I’m a big fan of performances where a player scores a big chunk of their entire season output prior to the game in a single game. I’m rereading that sentence and it’s not making much since, and I can’t figure out how to phrase it better, so how about an illustrative example! Theo Pinson had 19 points in total over the whole season, already halfway over. And he scored 19 tonight. That’s what I’m talking about here. Or, if you want another example, when Alec Peters scored 36 in the final game of the season after scoring 46 the whole rest of it. I hope that dude is enjoying Russia right now.
It goes without saying that this is the best game of Pinson’s nascent NBA career. He basically averages this in the G-League, but that doesn’t actually mean anything. So many non-NBA dudes could score 20 ppg in that league. These 19 points mean way more. WAY more. 19 points against actual NBA defenders who actually want to stop you from scoring actual NBA points? Ignore that this was against the Knicks. I am thoroughly impressed.
I’m a bit lacking in material regarding this dude, since I didn’t expect to do anything of note until way later in the season, but here’s something: his legal first name is “Theophilus”. Which, I’m guessing, means “god lover” in Greek. As opposed to Theodore, the more usual name which gets shortened to “Theo”, which would maybe mean “gift of god”. Aren’t those fun tidbits of knowledge? Yes.