Derrick White’s 6 blocks in this game are the most in any single game by a guard this season, tied with Jrue Holiday. No other guard even has 5. Obviously, when it comes to guards and blocking shots, you’re getting a lot of strips and knockaways, which is a lot lamer than bigmen rejecting dunks and soaring for acrobatic denials. But these blocks are slightly better than average for his position, and there’s a lot of them, so I’m going to go out and say that this is one of the sickest performances of the year.
18 points. 9 assists. 6 blocks. If those numbers sound insane, it’s because they are. The last time someone had that many of all those categories was DeMarcus Cousins in 2015. Before that? Josh Smith (who should still be in the league) in 2008. Then Tim Duncan in 2003 and Tracy McGrady in 2000, and then a whole bunch of David Robinsons and Hakeem Olajuwons and Charles Barkleys, then a ton of Kareems and a Nate Thurmond. And that’s it. That’s how rare this kind of performance is. That is the company White finds himself in.
By the way, I just got guilted into citing basketball-reference for that data, so big ups to them for making it easy for me to cherry pick stats to make White look like some kind of transcendent all-around player.
In reality, it’s easy to get blocks when you’re guarding the midget known as Trae Young, it’s easy to get assists when you’re passing it to the laser known as Davis Bertans, and it’s easy to get buckets when you’re a sweet midrange shooter. In that sense, we should’ve expected more of all those stats. Maybe even a triple-double.