P.J. Dozier had scored a grand total of seven points and played a grand total of seventeen minutes in his career before this game happened. Not exactly illustrious numbers, but they’re NBA numbers, which means that they are illustrious in a certain sense even if they compare unfavorably to most other NBA numbers you could find.
Last season, he played three minutes in two games with the Thunder. I’m sure I was vaguely aware of it while it was happening, but, by the time the opportunity to make this highlight video rolled around, I had totally forgotten about it and I thought he was a rookie. Wrong! This guy’s got NBA experience and intimately knows how an NBA locker room is supposed to function. I don’t know what the threshhold for being considered a “veteran presence” in the locker room is, but Dozier is at least part of the way there if not fully there already.
It goes without saying that a game where a player nearly doubles the previous point output of his career, and does double the amount of minutes he played, and also multiplies by infinity the amount of assists he has in his career, is the best game of his career. That’s what Dozier did with his twelve points and five assists in 37 minutes. Imagine if Stephen Curry doubled his career point total in a single game. He would score around 30,000 points. That alone should let you know how sick this performance from Dozier is.