https://youtu.be/vd9JVhRMmQM
The Grizzlies blew the Clippers out of this game even though the leading scorer on the winning side was frickin’ Tyus Jones with twenty. Jones also happened to outscore everybody on the losing side, making him the undisputed MVP of the game.
That’s nuts when you think about it, but what’s even more nuts is that Jones, who is not even close the NBA’s most dreadful scorer, took six years and 340 career games to break the twenty-point barrier. What the heck. It’s entirely possible, likely even, that he plays six more seasons and 400 more games and doesn’t break twenty again. Clearly, this video depicts a spectacular occurrence that is unlikely to be repeated, so why am I so underwhelmed when I watch it? It’s like my brain can’t be made to comprehend the historical significance of Jones’ twenty-burger.
To put the numbers into perspective, in the time that Tyus Jones has been in the league (since the 2015-16 season), there have been 18,561 separate instances of a player scoring twenty or more points in a regular-season NBA game. Only one of those is Tyus Jones, and, up until last night, ZERO of those were Tyus Jones. I don’t know how many individual players scored twenty in that time period, but it’s a lot. Is it a thousand? The math eludes me. Certainly, most players who have played roles as large as Jones has for as long as Jones has have had substantially more twenty-burgers than Jones has.
What I’m saying is, you gotta watch this damn video, even if you don’t really want to, and even if I don’t really recommend it.