Keys to the Palace: Tweet Evaluations

So Nick Young doesn’t play in the only Loss for the week – - – but puts up 20 points in the last two games, playing pretty good defense…..while hitting 50% of his 3-pointers……. and the Wizards win both games (in no small part due to their bench play). He plays only about 17 minutes per game – and he gets Locked out?

Pretty tough place to get into… this Palace….

even though he stunk up the joint in the NJ game….. and couldn’t do squat to keep the Wizards from losing to the Lakers….

Oh – but he DID manage to come up with some huge stats in the win against the Knicks with 23 points (on 38% shooting…. ) and 23 rebounds (with like 10 missed offensive tips)….He managed to miss his only 3-pointer and shot a dismal 33% from the FT line. But he did have 3 assists (is that a career high for AJ?)

Haywood shoots 72% for the week, averages 8 rebounds per game….a shade under 9 points per game (right around a point less than his yearly average of 9.7)… and he can’t get a key?

The reason I gave Nick a lock was because of the DNP against the Lakers. Yes, he played some inspired ball in the final two games, but I can’t shake that the reason he played so well is because he was motivated to show he could play after getting benched. It’s just a vicious cycle with the bench where they play poorly until Flip takes away their playing time, then they play well again to get their minutes back, get complacent, and lose their minutes again. I guess more than anything I gave Nick a lock because he can’t get out of this cycle, but he did very well in the final two games.

Jamison got a key because a 20-20 game is a 20-20 game. Yes, it was due in part to missing a bunch of shots, but he was there co clean up his mistakes. Missing a shot, collecting your own rebound, and then putting it in leads to just as many points per possession as scoring on the first shot attempt.

Haywood getting a guest pass was a victim of grading on a curve. He had a good week, but there have been so many other weeks where he’s really blown me away and this week he was solid, but not spectacular.