Moving Isaiah Thomas into the starting lineup in Boston in place of the injured Marcus Smart was an understandable move for Celtics coach Brad Stevens. Yet it sure scrambled this category, which might just rank as the most complicated to size up through the opening Trimester.

That's because the bulk of the league's top bench scorers can be found on losing teams at the moment. Your top three in the league, with a minimum of 20 games off the bench, are New Orleans' Ryan Anderson (16.8 PPG), Denver's Will Barton (16.2) and Utah's poor Alec Burks (14.4), who was just forced to undergo surgery for a broken left fibula.

What we thus considered here was picking one of the game-changers from the top two teams in the league: Golden State's Andre Iguodala or San Antonio's lifelong sixth man extraordinaire, Manu Ginobili.

The nightly contribution from both of them, as anyone in either city would tell you, is far greater than their standard stat lines would suggest, so ‎it's tempting go either direction. That's especially true when Ginobili, whose nightly allotment of minutes are intentionally held to a mere 19.9 by Spurs coach Gregg Popovich, can still manage at 38 to carry a PER of 19.84, maximizing his time on the floor as well as anyone.

So we indeed looked at those two as well as newcomer Jeremy Lamb, who has lived up to his 11th-hour contract extension in Charlotte by helping the Hornets weather the loss of Michael Kidd-Gilchrist. ‎The numbers Enes Kanter is posting in a mere 20.6 minutes per game (12.0 PPG and 8.2 RPG) also catch the eye ... until you remember that Kanter's minutes are where they are in Oklahoma City because of his defensive limitations.

So ...

Our ultimate selection, at this still fairly formative stage of the season, came down to Anderson and Barton, both of whom have exceeded expectations in tough situations.

Nuggets fans have clearly taken ‎to Barton, filling my timeline with electronic shrieks of "Will The Thrill" whenever I tweet out a bit of statistical praise for some of his recent work. Barton really has to figure in any Most Improved Player conversations, too.

Yet Anderson, in the end, swayed us with his solid production, which not only ranks as the only thing injury-ravaged New Orleans has been able to count on besides ‎Anthony Davis during its demoralizing 10-21 start, but has also sparked considerable trade interest in the seven-year veteran from teams such as Houston and Phoenix.

The Pels, as we reported on Dec. 20, are not ‎shopping Anderson. With so many calls coming in, though, they may be obligated to listen.