I was hesitant to make this highlight video for Elfrid Payton because his 18/9/8 line was almost a triple-double, but not quite a triple-double. A lot of “almost triple doubles” are actually mediocre from a statistical perspective; this one is okay, but Payton neither scored twenty points nor got ten assists, so my first thought was that his performance didn’t meet the criteria for my channel. Since Payton highlight videos always end up way too long and always end up with way too few views, that should have been the end of the discussion.
But it wasn’t. I started feeling guilty just for THINKING about not making this video. Imagine the levels of guilt I would feel if I actually didn’t ever make it or upload it. I try not to feel guilty about vids that I skip over, but this one was hitting me different for some reason. The thought of Payton scrolling through my channel with tears running down his face as he realizes that he’s been ignored was cutting me so deep, like a razor-sharp blade stabbed right through my soul. So I buckled down and made the video, and I’m not exactly happy about it, but at least I’m not plagued by guilt that would follow me until my death.
And if you think about it, Payton totally would have gotten his trippy-dubby if he had played in the fourth quarter. Mike Miller basically stole this trippy-dubby away from him.