I’ll be honest. When the Philadelphia 76ers signed Georges Niang back in early August, I didn’t give it a ton of thought. I saw he shot 40 percent from behind the arc, figured he had to be an upgrade over the twilight years of Mike Scott, and returned to one of my handful of group chats speculating over the fate of Ben Simmons. I mean, if a perennial playoff team like the Utah Jazz was willing to let him walk for a little over $3 million per year, we couldn’t get too excited, right?
Wrong. Niang had his best game of the season in Monday night’s win over the Portland Trail Blazers, recording his first-career 20-5-5 game with a season-high 21 points (7-of-16 from the floor, 4-of-5 from the foul line), along with five rebounds and five assists.