Faried is a beast and other lessons from the top 50 games of the season

The Wages of Wins Network has been putting on a contest. If you can guess the individual performance before the end of the season you could win an awesome BounceX3 t-shirt, from BounceX3. The current leader is Matt Bailey (@hoopisms) from hoopism.com with the amazing pick of Kenneth Faried on April 9th against the Golden State Warriors. This game was truly spectacular with 27 points and 17 rebound performance from the Nuggets rookie. Even more extraordinary is that he did this in a mere 24 minutes of play. I thought I’d pull out the 50 best games so far this season and share some cool stories from them. Spoiler alert, Faried stars in a few.

Best rookie games

Now the Rubio vs. Irving thing that was so hot until Rubio got injured? Yeah, they’re not in the discussion. The Rookie of the Year race is honestly Leonard vs. Faried. While there is no way Faried will catch Kawhi Leonard on totals, especially with Karl underplaying him there is one category we can give Faried: top games. Faried is the only rookie to have posted a top 50 game this season, and what’s more he’s done it twice. On the 17th of March against Boston he put up an 18 point and 16 rebound night. Then on April 9th against Golden State he put up a 27 point and 17 rebound night. Speaking of multiple nights of greatness…

Players with encore performances

There have been 851 games played and in each of those games roughly 10-12 players from each side suit up. That means have a top 50 game would put you in the 99.4 percent. Of course, some players have managed to achieve this feat multiple times this season.

• LeBron James – 4 top 50 games
• Dwight Howard – 4 top 50 games
• Chris Paul – 3 top 50 games
• Stephen Curry – 3 top 50 games
• Gerald Wallace – 2 top 50 games
• Kenneth Faried – 2 top 50 games
• Kevin Love -2 top 50 games
• Kris Humphries – 2 top 50 games
• Steve Nash – 2 top 50 games
• Tyson Chandler – 2 top 50 games

Yet again Faried puts himself on an impressive list. Who knows, by the time the season is over maybe he’ll be at 3 or 4 as well?

Short but sweet

Ok so in my view the single most impressive thing about Faried’s two top 50 games is his playing time. Faried is the only player to put up a top 50 game with fewer than 24 minutes, and the only one to put up a top 50 game with fewer than 25 minutes. In fact, only four players put up a top 50 game with less than 30 minutes:

• Kenneth Faried on March 17th against Boston in 23.6 minutes
• Kenneth Faried on April 9th against Golden State in 24.1 minutes
• Manu Ginobili on December 28th against the Los Angeles Clippers in 27.3 minutes
• Steve Nash on February 1st against New Orleans in 28.9 minutes
• Tyson Chandler on January 24th against the Charlotte Bobcats in 29.6 minutes

In fact, talking about short time frames, there’s yet another impressive list for Faried.

Age before beauty

There have only been four players aged 22 years or younger this season to post a top 50 game. Guess who shows up?

• Greg Monroe – Born June 4th 1990 (age 21)
• Paul George – Born May 2nd 1990 (age 21)
• Kenneth Faried – Born November 19th 1989 (Age 22)
• Serge Ibaka – Born September 18th 1989 (Age 22)

• Steve Nash – Born February 7th 1974 (age 37)
• Anthony Parker – Born June 19th 1975 (age 36)

Now, who you should have guessed was…

The contest still isn’t over. You can guess on any game before it starts until the end of the season. Of course I personally hope the Faried pick holds up as I was in fact wearing this shirt as he put up his major game. However, since we started the contest here are the only guesses that would rank as a top 50 game

• Gerald Wallace against the Golden State Warriors on March 30th
• Anthony Parker against the Milwaukee Bucks on April 4th
• LeBron James against the Oklahoma City Thunder on April 4th
• Raymond Felton against the Dallas Mavericks on April 6th
• Kenneth Faried against the Golden State Warriors on April 9th

-Dre

The best player is defined using Points over Par, which is the points variant of Wins Produced. In short, it tells you how many points above an average player your player was responsible for. In exact terms it tells you the exact number of points in your team’s margin of victory (or loss) that your player is responsible for.