I hate to say it, but D.J. Wilson right now is just completely outplaying Ersan Ilyasova. It’s gotten the point where it seems like, with every game that passes, Ilyasova surrenders more and more of the backup PF minutes to Wilson. When Ilyasova returned to the Bucks, it was a happy occasion both for me personally (he was the DTB mascot for four or five years) and for Bucks fans as a whole (who appreciate him for being one of the few good players the team had during the Brandon Jennings/Andrew Bogut reign of terror). But now, seeing him step on the court fills me with feelings of resentment.
The good news is, any sadness I feel about Ilyasova’s lowered quality of play is made up for by the happiness I feel when D.J. Wilson has a good game. Not only does he shoot threes with surprising accuracy given how his jumpshots look more like baseball pitches than actual arcing shots, but he can move his feet on defense (something that Ilyasova is completely incapable of at this point) and he goes high up for rebounds. As a young player, the bad sometimes outweighs the good with Wilson, but the good things are happening more and more frequently.
He picked the right game to get a career-high in, as this game was broadcast to television sets across the nation. Casual NBA fans tuning in to see a tense battle of Eastern Conference powerhouses are now aware of this guy in a way that they definitely weren’t before. We can only hope that they are aware that he is not a WNBA player despite his physical appearance.