Kevin “Prime Nikola Jokic” Huerter is, if you couldn’t tell by his nickname (which he has had since he was in high school, I definitely did not come up with it just now or anything), is playing like a prime Nikola Jokic in the last few games. And if by “last few games”, you mean “tonight only”.
Actually, I just looked it up, and you can forget about the Nikola Jokic thing. Replace that fat scrub with Giannis Antetokounmpo. Kevin “Prime Giannis Antetokounmpo” Huerter has a better ring to it, in my opinion, and is way more accurate to boot. The only players to have at least 23 points, 15 rebounds, and 8 assists in a single game this season are Giannis (5 times) and Karl-Anthony Towns (once). The trend favoring Giannis in this not-cherry-picked-at-all stat was true last year as well. Jokic, in reality, only has 6 of these games in his career.
23 points for Huerter is not unexpected, he’s probably going to be averaging that in a few years. 8 assists is a little more unexpected, since it is a career-high, but still within the realm of reason, because he’s flashed good passing skills throughout his career. But 15 rebounds? He’s had a couple of 10-rebound performances (including one in his third ever game), but 15 is a full 50 percent more reboundage than that. So what’s the deal?
The deal is that Huerter discovered, as so many player have, that if you want rebounds, you can have rebounds. All you have to do is go by the basket once a shot is taken and try to grab the ball. That’s all there is to it. Sometimes there isn’t even anyone challenging you for the ball and you can just take it and it still counts as a full rebound. Not trying to diminish his performance here, far from it. Just saying, the 8 assists are way cooler.