I asked this before and I didn’t get an answer, so I’ll ask again: where the heck was Sekou Doumbouya for the first half of the season? I mean, I know where he was: he was in Dwane Casey’s doghouse, which isn’t just a metaphorical or allegorical doghouse, but a real human-sized doghouse that is placed at the end of the bench for rookies and other “unplayables” to go in. That’s where Doumbouya spent most of the first half of the season, dressed up like a Chihuahua and sitting in the doghouse.
My question was meant to be like, why was he in the doghouse? We know he was there, but why? Did he do something bad? That’s usually why people (or dogs) get put in doghouses. But the main reason should be obvious to anyone who has paid attention to Casey’s coaching over the years: he just hates rookies. Maybe “hates” is putting it strongly, more like he doesn’t trust rookies to play in games without really messing up.
But the thing with young rookies who are raw but also talented, is that you have to put them out there in real games so that they can smooth out the rough edges. Just having them rot on the bench isn’t going to make them improve. It’s possible Doumbouya improved a bit while watching all the games from the sideline, but I bet he could’ve been doing stuff like this the whole year if he got the chance.
It’s also possible that the only reason he’s good right now is because he used some arcane Guinean magic on Blake Griffin, sapping him of his powers like in Space Jam and taking those powers for himself. That would explain a lot, but I’m pretty sure magic like this doesn’t exist except in the movies.
Casey’s really looking dumb now; with Doumbouya playing decent minutes the whole season, the Pistons might have a few (or a lot) more wins if this game is anything to go by. The Pistons, who aren’t even that good, just totally beat down a Celtics team that IS good (even if they were missing Jayson Tatum). And it was because of the heroic combined efforts of Sviatoslav Mykhailiuk and Doumbouya, who dropped 24 on 10-for-13 from the field. Who cares that he only had 2 rebounds, 1 assist, and 1 steal to go along with that? When you’re scoring that efficiently, you don’t need to do anything else.