I was perfectly happy with what Kelly Oubre was doing on the Suns, but I guess I shouldn’t have (note: shouldn’t’ve is apparently, not acceptable English according to the grand arbiters of spellcheck) been, because he’s been way more exciting in Phoenix. All that was needed to unlock this excitement was a bad team, though not the same kind of bad team that the ‘Zards were, instead the kind of bad team like the Suns who know they are bad and don’t really care. There’s a sense of freedom that happens when you know that there are no expectations placed on you, and in Washington the all-encompassing feeling of failing to meet those expectations was dragging everyone down.
Oubre has upped his scoring in his new locale, although I’m sad to see that his three-point shooting hasn’t gotten any better. Luckily, I think I know what the problem is: he’s not proud to own the three-point zone. He just isn’t. You can tell he doesn’t stand with Fulton Homes and their mission to donate 100 dollars to Suns charities. He likes making threes, sure, because everyone likes making threes. But he isn’t PROUD to make them. That’s the problem. There’s no incentive for him to be better at them. If he finds within his heart a deep-seated LOVE for Fulton Homes, then we can see him trend upward from the barely above 30 percent he’s shooting now.
In the meantime, he can continue trying to dunk on everybody all the time. It’s harder on the body, dunking so much, which is why in the old days no one ever did it (until Kareem, known as Lew, came and made the NCAA ban it). Three-point chucking is easier on the knees, and it shows up better on the boxscore (there needs to be a “dunks” column for real), but when the shots aren’t going in, dunks are almost a guaranteed two points. Unless you’re Marquese Chriss.