In his rookie year, a thirteen-point game from Michael Carter-Williams would have been roughly the fiftieth-best game of his season. It would have been completely unnotable. Now, those same thirteen points, previously considered below average for MCW, are heralded as a cause worthy of celebration. This is the perfect illustration of the precipitous decline that MCW’s career has suffered. From ROTY of the year to fourth-quarter scrub trotted out in blowout losses, from a 16 PPG average to being happy to crawl into double digits.
The good news for MCW is that he wasn’t the first one on the Rockets to be cut for being garbage. That honor goes to Carmelo Anthony. In fact, if you can believe it, MCW is still on the Rockets’ roster as of the time of this writing! They haven’t even cut him yet! I suppose, since the Rockets are bad this year, it makes sense for them to keep bad players. If they only had good players but were still a bad team, then you would have to look at the flaws of Lames Hardon, Christina Paulette, and Mr. Pringles Man. However, a bad team with bad players is easy to explain away: the bad players make them bad.
I’m going to share with you a deep, closely-held secret. I sometimes have nightmares where Michael Carter-Williams gets traded to the Bucks for Thon Maker. I wake up from these dreams with tears on my face and these dreams occur almost every other night. I’m scared.