NBA winners and losers: LaMelo Ball shooting at Kobe-like pace, Zion Williamson’s bad news, an ugly ejection |Max Sporty|

On Friday night, the Golden State Warriors became the first team to reach a place in the knockouts of the NBA Cup. Please try to contain your excitement. As dismissive of the tournament formerly known as the In-Season Tournament, it has actually added some legitimate pomp and circumstance to ordinary November NBA games. The courts are strange. Joe Mazzulla’s foul by 10 to try to extend the game and add to the point difference of the Celtics. People who hate soccer are reluctantly forced to understand the rules of soccer tournaments to see if their team has a chance to advance. Is there some tweaks that can be made? Certainly. But in general, it is difficult to say that the initiative was not successful.

That said, Saturday was WAY more of an event than Friday night’s generally boring NBA Cup games. As you’ll see, there have been some strange occurrences — both good and bad — over the past few days, so let’s take some time and catch you all up.

Here are this weekend’s NBA winners and losers.

Professional athletes play at such a high level of intensity and competitiveness that it’s natural for emotions to spill over at times. What Fred VanVleet did on Saturday night during the Rockets’ loss to the Trail Blazers, however, clearly crossed the line. Beyond calling all three references “b—-” (which we saw Kelly Oubre Jr not that long ago, coincidentally) on his way off the floor, VanVleet put his fingers dangerously close to official John Conley’s eyeball. Oh yeah, FVV was kicked out. Did we mention that?

Our Brad Botkin broke down the reasons behind VanVleet’s explosionand the referees’ response. Oubre was fined $50K for his actions, and it appears that VanVleet’s punishment will be significantly more severe, possibly even resulting in a suspension.

Winner: LaMelo’s right arm muscles

Say what you will about LaMelo Ball, but the guy can get some shots. Ball had a productive night in the Hornets’ Saturday loss to the Milwaukee Bucks, putting up a career-high 50 points, including a ridiculous 40 points in the second half.

And while 50 is a great number, there’s another number you should be aware of with Ball: 384.

That’s how many shots he’s attempted this season, tremendous 40 more than runner-up Giannis Antetokounmpo, who also played 16 games. If you’re bad at math like me, that’s an average of 24 shots per game, and Ball drained 38 of them, the highest single-game total in the NBA this season, to get his 50-burger on Saturday ( FYI , De’Aaron Fox scored 60 points on 35 shots last week).

The last time a player made 24 field goal attempts per game for an entire season was James Harden in 2018-19, and he averaged six more points than Ball on essentially the same number of shots (you history buffs will notice that. old Max Zaslofsky averaged a measly 21 points on 24 shots per game for the 1947-48 Chicago Stags … YES WE are aware). Here are the last five NBA players averaging at least 24 shot attempts in a season.

NBA players average 24 shots per game

For the season, Ball is shooting 43% from the field, the eighth-lowest mark in the league of anyone taking at least 15 shots per game, but it doesn’t look like he’s slowing down anytime soon.

Get some ice for that right arm, young man. It receives training.

Loser: Trevor Booker

Everyone, rightly so, is splashing over Nikola Jokic’s 3/4-yard volleyball spike that “almost went in” (not really). Give the man credit for stringing together something truly creative that should also, by all known laws of physics, be impossible.

Pretty cool. But now, take a trip with me back to 2015. “Uptown Funk” was the number one song on the charts, “Furious 7” brought in $350 million at the domestic box office, and the Utah Jazz entered basketball with a 0.2. seconds remained on the shot clock. The defending Oklahoma City Thunder simply waited for time to expire and a violation to be called after the ball touched someone’s hands. Trevor Booker had other ideas.

The forward, who ended up playing eight NBA seasons, ran to his spot, picked up the rebound pass and unleashed a smooth two-handed move OVER HIS CANE that went straight through the net. The best part is that he ran back on defense like it was no big deal regardless then saying he “never did it in a game situation or even a practice, for that matter.” Unbelievable.

So Booker is a loser this weekend because no one seems to remember that — while Jokic’s attempt was spectacular — Booker actually got the job done.

Winner: Self-promotion

We haven’t seen someone named McCain campaign this hard since the 2008 presidential election (I’ll see myself out). 76ers first-year sensation Jared McCain took a short break from annihilating the Brooklyn Nets on Friday to declare to the viewers, and to the whole world: “I am the Rookie of the Year.”

Who wore it better, McCain or Austin Reaves?

Gotta love the confidence. And on this point, McCain is right. He leads all rookies with 16.6 points per game on an insanely efficient 46/40/94 shooting splits. There’s plenty of season left though. On Sunday he snapped a streak of seven straight 20-point games by scoring … 18 points. Oh, and the game before he started that streak he scored … 18 points. So why don’t we just say he scored at least 18 points in nine straight games? The streak is alive, baby!

Zion is not a loser in the sense of how, why is this not a loser coming back from injury? He loses, in this particular situation, because he is in danger of missing a huge chunk of yet another season to begin his frustrating career after the report that he is. not close to coming back from a hamstring problem. When this guy is healthy, he’s one of the most dynamic basketball players we’ve ever seen, but he’s surpassed the 60-game threshold just twice in his six seasons, and has fallen below 29 games three times including missing the entire campaign 2021-22. .

It looks like Williamson could be out until mid-December…which could end up meaning Christmas…which could end up meaning 2025. The Pelicans have been hit harder than most by the injury bug this season (at one point they had seven of their key players out and they just signed Elfrid Payton off the scrap heap), but Williamson’s absence doesn’t just affect the franchise and Zion itself. It also hurts the fans who once again miss his unique talent.

Winner: Bizarre NBA history

Blazers rookie Donovan Clingan had himself a night on Saturday, pulling down a career-best 19 rebounds in just 25 minutes. The story would have ended there if there wasn’t another significant character in one of the stat sheet columns. Clingan scored zero points in the game, making him the first player since 2012 pull down at least 19 rebounds in a game while going scoreless.

The 7-foot-2 UConn product absolutely dominated the glass as a backup starter for Deandre Ayton, and likely would have added to his board total if not for some moderate foul trouble and a late knee injury. He is only the eighth player ever to accomplish the … feat? The only players to do it more than once are Marcus Camby (2) and Dennis Rodman (7!), and Clingan certainly has a chance to join them with the way he cleans the glass and his, shall we say, limited offensive arsenal at. this stage of his career.