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 | 2/28 | 44 | 58(72.6%) | 7 | 10 | 4 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 19 |
| Mitchell Robinson | 2/26 | 33 | 17(73%) | 14 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 6 | 3 | 13.7 |
| Karl-Anthony Towns | 2/25 | 31 | 34(80.6%) | 21 | 5 | 4 | 0 | 2 | 5 | 13.4 |
| Giannis Antetokounmpo | 3/2 | 32 | 43(62.6%) | 14 | 8 | 4 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 11.6 |
| Eric Bledsoe | 2/27 | 36 | 26(65%) | 12 | 13 | 4 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 11 |
1. In what will shock no one, Harden's 58 point outing was easily the best game of the week. Can we note that despite scoring lights out, he also dished out ten dimes and picked up four steals.
2. Mitchell Robinson gets the rookie game of the week. His six block outing was amazing. Tack on great shooting and three steals, and he had the second best game of the week.
3. KAT puts up a 30-20 game and makes the list. A shame his talents are going to waste up north.
4. Giannis puts up the "lucky MVP number" with a 43 point outing. He just missed a triple-double, but we'll forgive him.
5. Right after Eric Bledsoe signed a completely reasonable extension, he celebrated by putting up a triple-double game that was mandatory to win. Check below to see why.
The Bottom Three Boxscores of the Week
| Player | Date | Minutes | PTS(TS%) | TRB | AST | TOV | STL | BLK | PF | PoP |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Brook Lopez | 2/27 | 37 | 7(23.3%) | 5 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 6 | 3 | -14.4 |
| Terrence Ross | 3/3 | 29 | 2(8.3%) | 3 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 2 | -14.4 |
| Kyle Kuzma | 3/1 | 34 | 12(32.5%) | 6 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2 | -12.5 |
1. Brook Lopez put up a game so bad it required a triple-double out of Eric Bledsoe to eke out a one-point win. Rough shooting and low rebounds for a center. His great blocking stayed consistent at least (he also had a seven-block outing last week!)
2. Terrence Ross put up multiple horrendous games last week; this was just the worst. A 1-12 scoring outing with a 1-1 assist to turnover ratio is nothing to sneeze at.
3. Another Bucks game makes the list. In a close game with the best team out East, Kuzma cost the Lakers a needed win. 5 for 18 from the field and 1 for six from three are not ideal numbers from your shooting guard.
Leaderboard Update
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 | List Appearances | Points |
|---|---|---|
| Giannis Antetokounmpo | 7 | 26 |
| James Harden | 8 | 23 |
| Paul George | 6 | 19 |
| Nikola Jokic | 6 | 18 |
| Klay Thompson | 3 | 14 |
Giannis and Harden decide to keep the top of the list interesting. It could become a two-horse race if they keep up their current production!
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.