At this point, there’s really only one logical reason for why Jim Boylen doesn’t give Denzel Valentine any minutes except in extreme circumstances:
Jim Boylen went all of elementary school without receiving even a single valentine.
That’s gotta be the reason. There can be no other reason. I’ve given it, like, ten minutes of thoughts and no other reasons are coming to me. Valentine isn’t a fantastic player, but he’s way too good to be getting DNP-CD’s half the time. However, since Jim Boylen went from kindergarten all the way to fifth grade without getting any valentines at all, not even one, in the little valentine box on his desk, he takes out his childhood agony and embarrassment on the player who shares a name with that cursed day.
Boylen would have went to school before the (now common) practice was established that every kid gets every other kid in his/her class a valentine on Valentine’s Day. In those days, valentines were given solely on merit. If you were an ugly, fat, or unlikable kid, nobody would give you valentines. I thought it was cruel when Michael in first grade made fun of the Space Jam valentine he got from me (I can still hear him mockingly reading from it and laughing: “You make my heart spiiiiiiiin!”), but it would have been way more crushing to not get any valentines from anybody. I at least got valentines from all my crushes, and even though I knew that they didn’t really like me in that way, I could look at the valentine from them and pretend. Boylen couldn’t even pretend that anybody liked him.
So there you have it. Boylen’s unresolved childhood trauma is ruining Valentine’s career and there’s nothing anybody can do about it. You could send him a million valentines right now but that wouldn’t make up for the zero valentines he received during his formative years.
Also, I hate you Michael. It’s not my fault the Space Jam valentine had a stupid saying on the inside. I bet you whacked it later to the picture of Lola Bunny you loser.