While Dwyane Wade says his emotional farewell to Heat fans in the form of a 30-burger, while Dirk Nowitzki does the same as Jamal Crawford clings to his back and screams “but I can score 50!”, TNT was busy showing an exciting matchup between a totally checked-out Wizards team and a Celtics team that was resting all of its good players. I’m imagining all the TNT execs sitting in a conference room with guns in their mouths as the epicity of last night unfolded. Something about the timing didn’t work out with showing those more exciting games, but hey, they shouldn’t be so sad. Now people all across America can think to themselves “wow, R.J. Hunter is a legit player, I hadn’t heard anything about him since that game winner in college!”.
They don’t even know that this is the first game he’s appeared in this season. And the last, at least in the regular season, because the Celtics don’t have any more games to play after this one that aren’t of the playoff variety. They also don’t know that he really isn’t a legit player, but he sure does shoot (maybe not make) like one.
Hunter is the king of the final game of the season. Last year, with the Rockets, after not making a shot in any of his previous four appearances, he was unleashed, scoring 19 points and taking tons of shots. And it’s happened again. Which brings up an interesting philosophical question: how valuable is a player who is GUARANTEED to give you fifteen points in the season finale but literally will not score any other time? How big of a contract does such a player get?