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Evan’s phantom triple double

Image (1) evans_game-thumb-250x312-7037.jpg for post 709

We’re a proud, card-carrying-member of the Tyreke Evans hype machine. Love the guy. Love his game. Love that he is the unquestioned leader of that team already. Love that the very loyal fans of Sacramento have something worth cheering for.

And that was no triple double last night.

Oh, the official box score reflects that Evans had the first triple double of his career. But if this were a track meet it would be considered wind aided. Or in this case, score keeper aided. We’ll let Zach Harper from Cowbell Kingdom -- a Kings blog, mind you -- do the honors.

I feel confident in saying that Tyreke’s ninth assist of the game was EXTREMELY questionable. It was a pass to Francisco Garcia on the left wing. It didn’t lead him to the scoring play. Well, I guess it did technically. But in reality, he passed it to Cisco and then Cisco decided to drive to the basket. Four or five dribbles later, he scored inside and Evans was given his ninth assist. Again, it was very questionable and probably unwarranted. But until they take it away, Tyreke had his first triple double of his career.

After the game, he seemed to realize that it might not have been on the up and up. During the game, Tyreke Evans went over to Fat Lever to maybe see if Fat could put in a good word for him regarding the stats for the night. When Internet and mainstream media sensation Sam Amick mentioned to Tyreke after the game that Fat used to be “Mr. Triple Double,” Tyreke replied, “I know, that’s why I went to him so he could pad my stats.”

This is not some new problem, guys have been getting their stats padded by friendly home officiating for years.


There’s a fascinating thread at the APBRmetrics board (that’s where the NBA’s stat guys go to talk and not be bothered by the likes of you) talking about how John Stockton used to get an assist or two a game. There’s a story of padding of Nick Van Exel’s stats and Dikembe Mutombos’ blocks. Even Darren Collision’s 20 assists from a few nights ago should be more like 16.

Evans triple double may be phantom, but in 10 years it’s going to count the same as the host of legitimate ones he will pick up in the coming years. And outside a good story on a message board, nobody will care.