I’m looking right now at all the NBA players averaging 15 points per game, and it’s challenging my hypothesis that Jeremy Lamb was the quietest 15 ppg scorer this year. I was like “man, I bet no one besides Hornets fans and maybe some OKC stragglers realize how good he’s doing this year”, and I’m still right about that, but there are some real head-scratchers on here. There’s NO WAY Reggie Jackson is averaging not just 15, but 16. Wesley Matthews? He’s dead. I saw him die. Dead people aren’t allowed to average 15. And don’t even talk to me about E’Twaun Moore.
The fact remains, though, that Lamb is providing The Lamb Sauce every night, and hardly anyone is paying attention. Good news for him is that this is the last year of his contract, and his name will be thrown around as a potential free-agent signing for teams looking for a nice cheap scorer. Which is every team, which means that he suddenly won’t be cheap anymore. Some team is going to pay him a ton of money, and that’s maybe not such a good idea.
It’s taken him this long just to get to 15, I can’t see too much of an improvement beyond this. Teams will have to realize that 20ppg-Lamb isn’t going to happen without some serious ball-feeding and shot-chucking. And they also have to realize that paying a ton of money to one of the sleepiest-looking players in the league is bound to cause some resentment among players who don’t look chronically lazy.