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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jusuf Nurkic | 1/1 | 38 | 24(70.4%) | 23 | 7 | 4 | 5 | 5 | 4 | 19.1 |
| Giannis Antetokounmpo | 1/4 | 19 | 16(75.2%) | 8 | 10 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 12.8 |
| Nikola Jokic | 1/5 | 34 | 39(62.5%) | 12 | 6 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 11.8 |
| DeMar DeRozan | 1/5 | 33 | 21(58.1%) | 14 | 11 | 3 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 8.9 |
| James Harden | 1/3 | 44 | 44(61.2%) | 10 | 15 | 7 | 1 | 2 | 4 | 5.2 |
1. Nurkic has the best game of 2019 so far and made the list pretty quickly. He recorded a 20-20 and a five by five on the first day of the new year. It took him OT to get there, but still a damned good game.
2. In under 20 minutes of play, Giannis put up a monster game. After one quarter the Bucks were up 43-14 and Giannis wasn't needed in the second half. He almost got a triple-double and completely filled the stat sheet. This guy is pretty good!
3. Jokic actually had a triple-double with fifteen assists I was debating, but instead his "best" game of the week makes the list. He almost scored 40 on a key win against Charlotte. He only made six passes, which is pretty ho-hum for the best Point-Center in the NBA. Still, he makes the list!
4. DeMar DeRozan makes the list with a triple-double revenge game. When the Raptors came to play the Spurs, people wondered if Kawhi would have a revenge game. He did not. DeMar sure as hell did though and the Spurs got the win, and DeMar made the list!
5. The rookies didn't impress me much this week so James Harden gets the fifth spot for a decent production but impressive statistic game. Harden took 23 three-pointers this game and connected on ten! Only Klay Thompson has shot more threes in a game (and he holds the record for made threes in said game as well) Impressive job James Harden!
Honorable mentions: Steph Curry did get a ten made threes game, but it was pretty ho-hum. With only five spots, Harden got it both for better production and more novelty. Benjibopper also suggested a 45 point Kawhi game, which had a shot until DeRozan won the narrative battle.
The Bottom Three Boxscores of the Week
| Player | Date | Minutes | PTS(TS%) | TRB | AST | TOV | STL | BLK | PF | PoP |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dirk Nowitzki | 1/4 | 16 | 0(0%) | 2 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 3 | -16 |
| Mike Conley | 1/2 | 29 | 0(0%) | 3 | 1 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | -12.5 |
| Langston Galloway | 1/1 | 10 | 0(0%) | 0 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | -8.2 |
1. It saddens me, but the once great Dirk put up the worst game of the week, and it wasn't even close. He also made this week rough. See usually I look for say, the worst game, the worst shooting game, and the worst per-minute game. And with rounding Dirk took all three! In 16 minutes he missed ten shots and got a turnover and three fouls. Oof! But he did make me decide on a theme for this week's bad list: players that made no shots! Dirk is the worst.
2. Mike Conley takes the number two spot! Unlike Dirk, he only missed eight shots. As a point guard, a 1-3 assist to turnover ratio isn't what you are going for either.
3. And with seven missed shots (and no points) Langston Galloway takes the final spot. Unlike the other two, he didn't turn the ball over, so he wasn't as bad. Hurray?
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 since we're starting to cook, we can drop from ten names to five!
| Player | Points | List Appearances |
|---|---|---|
| Giannis Antetokounmpo | 17 | 4 |
| Nikola Jokic | 12 | 3 |
| Stephen Curry | 10 | 4 |
| LeBron James | 9 | 3 |
| De'Aaron Fox | 8 | 2 |
Giannis takes a commanding lead. If he makes the list every week, expect him to run away with this one. Jokic comfortably takes the number top spot, and the top player from the two top teams in the NBA conferences sits where they should.
The bad list gets a lot of new names but no movement to make a leaderboard. It would be easier if marquee players didn't keep having the worst games of the week!
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.