D.J. Augustin is the second-best story in basketball right now

It probably hasn't been since Kobe was toying around with the NBA on the '06 Lakers that we've seen a sustained run of single-player dominance like the one Kevin Durant is on right now. 

Ever since the calendar flipped over to 2014 -- and really, since running mate Russell Westbrook went down with injury and left KD once more as the team's only go-to guy -- Durant has been on a tear of absolute lunacy. 

He's averaging a 37/6/6 on 52 percent shooting in the 2014 calendar year, a stretch that's now peaked with a 54-point performance in a nationally televised win over the Warriors, and a 46-point performance (on 17-of-25 shooting!) in a tough W last night against the Blazers for Northwest Division supremacy.

KD's unbelievable stretch has raised his season averages so much, that he now has both a PPG and a PER comfortably over 30 -- something only four other players in NBA history have ever done for a season, none of whom have the initials LBJ. 

In the process, he's not only hijacked the MVP conversation -- an honor for which he's now easily in the drivers' seat, despite any non-LeBron candidacy seeming absolutely preposterous just four weeks ago -- but all other NBA-related conversations in the process by captivating the attention of the entire league, and overwhelming any other subjects that might otherwise be worthy of discussion. 

But you know who we'd be talking about right now if Pissed Off Kevin Durant wasn't setting the league on fire right now? 

D.J. Augustin. 

Really? Like, THAT D.J. Augustin? The guy the Bobcats let walk without a second thought at the end of his rookie deal after taking him with a top-ten pick four drafts earlier? The guy who captained one of the worst benches in the NBA last year, which might've cost the Pacers a trip to the finals? The guy who got picked up by the Raptors off the scrap heap this summer, who quickly fell behind Dwight Buycks and Julyan Stone on the Toronto depth chart, and not long thereafter had his guaranteed contract dropped without hesitation to make room for Greivis Vasquez???

Yes. That D.J. Augustin. Because however ignominious his recent past may be -- and it's an absolute s---show, for certain -- he's somehow managed to not only put up the best numbers of his career in the past month, but he's also accidentally resurrected the Chicago Bulls in the process. 

Comparing Augustin's stat line from the 10 games he played with the Raptors this season and the 20 games he's played since being picked up by the Chicago Bulls in mid-December, and it's basically impossible to fathom that they could have been put up by the same player in the same NBA season. Look at this ridiculousness:

TOR: 2.1 PPG, 0.4 RPG, 1.0 APG, 29% FG, 9% 3PT, 0 SPG, 0.9 TOV 
CHI: 12.3 PPG, 2.2 RPG, 6.1 APG, 42% FG, 40% 3PT, 1.3 SPG, 2.1 TOV

Now of course, a chunk of this discrepancy is due to the minutes he received in Toronto (8.2 per contest) playing behind Kyle Lowry getting bumped up in Chicago (29.4 per) under the oft-miserable Kirk Hinrich. But holy hell, if you think this is just opportunity inflation, you need to look a lot closer. 

D.J. has a nearly 3:1 assist to turnover ratio now, after putting up ten assists and nine turnovers total in his ten games in Toronto. He's made 40 percent of the 95 threes he's taken in the Windy City, after going just 1-11 north of the border. He's averaging over a steal a game now after registering just one (one!) in 82 minutes as a Raptor. 

To summarize in one stat: D.J.'s PER with the Bulls is a robust 17.1, in a league with near-borderline All-Star guards like Jrue Holiday and DeMar DeRozan. His PER with the Raps? 1.4. Not even half a point higher than the worldwide catastrophe that is Anthony Bennett's rookie season. 

You could say that 82 total minutes isn't enough of a sample to draw any real conclusions from; that he might have snapped out of it eventually in Toronto with more consistent playing time and seen his numbers creep up to his Chicago averages. But it's not like he was all that much better at his last few stops, either. 

Augustin's last year in Charlotte saw his shooting percentage slip to 38%, while he was stewarding the team with the worst winning percentage in NBA history, a number that dipped even further to 35 percent in his one year in Indiana, which also saw his scoring and assisting rate drop to precipitous levels (10.5 PPG and 5.0 APG per 36 minutes, practically invisible numbers for someone not even playing 20 minutes a night). He's barely rated above replacement level as a player since 2011. You might not have expected him to be quite so bad in Toronto, but you'd have been mildly delusional if you expected him to be good. 

But that's exactly what he's been for this Bulls team: Good. Very good, in fact. His Per 36 minutes numbers are back up to 15.1 PPG and 7.5 APG, his PER is the highest of his career, and his True Shooting percentage of 57.2 is easily the best mark among current Bulls regulars. According to Win Shares per 48 minutes, only Joakim Noah has been more valuable to the Bulls this season, and when you compare Augustin's 20 games for Chicago to the ten Derrick Rose played at season's beginning...well, let's just say that D.J. Augustin makes Derrick Rose look like D.J. Augustin. 

And you better believe the jolt Augustin has given Chicago is reflected in the team's overall performance. When D.J. joined the team for their Dec. 13th game against the Bucks, the Bulls were 8-12, a team in freefall a couple weeks away from trading their most productive player. Since then, they've gone 12-8, including winning 11 of their last 15, as Augustin has really hit his groove. They've gone from a team looking like they're one more loss from throwing in the towel and bottoming out for next year, to one that really has about as good a shot as anyone as claiming the three seed in the East. 

Augustin's not the only reason for that, of course. Jimmy Butler and Carlos Boozer coming back to the lineup after both missing time with injury makes a difference, as does Joakim Noah finally looking right after starting off the season still recovering from various lower-body maladies. 

Augustin's contributions have also allowed for fewer minutes and fewer shots for Hinrich, both of which are unquestionably good things at this stage of Captain Kirk's career (35% FG, 29% 3PT). And obviously, there's no discounting the spiritual lift that comes with having a locker-room leader like Andrew Bynum on your roster, even if it's only for a matter of minutes. 

But just watching the Bulls for a few minutes, you can see the value for them with Augustin on the court. He gives something that they've just been totally and desperately lacking since Nate Robinson signed with the Nuggets: a dynamic backcourt player who can push the pace a little and create for teammates and himself. 

You could especially see it on MLK day against the Lakers, when he hit a couple huge threes on the way to a season-high 27 points (his first game going over 20 since 2012, and his highest-scoring night in almost three years) and a Bulls OT win, and just generally looked like the only Chicago player comfortable being tasked with Making Something Happen. 

So why has D.J. been able to do this on the Bulls when he's been thoroughly unable to even approximate competence on his last two teams? I don't really know, and I haven't done the deep film study to figure it out. My best guess, though, is that it is a matter of opportunity and fit. 

The Pacers tried to mold Augustin into a game-manager like George Hill, and the Raptors never gave Augustin much of a chance behind Lowry, but the Bulls are in such dire need for offensive spark that they really have no choice but to hand him the ball and say "do whatever you can for us, PLEASE." 

He's playing with the sense of release of a man whose play has been shackled for far too long, and as crazy as it sounds to say, if you don't squint too closely, he doesn't look all that dissimilar from Rose when you see him careening around screens and pushing the ball in the open court. 

Unfortunately, he's not putting up 40-plus points four times in ten games, or outdueling Stephen Curry on ESPN, so you probably won't hear so much about Augustin's historically unlikely production of late. But who knows? If he keeps it up for another few weeks, while Durant and the Thunder start to slide a bit...it might not be long before North America finds itself swept up in the phenomenon that is DEEJMANIA.