Frank Ntilkina has been hovering around an average of ten points per 36 minutes all three years he’s been in the league. This season, that puts him at 263 out of 287 players who meet the unknowable qualification criteria for appearing on basketball-reference’s per-36 scoring leaderboards (by the way, Kenrich Williams really sucks).
Ntilkina’s shooting percentages are higher than ever (he finally cracked the mythical 40% mark with this game), but he’s shooting fewer shots than ever, so his scoring rate is staying the same. Paradoxically, he’s progressing and regressing at the same time. I’ve spent some time trying to figure out why Ntilkina’s scoring isn’t developing like it should be, and I think I’ve found the answer. CONFIDENCE.
Confidence is something that all young NBA players need, but not all of them have it. Some young players have it until their coach takes it away from them. Whether or not Ntilikina ever had it is an open question, but he clearly doesn’t have it now or he would be shooting more often. Luckily, I’ve developed a proprietary CONFIDENCE SERUM that I’m willing to sell to the Knicks organization for the low low price of $100,000 per dose.
Once the Confidence Serum is loaded into a syringe, all you have to do is tell Ntilikina it’s a vaccination and then inject it in his buttockal region. Once the Serum is flowing through his veins, he will have confidence that he didn’t have before. It really is that easy.
My Serum is not FDA-approved because I don’t know how to get things approved by the FDA, but I’ve tested it on myself a bunch of times. Since I don’t go outside ever, I don’t know how well it worked, but I definitely felt more confident while sitting at my computer making highlight videos. I also gave some to Japurri, but there’s no female cats around for him to try to mate with, so he just slept in a sunbeam. Maybe I should inject him (and me) with some more and then make a visit to the cute latina who lives in the apartment above mine. She has a girl cat and then we could see if Japurri has any game or if he’s a loser like me.
So, yeah, if anybody in the Knicks organization is reading this, make a check payable to “Mr. DownToBuck” and I’ll send you the stuff. When Ntilikina wins MIP on the back of his improved play, make sure my name gets engraved on the trophy somewhere.