Dillon Brooks likes to shoot. A lot. After shooting 26 times against the Rockets last game (feeling some envy of Harden, perhaps?), he shot 22 times in this loss to the Kings. The game before that? Seven shots.
Wait. That ruins my narrative. Forget I ever said anything. Where’s the backspace key on this goddamn keyboard again? I knew I would regret getting the mechanical keyboard with no letters on the keys. I thought having a blank keyboard would make me look like a l33t hax0r to all my friends that come over, but then it turned out that I never have friends come over. Me and my damnable hubris, huh?
Anyway, Brooks is a shooter before anything else. He’s thirtieth in the league in shots attempted per 36 minutes – if the NBA was a pure meritocracy, that would mean that Brooks is the thirtieth best scorer in the league, and the only players above him in that stat would be the ones who are better scorers than him. But the NBA is not a pure meritocracy, and Brooks’ ranking on that list is not indicative of his true value as a player. He’s right up there with the Devin Bookers and Khris Middletons of the world in terms of shot-taking, but his value isn’t at that level. Will it ever be at that level? Before this season my answer to that question would have been a resounding “NO”, but now it’s more of like a “ehhhh…mayyyyybe….”.
That’s high praise coming from DTB.