Jonas Valanciunas has been kind of dominating lately. He was apparently so sick (I know that feeling, gotta watch out with that seafood from the iffy-looking Chinese place) the last two games that he couldn’t play, and was still feeling a little woozy in this one. It didn’t matter. His recent statlines:
30 points, 16 rebounds versus Clippers
22 points, 17 rebounds versus Jazz
DNP – Captain Trips
DNP – Dead
32 points, 13 rebounds versus Bulls.
He is truly, for really real this time, being unleashed. This is what we’ve been begging for lo these 7 seasons. It’s finally happening. For how much longer, I do not know. But I do know that no one will ever be able to stop from saying “I was around for those few games where Jonas Valanciunas was unleashed, and I swear, he looked like prime Shaq out there). That is the truth that I will now be able to utter. And you, too, once you watch all my vids for those games.
His domination is not helping the Grizzlies win games, but that is hardly his fault. His detractors might have some nebulous, unsubstantiated claims about his “defense”, or lack of it. But here’s the deal: it’s not called defenseball. It’s called basketball, because the point of it is to get baskets. Andrea Bargnani said something about it not being called reboundball, but he was actually wrong about that. Rebounds are something Valanciunas is good at, thus, they are important for the purposes of this description.