraction of Marjanovic production (and way surpassing Gortat production) while still having a good amount of defensive ability. Even if he is kinda short for a center. Long arms make up for a lot in the NBA.
This career-high performance reminds me of another notable career-high by a HOFer: Wilt’s 100. Except in this case, we actually have footage. The main similarity is that they used unusually skilled free-throw shooting to score a lot of their points. In Wilt’s case, he went 100-of-118 from the line, and in Harrell’s case, he went 14-of-15.
He was already 8 of 9 before tonight, so he’s now at 92 percent for the year. That’s elite, no way around it. Considering he was a 63 percent foul shooter last year, he’s greatly increased his value, perhaps making him a tempting trade target for teams lacking a good center rotation. Just kidding! Removing him from the presence of Teodosic would be detrimental, just as removing him from the presence of the Clippers would be detrimental to the Clippers.
Notice how I didn’t even complain about the amount of free throws like a normally do. That’s because I’m so impressed by how well he shot them. If he does this again, though, I’m gonna want 15 dunks instead.