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The offensive explosion of D’Angello Russell might have single handedly persuaded the Lakers to not make any moves at the trade deadline. It sounds crazy but he’s been that good.
In the last 14 games Russell has made a staggering jump from 14 and a half points on good percentage from downtown, to 24 and a half per game, shooting lights out.
Against Golden State he came up super clutch to secure a much needed win.
And this one in Boston, it was a game where absolutely nobody gave them a chance playing without Lebron and AD. But the Lakers got a monster win on the road and D-Lo had a lot to do with it. 16 points and 14 assists.
Russell positioned himself as the clear number 3 guy in this time span.
If this was the case from the start, LA would have been much higher in the standings, but given the circumstances, I’m sure that Lakers fans are thankful that this is happening and hoping that it can last as long as possible.
Next up, we got this guy.
If you thought that he’s been great this season just wait till you hear this.
Brunson averaged 26 points per game on good efficiency, and this is all star worthy by itself, but in the last 14 games he became absolutely unstoppable.
33 points on 52% shooting leading the Knicks on a wild 9 game winning streak at one point.
Brunson’s sensational run that coincided with OG Anunobi coming to this team, might have been the reason for the Knicks front office to believe that this team can go deep in the playoffs this year, so they pulled the trigger trading for Bojan Bogdanovic and Alec Burks, making the roster even deeper.
The Knicks became dangerous, but Brunson is the head of the snake for this team. The motor for this team. And New York will go as far as he can take them running the offense.
And right now, he’s nothing short of spectacular.
Moving on, and you may wanna buckle up for this sequence.
The rookie Brandon Miller has been living in the shadow of Wemby and Chet. And playing for the Hornets doesn’t help either. But he is making a major leap.
Miller has been on fire lately, going for 14 points per game on 41 and a half percent from the field and 37 and a half from downtown, all the way to 22 and a half points on a superb efficiency.
These are star level numbers from him. This is what Charlotte saw in him when they drafted him. All of that while making freakish type of plays like the one at the beginning, as well as this:
Brandon is actually the reason why I selected this 14 game stretch looking for improvements, because this was the point where things started to click for him and I’m sure that he’ll continue to trend upwards, hopefully transforming into the franchise player for the Hornets.
Another mind blowing improvement is the one from Jonathan Kuminga who’s giving CPR to this Warriors team trying to revive them into playoff contention. And it seems like it’s working.
In a crazy turn of events he went from not getting enough minutes, to going to the media complaining about it, getting the chance from Steve Kerr and killing it ever since then.
Especially in the last few weeks.
From 12.8 points he catapulted all the way to 22.7 with improvements in efficiency across the board.
This immediately converted on a team level as well as Golden State have won 6 of the last 7 games and are back into the play in zone after looking dead in the water for much of the season.
And regardless of how it ends for the Warriors, I think it’s clear that Kuminga is finally taking the jump that this team has been hoping for.
Speaking of jumps, check this out:
Collin Sexton has really found his spot in Utah. After a rocky start to the season, things changed when he got the trust from his coach and was made a starter.
This happened around Christmas, but to keep things equal, this is the jump in just the last 14 games.
He went from 16 and 4 on 34 and a half percent from downtown to 21 points per game along with 6 assists on 47 and half from beyond the arc.
Sexton pointed out that he’s watching a lot of film on opposing defenses this season and this is helping him tremendously in making better decisions with the ball, which translates into way better numbers on the statsheet.
The Jazz will have a tough task to compete in the stacked western conference for a spot in the play-in, but they’re still hanging in there, and are making this race very interesting.
It’s interesting how the improvements from some of these guys persuaded teams to not make a trade at the deadline, but some of the teams that did pull the trigger ended up being a lot better. I analyzed all of that in this video so check it out right here. Talk to you in the next one. Peace out.