Jonas Valanciunas’ 25 field goal attempts in this game easily surpasses his previous career-high of twenty attempts. That’s an increase of either 20% or 25% over his previous record, depending on whether you trust “DTB Math” or you trust “Math Done By People Who Know How To Do Math” (hint: DTB Math is more likely to tell you the numbers that you want to hear. Take that nerds).
Now, I’m all in favor of Valanciunas getting featured in the Grizzlies’ offense. That’s exactly what I want to be happening right now. He should be getting touches constantly when he is on the court. That said, 25 field goal attempts seems like a bit much. Some of them were doomed offensive rebound putbacks, but the majority were just run-of-the-mill attempts to score the ball. Again, I’m not saying that Valanciunas needs to take fewer shots, but I am saying that he should take care not to become a black hole that no teammate can retrieve the ball from. The last center who did that with any amount of success was Al Jefferson (ignoring Joel Embiid for now).
Maybe I’m worrying prematurely. After all, this Grizzlies team was not designed with success in mind, and there aren’t a lot of players who can be expected to shoulder a significant amount of the scoring load. Valanciunas can, so he is. Besides, what better way to increase the profile of the NBA in Lithuania than turn one of their own countrymen into a nightly 20/10 threat by forcefeeding him the ball?