D.J. Wilson continues his quest to enter into the realms of NBA legendry, resolutely refusing to get fouled as he has now played 101 minutes and shot 38 times without attempting a single free throw. The record for a whole season, as basketball-reference has kindly informed me, is Mike Miller of the 2015-16 Nuggets. Close behind are Luke Walton in 2011-12 playing for the Lakers and Cavaliers, and Damjan Rudez of the 2016-17 Magic. I made videos for all those dudes in those respective years, so I’m pretty sure I’ve brought up this stat before.
Wilson is a little bit more active in the paint than those other dudes, so I can’t see his free-throw-less streak going on for too much longer. He’s pretty soft, though, and absolutely sucks at taking any sort of contact whatsoever, so perhaps he can keep it going.
Since Wilson is a Bucks player, and I’m a dutiful Bucks fan, I will never not be hyped for him, no matter how soft he is or how wonked-out his shooting form looks. My hype was validated last year, as he got a surprising amount of playing time during the middle of the season and looked like a nice defensive player. Still soft, but willing to be active and to use his long wingspan to disrupt things (in the traditional Bucks fashion). His offense was hit or miss, mostly miss, but there was definite improvement from year one to year two.
This year, the Bucks don’t really have a spot in the rotation for him unless injuries happen. But with Brook Lopez out temporarily, a ton of bigman minutes have opened up, and Wilson has absolutely capitalized, to my great glee. It helps that both of these last two games have been totally ridiculous blowouts of the most extreme caliber, but Wilson has looked decent-ish shooting the ball. Especially tonight, which was way more than decent. 8-for-9 shooting, a career-high in scoring, all featuring his trademark “flat catapult” jumper and the most authoritative dunk I’ve ever seen him throw down, right over Mitchell Robinson.