https://youtu.be/11rqE29BJmk
Skylar Mays before this game: 2 points, 2 rebounds, 1 assist.
Skylar Mays in this game: 20 points, 1 rebound (okay, just forget about the rebounds), 3 assists.
Skylar Mays after this game: 439 points, 4 rebounds, 95 assists.
That last line counts as an OFFICIAL DTB PREDICTION, by the way. That’s how many stats I think Mays will accumulate before the he jets off to Europe to play for Olympikakokasa or Fenhebreachehe or whatever, never to be seen in the NBA again. An optimistic prediction, I guess, since this guy was the 50th overall pick and hadn’t shown much of anything before this game, but who says that DownToBuck can’t be an optimist? His stat-getting will have to come on a team other than the Hawks, though. If present trends continue, by this time next year there will be an average of two possessions per game that isn’t used up by Trae Young, and those will be split between Tony Snell and Solomon Hill.
Much like you (in all likelihood, unless you are an LSU fan), this is my first chance to really get to see what Mays can do. It was the garbagiest of garbage time, or as the Ancient Romans called it, “quisquiliarum tempus”, so his performance comes with all the caveats and asterisks that you’d expect. But still: he scored 20 points in a real life NBA game, with real life NBA defenders trying to prevent him from scoring/diming. While he was playing, a 35-ish point deficit was cut nearly to single digits, and his +25 plus-minus was among the best of all players for the night, bested only by the ones who were playing for the Spurs while they smushed the Hawks starters. He played so well that he almost converted the garbage time back into regular time, stymied only by that damn game clock which interminably ticks down to zero.
But that’s life: clocks interminably ticking down to zero while we stand helplessly by and wail and the gods who have forsaken us.