https://youtu.be/GE7JCBEXbtw
The Miles Bridges experience of last year was a weird one. He was scoring points, sometimes a lot, sometimes less than a lot, but in the end his pointage was way up from his rookie season. But his increased scoring seemed only to lead to increased losses for the Hornets. No one, anywhere, even in Charlotte, thought that he was a good player. I’m hearing shadow-figures on the edge of my consciousness whisper “empty stats” directly into my auditory cortex, but I will ignore them.
Things are better for him this season. His per-game scoring is down, initially leading my brain (which is afflicted with the condition known as “perma-dumb”) to conclude that he had regressed. Far from it! Looking at his shart (shot-chart) from this year to his shart (shot-chart) from last year, it’s clear what has happened: he’s taken out the mini-midrange attempts from his repertoire. He was horrible at hitting them, now he doesn’t even try, going from 48 percent 2-point shooting to 61 percent, and the end result is that he’s top 20 in the entire league in effective field goal percentage. I don’t know what effective field goal percentage is (remember, I have the perma-dumb), but if it’s anything like regular field goal percentage, higher numbers are better, and Bridges’ number is one of the best.
It also helps that he’s shooting almost 40 percent from three, and a fairly ridiculous 87 percent from the line. He’s basically gotten way more efficient in every facet of scoring. Why am I noticing this just now? It’s because my brain is defective, and also I think I was blinded from the hype from certain other players on the roster who maybe aren’t getting to play any more. Yeah, I’m talking about Gordon Hayward. And Nate Darling.
Now the Hornets are fairly banged up, and scoring has to come from somewhere. If Bridges was content taking a backseat for a lot of the season, he has to stop being content, unbuckle himself, crawl into the drivers’ seat, punch out whoever is currently occupying that seat (probably Terry Rozier), take the wheel, and drive this tank straight to the holy land. Who said the crusades were over? This crusade is just getting started, with a career-high 33 points from the new tank commander.
Why do I have a bad feeling that this crusade will end with the Hornets sneaking into fifth seed and beating the Bucks in the first round?