My fear is that the end result of Mike “Elon Musc” Muscala’s career is going to be him being placed fifth on a list that some garbage clickbait sports website pumps out called “Top 50 Worst Scrubs That LeBron Ever Played With”. Surpassed only my Martynas Adriuskevicius, Kostas Antetokounmpo, Eddie House, and Drew Gooden.
He wasn’t even that bad for the Lakers. Not great, but not utterly tragic or anything. It’s just that everyone had really high expectations for him (the highlight vids I made for him had something to do with that, I’m sorry) and the Lakers gave up a lot to get him. I’ve hardly ever seen such a marginal role-player be scapegoated so hard.
Anyway, now he’s in Oklahoma City, and he’s for real playing badly. Lots of DNPs and low-minute appearances, and for most of the season he was shooting very badly from deep. Basically the only thing he did so far for the Thunder was show up and hit four threes against the Bucks, an occasion that I remember well. Actually, I don’t remember the threes clearly, but I do remember the RAGE. Good thing the Bucks won that game, I think I would die if Muscala was responsible for a Bucks loss.
With Steven Adams going down early with some sort of knee injury in this game, the Thunder needed someone to step up. Nerlens Noel was already out, Justin Patton isn’t going to step up, I don’t know who Kevin Hervey is, so that left Musky. And step up he did. 17 points, by far a season high, the Thunder didn’t win the game, but at least he put up some numbers to give the fans some hope that he won’t be total garbo for the whole season. The best kind of hope.