Fourteen points is Wes Iwundu’s career-high. Twice last year (his rookie year) he scored twelve points (both times receiving a highlight video from yours truly; sadly, both videos were lost in the termination of my previous channel). I honestly wouldn’t have been surprised if twelve remained his career-high, because nothing about Iwundu’s game screams “capable scorer”. But here we are. He scored fourteen on just three made shots, notching a new career high and earning himself a shiny new highlight video in the process.
The comparison I feel compelled to draw with Wes Iwundu is Stanley Johnson. Except it’s a Stanley Johnson who has absolutely no hype or expectations surrounding him. If you’ll remember, Johnson was a highly-touted scorer in high school, which makes his current scoring woes very disappointing. As far as I know, Iwundu was never viewed as an elite prospect, so his inability to score consistently at the NBA level is just a fact of life. I doubt even Iwundu himself is disappointed in himself.
Both Johnson and Iwundu are “defenders”. I put “defenders” in scare quotes because I don’t care about defense, and therefore have no ability to identify who is a defender and who isn’t a defender. I rely on people to tell me these things. In Iwundu’s case, I totally believe he’s a defense-first player, because if he was an offense-first player, his offense is bad enough that he wouldn’t have a spot in the league. By rule, everybody in the NBA brings something to the table, and for Iwundu that’s defense. Probably. Please tell me if I’m wrong so I can steal your information/opinions/observations and use them as if I had come up with them myself.