https://youtu.be/1gbZy_zJW7U
This is not only Jalen McDaniel’s career high in the NBA (and probably college, as well as high school, I’m too lazy to check, but you might have to go back to him dominating 5-foot tall midgets as an unnaturally tall middle-schooler to find a time he scored this many points), this is his career high in the NBA by a LOT. His previous best scoring night? 11 points. 11 measly points. The measliest 11 points ever scored.
There is still excitement to be found, here, in the doldrums of the NBA season. Sure, for the most part all that’s going on right now is middling teams playing other middling teams while neither one really tries in front of a couple dozen methed-out in-arena observers. That’s what this game was, right? The Hornets versus the Thunder, two non-factors when it comes to teams who could theoretically make some noise in the ‘offs. But with Aleksej Pokusevski (the memiest “meme player” of the year for sure) and Jalen McDaniels “popping off” (as the kids say) for career highs, this was as exciting as a game like this could possibly be.
If you’re not a casual, that is. Casuals don’t care about Pokusevski, and they REALLY don’t care about McDaniels, so they wouldn’t be too enthused to hear that they both had career highs. Show them that Blake Griffin dunk from last night, though, and they’d freak out.
God, it makes me sick. Kind reminder to any casuals that might stumble on my videos: LEAVE. Just leave. Now.
This was a nice performance by McDaniels. Not anything super amazing, but nice. Solid. Workmanlike. Ignore the fact that he got brutally postered by Moses Brown while ill-advisedly attempting to take a charge. He hit some threes, something that he doesn’t do too often. A troubling amount of his points came off goaltends, but what are you gonna do? It’s not his fault that the twinny skinnies took turns messing with his stuff. Is there hope for this to continue? Maybe, if the Hornets keep starting him. But being a starter on the Hornets doesn’t automatically lead to points being scored. Just look at Nicolas Batum.
Now, on to more important matters: what even happened to KJ McDaniels?