NBA

NBA awards Domantas Sabonis and Jalen Brunson as last week’s best

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Antonio Kozlow
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Antonio Kozlow Sports Editor

Antonio is a life long sports enthusiast and professional journalist, who shares an obssesive urge to find and dig up the most interesting facts to guide gamblers towards more exciting, yet safe bets. In his own words, ''you can never really know enough about the things you love''.

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Sports Editor

Updated04 Dec 2023

Domantas Sabonis ties Chris Webber for most 20/20/5 games since Kings moved to Sacramento

We are finally beyond Week 13 and off to the second part of regular season, as the NBA just awarded Sacramento’s Domantas Sabonis as last week’s best player in the West, as for New York’s Jalen Brunson from the Eastern Conference.

Let’s start with Brunson! The New York player was detrimental in the team’s 3-1 record on their games for Week 13. He averaged 34.8 points, 5.8 rebounds and 5 assists in those four matches, and achieved his all-time high 44 points in the dissapointing loss against Milwaukee on Monday. Also, Brunson scored 30+ points in the other three of the week.

You can see some of his highlights from his career-high 44-pointer in the following YouTube link:

High-scoring Jalen Brunson has truly found his best version in the new guard position that coach Tom Thibodeau has found for him in the squad. It seems to finally meet his potential as he is leading the Knicks to some of their best basketball playing in years. Although Julius Randle is the team’s best scorer, Brunson he bosses around the court with great leadership, becoming the playmaker that New York need. While Randle is more dedicated to scoring, Brunson is now achieving his all-time best assists per game (6.5).

Nevertheless, his scoring this campaign is also his best ever. We currently ranked Brunson as the 4th in our Top 10 list of NBA players improving their career best scoring records this season. Back when he was in the Dallas roster, his best average was 16.3 points per game, and is now 22.4. However, he is still not racing up the Kia MVP Ladder, as he doesn’t appear in the first 15 names of the NBA’s official list for the year’s best player.

As for Domantas Sabonis, he is No.15 in the NBA’s Kia MVP Ladder, but not just because the dynamic big man can score, but because he is an all-round great player in Sacramento’s center court. The King’s forward guided his team to an undefeated 4-0 record this past week, averaging 18.5 points, 14.3 rebounds and 10.3 assists.

Probably his best game was on Friday the 13th, as he delivered 19 points, won 15 rebounds, and provided 16 assist triple-doubles all the way to win over the Houston Rockets. At the moment, Sabonis’ total season stats averages at 18.9 points, 12.6 rebounds and 7.1 assists over 41 games.

Just last week, Sabonis became the fourth NBA player since 1990 to average 20 points, 14 rebounds, and seven assists through at least 17 games. The Sacramento center foward joins Nikola Jokic, Russell Westbrook, and Kevin Garnett in the history books. Additional to this, he has also recorded 18 consecutive double-doubles, a Kings franchise record.

While the Knicks rank 5th in the Eastern Conference with an 25-20 track, the Kings stand 4th (24-18) in the Western Conference, only behind the New Orleans Pelicans, Memphis Grizzlies and finally Denver Nuggets at the top. Both teams are having great season’s so far, and many NBA betting sites we recommend consider Sacramento to have stronger odds than New York to winning the title. Betonline.ag, for example, ranks the Kings as the 15th best odds to win the Championship, as for the Knicks rank 20th.