Kenneth Faried had an impressive outing against the Phoenix Suns, with 20 points on 8-12 shooting. Faried pulled down a season-high 15 rebounds in just 26 minutes, recorded four steals and finished with a 90.2 Defensive Rating.
He wants to prove all the haters in the league wrong.
“A lot of people in this league and a lot of the media has been disrespecting me, saying ‘Kenneth’s defense.’ Even past coaches say ‘Oh, your defense is suspect,'” Faried said following Denver’s win. “And that’s what I predicate myself on. That’s how I got into this league. So I find that as disrespect and I just want to shut everybody up, not by saying it but by doing it.”
After losing his starting spot early on in the season he had to work hard to earn it back. He plays much better in his starting role than he does coming off the bench, and his recent stretch of games shows it. He had this to say in regards to losing his starting job:
“That’s my spot. That’s my spot. I don’t like people taking my spot,” Faried said of losing his starting spot at the onset of this season. “I didn’t take kindly to that. Coach knew that. My teammates knew that. I was outspoken about it. I was really upset. But I wanted it and I worked for it. That’s what I wanted to get back. When I came out of that starting spot, it kind of gave me a wakeup call like ‘Hey, you need to get back to who you are.'”
As a starter, Faried a job he’s had in Denver’s past three games. He’s averaging 15.3 points, 12.3 rebounds, 1.7 steals, 2.3 blocks and shooting 54.8 percent from the field in 24.7 minutes over those three starts. He still doesn't get a crazy amount of minutes, but that could be due to ill relations with head coach Mike Malone.
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