People who didnt follow Dame or just arent familiar with his game are going to realize how much dude is actually a team player this year. This dude came into the league as a true point guard, a willing passer with the gift of a great shot.
Over the years if you didnt watch every game he played and just watched the Portland highlights you would just see him drop 50 and think “o this dude is just another ball hog short pg who jacks up shots” no…hes never had a problem deferring, he just never had a team around him capable of deferring to. He wasnt always a walking offensive total package, he became that because he had to.
There was a clip last season where Drew Eubanks caught on fire for a bit in a game so Dame kept feeding him and after the game they talked about an exchange where Drew had told Dame that he better get some points on the board and Dames reply was something like “oh dont worry about me you know im going to get mine im going to keep feeding you if you keep making all these shots”. Were talking about Drew Eubanks, a guy who really should be a 3rd string center on most teams.
Now that he has Giannis and this Bucka squad around him, it hasnt surprised me one bit that he started off so passive, and since they still won games with him not always being on a heater it makes total sense to me why he hasnt tried to force his way into scoring. It takes time to find your groove and place in a brand new team, and its actually quite amazing how fast its starting to come together. Even in Portland Dame didnt get red hot until around January of the season
It’s amazing because I thought I knew basketball but then I realized I was missing something watching this years Bucks and trying to figure out why it looked odd and it’s starting to make more sense with what Dane is talking about dictating the game flow. Lebron was so good at doing this it became almost imperceptible.
At the beginning of the season I thought that if everything was working perfectly you’d see Dame finish around 25ppg but 8-9apg and very good efficiency. I think we’re starting to see that now. For Giannis I want to see blocks & steals career high and him making all defense first team because he shouldn’t need to work as hard on offense, especially when Khris starts playing 30 minutes.
This is why I’ve liked the Giannis-Dame on/off stuff early in the game, Giannis is gonna do Giannis things when he returns after getting a breather 5 mins into the first because Griffin’s set the rotation so that when he’s out after his first break there’s guys he’s already played with with him like Brook, Khris, Bobby & Pat.
Lets Dame build that chemistry with the role players and which is already starting to pay off, 12 assists last night!
Those last couple sentences are movie quality
My humble king dame