I don’t think many people noticed that JaKarr Sampson was playing with the Kings last year. He did some things, but his most notable achievement was getting absolutely posterized by Zach LaVine. That’s not a good “most notable achivement” to have. I regretted during the offseason not making a vid for at least one of his 11-point performances, if only to immortalize his time with the Kings, and I still regret that, but now the regret is less.
Because he’s dominating right now with the Bulls. 20 points per game is a statistical milestone that many NBA players with long careers never reach, never even come close to reaching. But Sampson says “no problem, I don’t need a team around just give me the ball and I’ll give you buckets”. I mean, he’s used to scoring in G-League settings, so having a G-League team surrounding shouldn’t affect him too much, and it isn’t. 22 points in his debut (also tying a career high), 18 points in his antedebut. For a player like Sampson, those are insane scoring numbers. I hope Bulls fans are appreciating what they’re seeing with Sampson, but I think they’re too busy jizzing their pants over Walt Lemon to care much about what the other random role-players that litter the Bulls roster are doing right now.
Role-players including Brandon Sampson, who really confused me by scoring his four points in this game before JaKarr got on the board. I temporarily forgot that Chicago has the NBA’s full compliment of players named Sampson. And if you’re curious, yes, we did get the much-anticipated Sampson-Sampson connection in this game. The commentators didn’t notice, oddly, but I did. I did and I loved it.