The Grizzlies’ season is over. As we speak they are packing up their stuff and being forcibly ejected out of the bubble. With no international competition to look forward to this summer, Jonas Valanciunas will probably just work out by himself until the league starts back up (whenever that is). Maybe he’ll come back with a three-point shot that he’s more confident with in-game. Maybe he’ll come back with refined dribble moves. Maybe he’ll come back with a mullet. Maybe he’ll come back with an entire novel written in Lithuanian on a typewriter in a cabin in the woods. Nobody knows.
When he does come back, however, I want him to get thirty minutes per game. That is the stipulation I am placing on whoever is coaching him next season: 30 MPG for Valanciunas or I get very angry. Valanciunas has never played 30 MPG for an entire season even though he’s extremely effective in limited minutes. You would think some coach would try to make him “the star” or at least “the sidekick to the star” but no coach has ever tried. Next year I want them to try.
Another unrelated question: how is the NBA counting the stats from the playoff play-in game? Was this is a postseason game? What it a regular-season game? Was it both? Was it neither? I’m glad I don’t work at basketball-reference. It would be a huge pain in the ass to code a whole new feature for the site just for a one-off thing that might not ever happen again. To go through the whole development/review/testing/deployment process so that this game can stand by itself in some unvisited, obscure corner of the site? Screw that. If I were them I would stick this game at the end of the regular season (since the regular season was so screwed up anyway) and just be done with it.