Is it wrong of me to feel like these middling scoring performances from Sviatoslav Mykhailiuk are no longer exciting me? Sure, this game ties a career high in points, and sets a new career high in field goals with six, but, still…it’s just fifteen points. It’s not a crime to want a role-player who apparently has some scoring ability to score more points than this.
And if Mykhailiuk is going to drop a twenty-burger at any point in the near future, it has to be right now. Luke Kennard is out, which means that there’s plenty of shooting guard minutes to go around. Case in point: Mykhailiuk got 32 minutes in this game. There’s no way he ever gets that amount of minutes with Kennard back in the rotation, and since Mykhailiuk is very low-volume, he needs all the court time he can get. He’s not going to microwave his way to twenty points in twenty minutes.
If Mykhailiuk insists on continuing to score in the low-teens no matter how many minutes he gets, I’m going to have to put my foot down and say NO MORE. No more highlight videos until he scores at least sixteen. I apologize to all Ukrainians and to all Detroit Pistons fans (the few that are still around and watching games) who are caught in the crossfire of this decision, but sometimes tough love is the only way to get these players to play up to their scoring potential.