Yes. Yes. Yes! YES! YEEEESSSSSSSSS! AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!
This is what we’ve all been waiting for. Walt Lemon. In the NBA. Doing things. Yes, I’m aware that he did some things with the Pelicans last year. Do you not think I would be aware of something like that? I was aware. Acutely. However, he did not do enough things to warrant an entire highlight video. His only DTB appearance came in the end-of-season first-bucket-from-every-player video, where he earned the dubious distinction of “garbagiest shot that somehow went in”.
He was on the Celtics earlier this season, but they gave up on him (just like what happened to Dwight Powell). It took a while, but the Bulls picked him up to give the fans something to cheer for while they trot out some of the tankiest rotations I’ve ever seen. This is what I love for; tanking teams desperately trying to out-tank the other awful teams by assembling the jankiest (rhymes with tankiest) players they can find into one abhorrent construct. The casual fan will be hard-pressed to recognize more than one or two names who played for the Bulls tonight. Robin Lopez, maybe. Ryan Arcidiacono, really maybe. Other than that? I don’t blame you for not knowing much about Rawle Alkins or Brandon Sampson.
But back to Lemon. I am pretty much speechless over his performance in this game. He didn’t make any perimeter shots, but why would you need to when you can just go into the paint and make tough layups all night? Add this dude to the list of guys who have abused Jeremy Lin this season. Lemon’s finish at the end of the first half was legitimately SICK as HECK. The fact that there was no replay makes me mad. Maybe there was one floating around somewhere else in the game, but I wasn’t quite mad enough to scour the whole game looking for something that might not even be there.
Now, it turns out that Lemon is already 26 years old. I imagined him to be a lot younger, but that’s okay. I’m still more hyped for him than I have been for a Bulls player since Ryan Arcidiacono briefly looked and played liked the American Steve Nash.