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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| James Harden | 2/2 | 40 | 43(75.2%) | 12 | 5 | 5 | 6 | 4 | 4 | 21 |
| Paul George | 2/1 | 36 | 43(83.9%) | 7 | 5 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 17 |
| Jimmy Butler | 1/29 | 29 | 20(85.9%) | 5 | 6 | 1 | 5 | 1 | 0 | 15.7 |
| Nikola Jokic | 2/1 | 31 | 31(87.9%) | 13 | 9 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 4 | 11.9 |
| Andre Iguodala | 1/28 | 27 | 6(104.2%) | 6 | 8 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 11.1 |
1. James Harden easily has the best game of the week while narrowly missing a five by five. Harden is cementing himself as the most dominant offensive guard in NBA history.
2. The number for MVP players this season apparently is 43. Paul George continues his amazing season with a great game. The only thing he missed this game was a block.
3. Jimmy Butler's five steals land him on the list. It's shocking this guy has played great for three franchises. Well, not really, but we can pretend.
4. After the top three names, there was definitely some room for subjectivity. And it must be shocking that Jokic's best game of the week makes the list. He didn't quite get a triple-double, but we'll forgive him.
5. Andre Iguodala's 35th birthday makes the list. One of the best games of the week with 100%+ True Shooting (ignore the points!) Iguodala has followed Bill Walton in the path of Finals MVP to 6th man of the year player.
The Bottom Three Boxscores of the Week
| Player | Date | Minutes | PTS(TS%) | TRB | AST | TOV | STL | BLK | PF | PoP |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tobias Harris | 2/3 | 31 | 13(33.6%) | 4 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 4 | -13.7 |
| Domantas Sabonis | 1/31 | 20 | 4(18.6%) | 4 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 3 | -12.1 |
| Jae Crowder | 1/30 | 25 | 6(40.3%) | 1 | 3 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 4 | -9.8 |
1. Tobias Harris has the worst game of the week. He had as many missed shots as points. A bad assist to turnover ratio and four fouls didn't help either.
2. Sabonis is one of our underrated gems, so it pains me that he made the list, but he and Tobias' bad games were far above their competitors this week. 1-9 from the field and 2-4 from the line was horrible. He also did none of the standard big men stuff. Next time Domantas. Next time.
3. Another painful entry. Despite having the MVP this season, the Jazz have underwhelmed. Despite other popular names that have made this list, the reality is Jae Crowder has been terrible for the Jazz. I gave him the third spot on this list because his bad games have to get some recognition.
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 |
|---|---|---|
| James Harden | 18 | 7 |
| Nikola Jokic | 18 | 6 |
| Giannis Antetokounmpo | 17 | 4 |
| Anthony Davis | 12 | 3 |
| Paul George | 12 | 4 |
Wow, a major shakeup this week, James Harden and Jokic vault themselves to the top of the list., and Paul George hops Steph Curry for the fifth spot. It's obvious this season has a lot of space to go. I can't wait!
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.