Malachi Flynn, bench player for the NBA’s worst team, the Detroit Pistons, just put up a mind-blowing 50 points in a Wednesday night loss to the Atlanta Hawks.
Flynn, in his fifth year in the NBA and his first in Detroit, became just the third player in NBA history to drop 50 points off the bench, trailing only Jamal Crawford’s 51-point explosion from the bench mob in 2019, according to NBA.com.
Flynn also became just the tenth player to put up 50 points this season, the outlet reported. The 50 points is almost ten times his average nightly scoring output of 5.8.
How was Flynn, a career bench player who’s averaged 14 minutes per night, able to put up such a superfluous performance? Lazy, trash defense, that’s how.
On the vast majority of his 18 reported makes, he hardly had a hand in face. Now, credit where it’s due: he still had to make the shots, and he did, going 18 for 25 for an outstanding 72 percent from the field, NBA.com reported. But the Hawks hardly put any effort into stopping him, a strategy that obviously worked for them considering they won the game.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhINjHK0oZc
The feat is indicative of a worrying trend in the NBA these days: guys just don’t care about playing defense anymore.
The league’s scoring average is actually slightly down from last year at 114.4 compared to 2023’s 114.7. But overall that number has skyrocketed since the hard-nosed ball of the 1990s. (RELATED: ‘Your Mom’s A Bi**h’: NBA Star Goes Nuclear, Cursing Out Fans And Refs After Botched Call Blows The Game)
From 1995 to 2007 the league average for points per game didn’t crack 100. And through 2018 it still stayed below a reasonable 106.5. But in the 2018-19 season the average landed over 111 and hasn’t been below the mark since. 2023’s 114.7 was the highest average since 1969-70’s 116.7. It was the ninth highest average of all time.
A cursory review of any NBA highlight video these days will show you the lackadaisical defense these guys play now. Everybody wants to set a scoring record. Nobody wants to play defense. There’s no glory in it. And even when a guy does build his brand on defense, he gets called dirty for it.
Long-gone are the days where every bucket was earned and big body defenders like Bill Laimbeer and Charles Oakley guarded the paint. Nowadays refs call a foul for a hard breath on a dude’s shoulder.