Sekou “The Fires of Mount Doum” Doumbouya had a spurt of good games at the beginning of this month, but for the past two weeks or so, his scoring has dropped off a cliff. There was even the threat from his coach of being sent back down to the G-League, which is basically the NBA equivalent of being sent to the gulags in Siberia to manufacture railroad ties until you die from exposure. That hasn’t happened yet, and with this seventeen-point outing, Doumbouya may have forestalled that terrible fate.
Inconsistency is expected from all rookies, but if a player is going to suck for an extended period of time, sometimes it’s best to send them back to the minor leagues so they can beat up on scrubs for a while. There are some players whose games don’t translate well to the G-League, so if you send them down there, you just break their confidence even more, but Doumbouya is a pretty good G-League player, so you don’t have to worry about that.
Counterpoint: Pistons fans don’t have a lot going for them right now. Doumbouya might be the sole reason that fans are watching/showing up to games. If you banish him to the G-League affiliate (which is probably in Saginaw or something), you might be faced with empty arenas and plummeting television ratings. It’s better to just let him play through his struggles and hope that selling Doumbouya jerseys in the pro shop can offset some of Blake Griffin’s contract.