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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Paul George | 12/22 | 40 | 43(73.1%) | 14 | 6 | 3 | 5 | 1 | 1 | 20.5 |
| Ben Simmons | 12/22 | 34 | 26(83.1%) | 12 | 8 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 15.1 |
| Ivan Rabb | 12/19 | 10 | 8(103.1%) | 7 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 8.6 |
| Steven Adams | 12/19 | 35 | 20(72.7%) | 23 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 13.7 |
| Deandre Ayton | 12/19 | 32 | 23(73%) | 18 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 11.6 |
1. Paul George puts up the best game of the week and one of the best of the season. An amazing double-double, four by five, and a clutch performance (more on that in a bit) to easily take top honors.
2. Ben Simmons puts up an amazing game that feels like it should have been a triple-double. That said, when you're shooting as well as Ben Simmons, you can be forgiven for not giving out another two dimes. Ben Simmons has quickly become one of the top point guards in an NBA filled with great point guards.
3. Ivan Rabb makes the list for an impressive game in short minutes. An A+ shooting performance, seven rebounds, and an assist in a mere ten minutes is absurd. He also did nothing wrong, making this the best per-minute performance of the week.
4. Steven Adams makes the list for a great 20-20 performance. Oklahoma City has a pretty impressive big three. I look forward to seeing what they trade it away for.
5. Deandre Ayton plays well enough for me to bring back the Rookie Spot on the list. I'd have prefered a 20-20, but 23-18 is still pretty good.
The Bottom Three Boxscores of the Week
| Player | Date | Minutes | PTS(TS%) | TRB | AST | TOV | STL | BLK | PF | PoP |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Donovan Mitchell | 12/19 | 36 | 17(29.2%) | 5 | 6 | 6 | 2 | 1 | 3 | -16.9 |
| Blake Griffin | 12/17 | 35 | 19(52%) | 10 | 11 | 10 | 1 | 0 | 3 | -5.9 |
| Russell Westbrook | 12/22 | 35 | 8(22.4%) | 12 | 9 | 6 | 3 | 0 | 6 | -8.9 |
1. Welcome back, Donovan Mitchell! One of the worst games of the year and the worse game of the week. Missing 20 shots on 29.2% True Shooting is truly impressive. His six turnovers didn't help either. Mitchell has been playing poorly, but not bad enough to merit being on this list for the past few weeks. He more than made up for it.
2. Blake Griffin gets both the "fan suggestion" slot (thanks JBrett!) as well as an auspicious honor. If we count turnovers as a category, then Blake has a quadruple-double! It's not quite as impressive as a legit quadruple-double. Twelve players have done it, including Russell Westbrook two weeks ago. One distinction for Blake Griffin is his game was terrible!
3. If you believe a hero needs a villain than Russell Westbrook played that role. Paul George put up the best game of the week (see above) and his team won the game by one point. While some Jazz players played poorly (like Donovan Mitchell), it took the amazingly poor play of Westbrook to make Paul George's game needed. One of the worst games of the week and it makes the list for narrative sake.
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 (minimum two boxscores to place), and we've got enough names, I'm fine limiting it to a top 10!
| Player | Points | List Appearances |
|---|---|---|
| Stephen Curry | 10 | 3 |
| Giannis Antetokounmpo | 10 | 2 |
| LeBron James | 9 | 3 |
| Nikola Jokic | 9 | 2 |
| De'Aaron Fox | 8 | 2 |
| Anthony Davis | 7 | 2 |
| Boban Marjanovic | 7 | 2 |
| Paul George | 7 | 2 |
| James Harden | 5 | 2 |
| Andre Drummond | 4 | 2 |
Paul George makes the sixth place spot an impressive tie. Giannis and Steph keep the top of the list. It's looking to be a tight race!
In regards to the bad list, it remains a two-car race between Carmelo Anthony and Donovan Mitchell. Both are tied at -5 points, with Mitchell currently winning the tie-breaker due to appearances (three to Melo's two). I hope we get some more excitement on that list, but we'll have to wait and see!
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.