I have not been kind to Thon Maker over the years. Even when he was terrorizing DeMar DeRozan in the playoffs, I always judged him to be a skinny, easily-pushed-around big man with stone hands and the unearned backing of Kevin Garnett. And I still judge him that way. But it’s good to see him actually have a good game now that Andre Drummond isn’t in the picture anymore to take his minutes.
Whether Maker gets to have minutes that are considered “his”, and thus are able to be taken away from him by other players, is up for debate. Again, I judge him so harshly that I think his default state should be DNP-CD’s, so he really doesn’t have minutes to call his own.
Given that the bigman rotation in Detroit is basically just Maker, Wood, and Doumbouya, I’m looking forward to more games like this from Maker in the future. If he has a big role, which it definitely seems like he will going forward, he is skilled enough to score somewhere around fifteen points at least some of the time. He’s not “skilled” per se, since the skills he does have are hidden by his inability to control the ball, but he’s skilled enough to generate some points if he gets the ball often enough.
Kevin Garnett is probably watching this video on his phone while sitting on his couch and nodding in approval. Hopefully he’s not doing anything more explicit than nodding.