I’m still working on my exclusion list (I swear one day I will finish it), and I haven’t gotten to Domantas Sabonis yet, but when I do, I’m going to have to have a long, honest conversation with myself over his eligibility on my channel of role-players and scrubs.
The fact of the matter is, he isn’t a scrub anymore (if he ever was), and he isn’t a role-player anymore. His current designation is “beast”. Role-players don’t average 19 and 14. That’s what All-Star bigmen average, and if Sabonis keeps this up, the All-Star game is where he’s going to be headed. Even if he doesn’t actually get selected to the game (which would probably be a snub but not a totally egregious one), how long can I justify showcasing a guy who is basically scoring 20 a game? I can only justify it with the “Lithuanian” excuse for so long.
His scoring has gone down a slight amount with Malcolm Brogdon out of the lineup, but I can’t foresee it going too much lower than where it’s already at. The season is far enough along that his current averages are probably going to be his averages for the rest of the year. Just constant big scoring games with Andre Drummond-like rebound numbers with a healthy amount of assists sprinkled in. He’s like Nikola Vucevic from last season except not as soft, and do you see Vucevic vids around here anymore? No. It pains me, but no.