Karl-Anthony Towns' 62-Point Night Isn't Even The Highest Second Highest Scoring Game Of A Day - It's The Penultimate
I did it. I really did it. With hard work and patience I finally came through. I successfully found a use case for the word "penultimate".
But focus here because I found what I believe might be my career defining stat. One of those gems that will blow your mind either out of amazement or sheer stupidity. Possibly both. Let me set the stage real quick. The table above shows NBA players who got cucked on a big scoring night by having someone else somewhere across the league score more points than them. That's what happened to Karl-Anthony Towns in light of Embiid's 70 vs the worthless Spurs. But at least KAT and the T-Wolves won the game, right?
In light of this and with help from the above list of highest scoring second highest scoring players on a given night in NBA history, here's the stat:
On a night Karl-Anthony Towns's team came in second place, Towns scored the second most points of the night across the league with 62. That's the second most, second most points scored on a single day in NBA history.
BUT WAIT!
Look at the list again because HE WASN'T EVEN THE FIRST PLAYER TO DO THAT!!! Wilt beat him to it by scoring 62 first on a night Jerry West put up 63. I could be wrong but I think that's the final layer here of the nested Karl-Anthony second place doll. No surprise this comes from a guy with two first names.
To sum up Karl-Anthony - a man with two first names - was the second player to score the second most, second most points of a given day in NBA history in a game his team came in second place.
If this isn't the best penultimate stat of all time it's certainly the… well.
BONUS PENULTIMATE STAT
God Damnit I can't help myself but Joel's 70 spot wasn't even the most points scored on a January 22nd since it was the anniversary of Kobe Bryant's 81.