Because everyone played like they were on national TV last night. (Okay, not everyone, but look at the numbers below)
Line of the Night: I tried to tell people (probably a bit too gently) to hang on to Dorell Wright (3.18). Wright lit it up with 23 points (6 threes), 9 rebounds, 5 assists, 2 steals, and 1 block. It certainly doesn’t hurt that the Warriors have a back loaded schedule. Anyone who hung on to Wright will have 4 game weeks one after the other right when they count the most.
Honorable Mentions: Dwyane Wade (2.96) returned to help the Heat beat New York, scoring 28 points (6-6 from the line), with 4 assists, 5 steals, and 2 blocks in his first game back. Save it for the playoffs DWyane!
Paul Pierce (2.92) continued to carry the Celtics like it was 2005 (or 2006). Pierce scored 28 points (4 threes, 4-4 from the line), along with a near triple-double of 10 rebounds and 8 assists, adding 3 steals, and 2 blocks. Anything else you want from a stat line?
Joakim Noah (2.46) seems to have finally gotten his head screwed on straight, scoring 15 points (6-10 from the field), with 16 rebounds, 4 assists, 3 steals, and 3 blocks. Granted, that came against a Bucks team who is now starting Drew Gooden (see below for Gooden’s monster offensive, but not defensive, line).
Russell Westbrook (2.39) probably won you the steals category last night with 7 of them, and also put up 28 points, 6 rebounds, and 11 assists (and somehow the Player Rater was okay with his 7 turnovers).
I know someone who is counting on Deron Williams (2.24) to carry his team now that Andrew Bogut is out at least 8 weeks with his fractured ankle. Deron didn’t disappoint with 27 points (5 threes), 10 assists, and 2 steals. Not going to make up for the blocks, but it’ll help with #winning the other cats.
Josh Smith (2.22) continued to take advantage of Al Horford’s absence with a near triple-double: 19 points, 11 rebounds, 8 assists, and 3 blocks.
I dropped Kyrie Irving (2.09) for Drew Gooden yesterday and Irving felt so disrespected that he put up 32 points (12-20 from the field), 6 rebounds, and 2 steals just to show me what I’ll be missing. I know, Kyrie. But I had to. I’m sorry. I’ll make it up by drafting you in every league I’m in next year.
***
Waiver Wire Line of the Night: I know you want it to be Drew Gooden, but you’ll have to wait because Rodrigue Beaubois (3.06) score 22 points (3 threes, 9-15 from the field), with 6 rebounds, 7 assists, and 4 blocks (11% owned). I’m not sure what’s more confusing: That the Give Me The Rock Fantasy Basketball Player Rater gave him the second highest score of the night despite the 2 turnovers and only 1-1 from the line, or that Rodrigue Beaubois got 4 blocks… Come on, how tall is that guy? He’s listed at 6′ 2″ which probably means he’s like 5′ 11″. The only guys on the Jazz with Blocked Attempts were Earl Watson (1), Devin Harris (2), and Al Jefferson (2), which means that at least one of Beaubois’s blocks was on Big Al. Ouch.
Pick Up Lines: Rudy Fernandez (2.35) returned from a strained achilles tendon to play 33 minutes and score 23 points (5 threes, 9-11 from the field), getting 3 steals as well (18% owned). If he gets back to averaging his 28 minutes game like earlier in the season, then he’ll be worth owning.
And now, the moment everyone who picked up Drew Gooden (2.04) has been waiting for: 23 points (10-10 from the line), 15 rebounds, and 6 assists (36% owned). If that ownership number doesn’t shoot up in the next couple of days, then we’ll have a very good idea of how many dead leagues there are out there. Probably more than 20,000 of them under the sea. Anyway… consider yourself lucky if you managed to snag Gooden, because while no one wants to start him and playing him for 33 minutes a game, he has shown that when he starts and plays 33 minutes a game, he can put up double-doubles like that consistently. He averaged 14 and 9 for Chicago in 2007-08, but I think he just missed out on Scott Skiles… Well, now Scotty gets to beam him up to fantasy superstardom! (Sorry, that was just stupid)
Bill Walker (1.76) came off the bench to light it up for he Knicks with his 21 points coming off of 7-10 three-pointers. He also had 7 rebounds (1% owned). Carmelo Anthony sat that one out, so I wouldn’t count on that kind of thing happening too often.
Someone you might want to consider picking up, though, is Klay Thompson (1.70), who had 14 points (6-8 from the field, 2 threes), and 3 blocks (3% owned). He’s getting 17 minutes per game and has shown flashes of some three-point shooting ability. He’s a GF in Yahoo leagues, so that might be worth something… Deep league owners should take a look, and he could have value in some smaller leagues (but probably still bigger than 12 teams) if he starts getting 20+ minutes per game. Also, he’s on Golden State, which as I mentioned has a very nice back end schedule.
Speaking of backend schedule…
Josh Smith hasn’t been the only one stepping up since Al Horford’s injury. Marvin Williams (1.55) has played 20+ minutes in the last 7 games and last night he connected on 5 threes for 22 points (6-9 from the field), to go with 8 rebounds (24% owned). He’s not really consistent in any categories, but he can contribute across several and if his playing time keeps going up, he’ll probably continue to get picked up in leagues of increasingly smaller size.
Biggest Loser: Dwight Howard (1.24) had 28 points and 16 rebounds, and his 10-17 free throw shooting was actually pretty decent for him, so obviously he was not the Biggest Loser. But when you know that he scored 42% of his teams points, then you might start thinking that one or more of his teammates is going to be gain the dubious distinction. You can see where this is going: Hedo Turkoglu (-1.10) had 3 points (1-7 from the field), 3 rebounds, 1 assist, and 6 turnovers while Jameer Nelson (-0.88) scored only 2 points (1-4 from the field) with 0 rebounds, and 0 assists. The Hornets (4-15) beat the Magic by 26 points. Dwight Howard may not be asking for a trade anymore, but you know he’s not going to stick around with teammates like that.
In The Bonus: Erik debates Is Kyle Lowry better than Derrick Rose over at Pippen Ain’t Easy. I think he did that just to rile up Bulls fans over on a Bulls-centric blog. And he got in a bunch of links back to GMTR, so Bravo!
***
Daily rankings and stats come from the GMTR H2H Player Rater (beta version). They are based on the stat Wins Above Replacement Player (WARP) an estimate of the number of wins a player produces per week in H2H leagues over a replacement (waiver wire) player.
Do not miss a day of the Fantasy NBA. Subscribe to Give Me The Rock 
right now. You can also get bonus (and easily digestible) content by following GMTR on Twitter, or become a fan of GMTR on Facebook! We are so social!
Want to see your ad in the GMTR RSS feed? Contact: givemetherock@gmail.comOther Stuff Like This:
- Fantasy Basketball Player Tiers: Small Forwards (3)
- Day 70 0f 170: Welcome Home, Mr. Turkoglu (4)
- 2010-11 Fantasy Basketball Breakout Players (7)
- Offseason Free Agent and Transaction Analysis (7)
- Day 114 of 170: Don’t Get Too Comfortable (0)
- Day 32 of 124: Where Tyrus Thomas Beckons You with his Sweet Siren Call (59)
- First Month Report Card: Top 20 Point Guards in Fantasy Basketball (8)
Original Story:
17
1
