March can be a sleepy month for the NBA, but it constitutes the last full month of basketball played before the postseason tips off in mid-April. As such, players up and down the hierarchy can get into a rhythm and really play well. Not all of it has an impact or is relevant to the championship race, the lens through which the modern sports world views nearly every achievement, but not all good basketball has to be.
Looking back to last season, Cam Thomas’s Brooklyn Nets failed to do anything of note past April. Yet that doesn’t mean it wasn’t enjoyable to watch him put up 26.8 points per game in March. It was still fun to see Jalen Green average 27.7 ppg while shooting over 40% from three for the Houston Rockets this time last year, even if his progression has been inconsistent this season. You may not remember Dejounte Murray putting up 26.7 points and 9.2 assists per game for the middling Atlanta Hawks last March—but it happened. For 15 games, Murray played perhaps the best basketball of his life. He was traded a few months later, but what a stretch it was.
All that is to say such achievements are worth considering and appreciating, regardless of whether they lead to anything of note. This year there was a similar collection of players who are deserving of recognition for their excellence on the court in March, as most sports fans’ eyeballs turn toward the college game.
These are not necessarily the best players from the month from a statistical standpoint. Instead, we examine a group of players whose high quality of play stands out for one reason or another. Greatness is expected from individuals like Nikola Jokić or Shai Gilgeous-Alexander given the seasons they’ve had to this point. For the group of players below, the great basketball played last month came as a surprise—or, if not a complete surprise, deviated far enough outside the realm of expectations that it’s worth noting.
Here are five of those players, a sampling of the stars who shined bright in the dark month of March.
Kawhi Leonard, Los Angeles Clippers
March stats: 25.2 ppg, 7.4 rpg, 3.3 apg
The Sisyphean cycle Leonard is trapped in is, sadly, routine at this point. He gets hurt, slowly makes his way back onto the court for the Clippers, appears intermittently as he works off the rust, transforms into the terrifying two-way star basketball fans know and appreciate—then he gets hurt again.
It can be rather frustrating to experience those tantalizing glimpses of the all-world wing who dominated the NBA en route to the Toronto Raptors’ 2019 championship. Frustrating enough that it’s easy to dismiss any good stretch as fool’s gold that will quickly be lost to the passage of time once Leonard’s chronic knee issues act up again.
Be that as it may, Leonard’s month of March is worth remembering.
Leonard played in 13 games, which constitutes nearly half of his appearances so far this year. He played over 30 minutes in all but one of those contests, and even hit the 40-minute mark on three occasions. Leonard’s best qualities were on full display: the laser-like accuracy (52.1% from the field on 18.6 shots per game), the preternatural anticipation in the passing lanes (1.8 steals per game) and the ability to dominate on the court in his minutes (8.9 net rating, with the Clippers going 9-4).
The response from some of the biggest personalities in the basketball world has been unfortunately predictable—he’s going to get hurt before or during the playoffs again, so who cares? To that I say, quality basketball is always worth caring about, and Leonard has been playing some great basketball. There need be no referendum on his questionable availability. We should just appreciate what we have while it’s in front of our eyes.
Quentin Grimes, Philadelphia 76ers
March stats: 26.6 ppg, 4.7 rpg, 4.9 apg
It would be entirely understandable if you missed Grimes’s unexpected ascension to elite gunner for the tanking 76ers. The national media tuned out of Philly a while ago and even the franchise itself appeared to give up on the season around the All-Star break, instead turning eyes toward a potentially transformative NBA draft.
While every Philadelphia fan wishes they could fast forward to June’s draft, basketball still had to be played by somebody. And not only has Grimes stepped into that void, he’s been absolutely balling out, putting up huge numbers over the month.
The fourth-year wing out of Houston, entering the season having never averaged more than 11.3 points per game and playing on his fourth team, put up 26.6 points across 14 games in March. That’s more than Kevin Durant, James Harden, Trae Young or even Stephen Curry. Given the context of Grimes’s ascension, it would be easy to assume he’s inefficiently chucking shots in lieu of any other playmakers on the roster, but he’s not! Grimes is shooting over 50% from the field on 18.9 attempts per contest and is scorching the nets from deep, nailing 40.3% of his 8.5 three-point attempts per game; his 3.4 three-point makes per game in March rank ninth in the league.
Perhaps his most impressive accomplishment? Grimes has been playing so great the Sixers are actually entertaining to watch when he’s on the court. The wing hasn’t been quietly putting up good numbers—he’s been shouting them from the rooftops for all to hear. Just this month Grimes put up 44 points against the Golden State Warriors, 35 points on the Hawks and 46 points against the Rockets (who rank fourth in defensive rating this season).
As a former late first-round pick in a contract year who bounced around the league quite a bit, there’s a chance we never see anything like this again from Grimes. But it’s a beautiful thing to see, watching everything click for an NBA player for an extended period of time.
Zion Williamson, New Orleans Pelicans
March stats: 25.3 ppg, 6.4 rpg, 6.1 apg
Williamson’s injury struggles have been well-documented and seemed to spread to the rest of the New Orleans Pelicans roster; the team is lottery-bound thanks to a ridiculous rash of serious injuries to all its top players. Williamson was largely unavailable until early January and spent about a month and a half ramping back up to full speed. Once the calendar flipped to March, Williamson had the green light to go full-tilt—and boy, did he ever.
Until he was (yet again) halted by injury troubles, the former Duke Blue Devils star was absolutely dominant for New Orleans in March. He averaged north of 25 points, six rebounds, and six assists despite playing fewer than 30 minutes per game. To that point, if Williamson was playing as much as any other star, he’d be putting up MVP numbers. For the month, Williamson’s per-36 stats are as follows: 31.1 ppg, 7.8 rpg and 7.5 apg, all while shooting nearly 60% from the floor.
That’s always the story with Williamson; these bursts of excellence between prolonged periods of injury-related struggle have become all too common. But few players are more entertaining to watch dominate than the high-flying Williamson, and in particular, it’s been fun to watch his passing improve. His 6.1 assists per game in March would constitute a career high over the course of a full year, and he is clearly beginning to fully appreciate just how much he can bend the floor for his teammates.
It’s a lost season in New Orleans, but Williamson’s month should serve as a reminder that, when healthy and going full speed, there are few players more capable of morphing defenses to his will than Williamson.
Coby White, Chicago Bulls
March stats: 27.7 ppg, 4.7 rpg, 3.7 apg
To be clear, White has been excellent for the Bulls all season long. It’s gone without much notice because Chicago once again telegraphed to the league it is happy to enjoy the bog of mediocrity in the East, but White is averaging a career high in points, clocking in at 20.3 points per game this season, and is launching from deep more often than ever.
However, he has been particularly excellent in March and has been one of the primary reasons the Bulls are making an unexpected push up the conference standings post-trade deadline.
White is averaging nearly 30 ppg, primarily thanks to his three-point marksmanship. The former North Carolina Tar Heel has grown into one of the league’s top sharpshooters over the years. What makes him dangerous isn’t necessarily his accuracy, although making 36.8% of his tries from beyond the arc does rank ninth among all players attempting eight or more shots from beyond the arc every game. Instead it’s more his capability to catch fire at a moment’s notice. In March, White recorded four games with at least five three-point makes and hit seven in one amazing shotmaking bonanza of a night against the Magic.
Above all White has reached a level of consistency previously unseen from the sixth-year guard. He scored at least 21 points in each of his 15 appearances, including a career-high 44-point outing. It’s been a tremendous month for the speedy guard; he deserves his flowers.
Paolo Banchero, Orlando Magic
March stats: 30.1 ppg, 7.7 rpg, 4.4 apg
Banchero has battled through a frustrating season so far in Orlando. A hot start in the first five games was immediately derailed by a torn oblique that knocked him out for over two months. When he finally returned to the court, the rust was very obvious and the Magic’s other injury issues, most predominately Franz Wagner’s torn oblique, hindered his return to form.
Slowly but surely, Banchero ramped up. After getting his legs under him in January, February was split evenly between star-studded performances and showings that made it clear Banchero missed several months of the season. Once March hit, though, Banchero’s game hit a new level.
The 2022 No. 1 pick is one of six players who averaged 30 points per game in March. He shot 50.9% from the floor on 20.4 shots per game. His best stretch showed all the best parts of Banchero. In eight games between March 13 and March 27, Banchero scored over 30 points in all but one contest while hitting half of his shots from the field and 36.4% of his threes with a plus-minus of plus-8 in his 36.6 minutes per game.
When Banchero is cooking, he’s an elite three-level scorer, a remarkably strong wing with boulders for shoulders that he uses to get to his spots at will as defenders pinball off him. March served as a reminder of that. He’s a premium bucket-getter in this league.
This article was originally published on www.si.com as Stars of March: Five NBA Players Who Shined.
