No one cares about so-called double-double machines anymore. What Russell Westbrook did last year and the year previous was great and fun and stuff, but it had the effect of devaluing the formerly-desired double-double. I mean, I can kind of see it. 10 points is obviously not that notable, and 10 rebounds, well, anybody can get rebounds if they stand around and wait for them. But still. It used to be the highest praise one could offer to a bigman, to call him a “double-double machine”. Now people just get mad at those types of players because they can’t shoot threes or do dribble moves.
Truly, those are two things that Deandre “Double-Double Machine” Ayton can’t to. But he can get double-doubles. He’s averaging one for the season. He’s basically been as good as expected, but he’s on the Suns (who are a bad team except in the eyes of Bucks fans) and he doesn’t jack triples so he doesn’t get noticed.
This performance is the most points he’s ever scored. It doesn’t feel like it, probably because a bunch of the buckets came right at the end when the game was over (a part of the game known colloquially as “the time of garbage”). And, when most of them are in the form of layups, it’s hard to get really hyped for them. Sorry, bro. But remember, no one was really ever all that hyped for Karl Malone either, and see how his career turned out.