Welcome to the Boxscores of the week! Every week I run down my picks of the five top boxscores of the week. For good measure, I also look at the bottom three. While production -- we use the Points Over Par metric -- does play a role in who I select, I also allow some subjectivity into my selection. With that in mind, here are our lists!
The Top Five Boxscores of the Week
| Player | Date | Minutes | PTS(TS%) | TRB | AST | TOV | STL | BLK | PF | PoP |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rudy Gobert | 1/16 | 34 | 23(79.9%) | 22 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 4 | 3 | 17.4 |
| Deandre Ayton | 1/17 | 35 | 15(76.8%) | 17 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 11.9 |
| Danny Green | 1/16 | 23 | 24(92.3%) | 7 | 3 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 14.8 |
| Nikola Jokic | 1/16 | 28 | 19(76.4%) | 11 | 12 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 3 | 12.6 |
| James Harden | 1/14 | 34 | 57(69.6%) | 9 | 2 | 5 | 2 | 1 | 4 | 13.3 |
1. Rudy Gobert gets the list with a 20-20 that is the best game of the week. What's that? He also put up four blocks, why not? The Jazz have been rolling and a huge part is Rudy Gobert who put up many great games last week.
2. Deandre Ayton gets the rookie spot of the week by having the best game of the night on the 17th against the best team in the East. I would have loved one more basket for a 17-17 or one more foul to have straight twos on the right side of the boxscore. Regardless, a good game.
3. Danny Green was one of the hidden gems in the Kawhi trade that honestly turned it from the Raptors ripping the Spurs off to the Raptors flat out robbing the Spurs. He had the second best game of the night and only lost out to Ayton due to competition. A lot of these good games this week were against the Suns and the Grizzlies.
4. Nikola Jokic returns to the list with the best triple-double of the week. A 12-1 assist to turnover ratio out of your center? Why not. An MVP worthy performance in only 28 minutes is par for the course with Jokic.
5. James Harden makes the list with the best scoring performance of the week. He's been carrying the offense with amazing efficiency. Sadly I don't think Harden can handle a starting lineup with Eric Gordon and Austin Rivers. We'll see.
Honorable Mention: Aaron Holiday put up a ridiculously efficient game in a mere 4.5 minutes of play. 5 points, two blocks, a rebound, and a steal! Not quite good enough for the list proper, but definitely deserving of a shout out.
The Bottom Three Boxscores of the Week
| Player | Date | Minutes | PTS(TS%) | TRB | AST | TOV | STL | BLK | PF | PoP |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Monte Morris | 1/15 | 14 | 2(14.3%) | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | -9.4 |
| Omri Casspi | 1/19 | 28 | 8(34%) | 4 | 1 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 3 | -12.8 |
| C.J. McCollum | 1/14 | 30 | 6(20.2%) | 6 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 2 | -11.6 |
1. Monte Morris had one of the worst games of the week in only fourteen minutes of play. My Nuggets fandom may have boosted his placement on this list. Still a horrible outing with only two points and a rebound to show for it? Ouch.
2. Omri Casspi puts up the worst game of the week. Many many missed shots, a 1-4 assist to turnover ratio and three fouls destroy the value of his rebounds, steal, and block. The Grizzlies are not good.
3. C.J. McCollum puts up the second worst scoring outing of the week. His 1-3 assist to turnover ratio puts him over the top though. Good job?
Honorable Mention: Bobby Portis actually had the worst scoring outing with a 1-11 shooting night against the Lakers on the 15th just missed beating out C.J. McCollum who took it with a worse overall performance. Good try!
The Top Boxscores Leaderboard
Reminder, I'm using an MVP voting scheme for, well, no reason in particular. So the best boxscore of the week gets 5 points, 2nd best 4, etc. For the bad boxscores, I'm doing -3,-2,-1. Here's an update of how things look.
| Player | Points | List Appearances |
|---|---|---|
| Giannis Antetokounmpo | 17 | 4 |
| Nikola Jokic | 14 | 4 |
| Anthony Davis | 12 | 3 |
| Stephen Curry | 10 | 4 |
| James Harden | 10 | 4 |
Giannis holds the lead but Jokic makes up ground, and Harden takes sole possession of the number five spot. In a shocking twist, I think there's a solid argument the above players deserve All-NBA first squad. We'll see!
Maybe next year I'll rethink the bad list as there's no movement on the leaderboard there - it's a tie between Carmelo Anthony and Donovan Mitchell. If Melo returns to the NBA though he could easily take the list on his own.
Alright, those are our lists. As always, let us know in the comments or on Twitter if you have any suggestions. You can also let us know if our selections were wrong, but it's too late to change things now! See you next week!
* Reminder, the Points over Par metric is just the Wins Produced formula translated into point margin. The way to think of it is -- how many points would a team win (or lose) by with our player's performance if they played next to an average team against an average opponent.