MKG was never slumping

Last night’s performance by Michael Kidd-Gilchrist has a lot of people claiming that “he’s back.” He dropped 24 points on Indiana that team from the Big Ten last night, and showed flashes of offensive brilliance that we became used to seeing from him earlier in the season. MKG’s scoring has dipped in the second half of the season and it’s left a lot of people wondering why he was slumping. Before last night, he scored more than 10 points just once in the last 6 games. I personally think people are making too big a deal out of it. If you really watch the games and look at the numbers closely it’s easy to tell that MKG wasn’t slumping at all, he just recognizes that he doesn’t have to score to help UK win. In the 5 recent games he scored 10 or less points, one of them (Vanderbilt) was a loss. However, foul trouble kept MKG on the bench for all but 16 minutes of that game. If he weren’t in foul trouble that game and saw that the team was struggling to make shots, he would have done everything in his power to score. Look at last night’s game. He saw that Davis was in foul trouble early and Indiana wasn’t missing, so he took it upon himself to carry the load offensively. He’s more than capable of scoring upwards of 20 points a game, but he recognizes that on this team full of McDonald’s All-Americans it’s just not necessary. He also recognizes what this team DOES need him to be -  a defensive stopper, a ferocious rebounder, a spark plug. He comes off as the type of guy who has never looked at a box score in his life. I get the impression that if it weren't for reporters and media members telling him, he probably wouldn't know how many points he scored after a game. There aren't enough cliches about hard work and unselfishness in the whole world to describe him. It’s been said over and over all season long, but I really think Kidd-Gilchrist is the perfect teammate. I’m sure he and Coach Cal have talked about what he needs to bring to the table, and honestly, I think it’s working pretty well. There might be another game in the near future where MKG feels like he needs to get it going offensively, and I completely trust his judgment. So I definitely wouldn't say that MKG is "back"...I'd say he never left.