Week 13’s Player of the Week award went to a very deserving Shawn “the Hawk” Hawkins, who edged Alexus Foyle of the Taiwan Mobile Leopards when the Basketball Writers’ Association voted 21-20 in his favor.
His future with the SBL remains uncertain as the rules on enlisting foreign players may change during the upcoming offseason.
The all-purpose Kinmen Liquor forward, who has all but wrapped up the regular season scoring title with a 25.5 point-per-game scoring average, 2.4 points more than Foyle’s 23.1, showed his opponents no mercy in three games last week. Hawkins racked up 89 combined points in an explosive offensive outburst. He also snatched nearly a dozen rebounds per game to add to his second-ranked rebounding average of 11.1 per game (behind Jonathan Sanders’ league-best 12.8).
If there is one thing that could top the Hawk’s outstanding week, it would have been a trip to the postseason, which he will not have a chance to experience this year given that Kinmen Liquor were eliminated from the playoffs earlier this month.
“It’s great to be able to win it, but I wish our team would do better so that we can play in the postseason,” the Hawk said after learning of his selection for the coveted weekly honor for the second time this year.
Regardless of the Hawk’s future in Taiwan, fans nationwide will have two more chances to witness his on-court heroics as Kinmen Liquor close out the regular season with tough battles against a pair of playoff-bound clubs — the Yulon Luxgens at the Taipei County Gymnasium in Sinjhuang at 5pm today and Pure Youth Construction at 7pm in tomorrow’s season finale.
While the Distillers will only have their pride to play for, the Luxgens and the Builders will have an opportunity to tweak their lineup one last time before the postseason starts next Friday. Should there be any weakness for the other two playoff-bound squads (the Dacin Tigers and Taiwan Beer) to exploit, the games against the Distillers will undoubtedly be the best opportunity to find it.
Kinmen Liquor coach Luo Tien-jin will likely give the Hawk enough floor time to secure the scoring title in both contests as the rest of the team looks to close out the season on a high note.
As for the Luxgens and Builders, keeping the game injury-free will be a top priority, as neither team can afford to lose a player with the playoffs on the horizon.
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