Look at these numbers. Just look at them:
Miles Bridges 2018-19: 71 dunks.
Miles Bridges 2019-20: 47 dunks.
Those numbers are totally unacceptable for a young player who is supposed to be showing rapid improvement. As the provider of the finest dunk compilations (“dunkilations”) anywhere to be found in the Internetubes, I demand more dunkage of the mean and naughty variety.
“B-b-b-b-but DEE TEE BEE!!!” you pitifully screech from your basement-hovel, a platter of Totino’s pizza rolls falling from its place on your belly as you stand up with indignance. The pudge on your body, clothed only a stained pair of tighty-whities, quivers as you struggle to command your neurons to complete the next phrase of your rebuttal. Finally, more illiterate drivel spills from your lips like the drool you leave on your pillow every night. “Miles Bridges played in fewer games this season! That’s why he has fewer dunks! Did you forget about a little thing called the CORONAVIRUS???” Your repulsive snorting laughter, piglike in timbre, echoes through your parent’s basement as you congratulate yourself on how thoroughly you have “owned” that no-name third-rate highlight-maker known as DownToBuck.
Ha. Haha. Ha. You have not “owned” me. DownToBuck cannot be “owned” because DownToBuck never espouses an opinion that is not 100% based in hard, factual, truth. In fact, DownToBuck’s opinions are more like “facts” than “opinions”.
After careful calculation, I have come up with following numbers:
Miles Bridges 2018-19 dunking rate: one dunk every 23.9 minutes of court time.
Miles Bridges 2019-20 dunking rate: one dunk every 42.4 minutes of court time.
Now you can see the issue at play here. Even your mathematically-challenged brain can recognize how one number is much smaller than the other.
For some reason, Miles Bridges was dunking it way less this season despite having a much more prominent role on the Hornets. I have come up with a list of reasons why this might be. Remember, when DTB says things that most people would consider to be “opinions”, they’re actually “facts”, so don’t bother trying to correct me. Facts, by their very nature, cannot be corrected.
Also remember that I dunk all the time in pickup games at stuff, so I know all about dunking and how to dunk good. Ask anybody. They’ll tell you. DTB stands for Dunks Tons of Basketballs.
DUNK REGRESSION REASON #1: NO MORE KEMBA WALKER. Devonte’ Graham is good, in fact he’s pretty good, but he’s not Kemba Walker. Yet.
DUNK REGRESSION REASON #2: PRESENCE OF TERRY ROZIER. Hornets fans assure me that, while Rozier has stats that look okay, he actually sucks. His on-off numbers bear this out: the Hornets are a cool -9.5 points per 100 possessions worse while Rozier’s sneakers are touching the hardwood. This negative effect would naturally affect Bridges’ ability to get the ball in positions where he can dunk it.
DUNK REGRESSION REASON #3: COMMENTATORS TOO HYPE. Bridges knows that the Hornets’ commentators, Eric Collins and Dell Curry, are sitting on the edge of their seats waiting for him to dunk it so they can get super hyped up on the broadcast. Putting this extra pressure on himself causes Bridges to second-guess himself repeatedly during game action.
DUNK REGRESSION REASON #4: TRYING TO BE A MORE “COMPLETE” PLAYER. Wing players who can only dunk are never long for the league. See: Alonzo Gee (ignore his relative longevity). Also see: Jeremy Evans. By trying to add more facets to his game (like “shooting”, “passing”, and “not dunking”), Bridges became less focused on the strengths of his game, which are dunking, catching alley oops, and dunking.
DUNK REGRESSION REASON #5: TEAM SUCKS BALLS. This is kind of related to reasons #1 and #2. It’s hard to get space to dunk the ball when all your teammates suck balls, giving their defenders no reason to stick to them.
DUNK REGRESSION REASON #6: RIMS ARE AN INCH HIGHER AND I’M THE ONLY ONE WHO NOTICED. How has nobody pointed this out? The NBA clearly raised the rims from ten feet off the floor to ten feet and one inch off the floor. That might not seem like a lot but it totally is. I have no idea what Adam Silver’s endgame is here. Soon I will upload to my channel the grainy video I have of him where he’s snickering to himself after a press conference. He’s snickering because he’s thinking about how he’s ruining Miles Bridges’ career.
DUNK REGRESSION REASON #7: APATHY. Miles Bridges has to WANT IT MORE. He needs to be HUNGRY. HUNGRY FOR DUNKS. I’m hungry for dunks all the time so why can’t he be similarly hungry? Simply put, he needs to try harder. This is a coaching failure too since James Borrego clearly didn’t yell at Bridges enough.
If Bridges and the Hornets organization work on these things over the off-season, next year’s dunkilation will be appropriately sick. For now, however, you get this dunkilation which is still sick but also too short to be truly SICK.