P.J. “The Bulldozier” Dozier is quickly establishing himself as a rotation player for the Nuggles. After playing two games for the Thunder (two years ago) and six games for the Celtics (last year), I considered his chances at being a long-term fixture in the NBA as being extremely remote. And that’s not a dig at Dozier, that’s just what I automatically assume for players who can barely get into games as the fifteenth man off the bench.
The battlefield of NBA roster spots is riddled with the corpses of players who didn’t make it. The corpse of Arnett Moultrie has long since decomposed, while the corpse of Nicolas Brussino is still somewhat recognizable. It wasn’t unreasonable of me to assume that Dozier would crawl into that pile of cadavers and wait for the suffocating death-miasma to float him gently into the next stage of life, the stage known as “death”, where only a comforting black void awaits.
But the Bulldozier has exceeded my extremely low expectations of him so thoroughly that my expectations are now considerably higher for him, and it’s only been five games. If he’s not at least a third-string guard for an NBA team next year, I’ll be a monkey’s uncle. I don’t know what idiom is supposed to mean but I’m using it anyway.