Line of the Night: Kevin Love (2.78) did something against the Knicks last night that he’s done five other times in his career – and that’s go for at least 30 and 20 in a game. Love scored 32 points and grabbed 21 rebounds and despite that, was overshadowed by a certain PG on the other team who hit the game-winning free throw. It’s “only’ the second time that Love has gone for 20+ rebounds in a game this year, but the other one was a 31/20 against the Bucks on 12/27.
Honorable Mentions: Chris Paul (2.30) led the Clippers to a 111-86 win over the hapless Charlotte Bobcats, scoring 18 points with a very Paul-like 5 rebounds and 14 assists. The player rater also wants us to respect Caron Butler’s (1.74) 16 points, 4 threes and 6 rebounds, maybe because he also had a steal and a block and shot 5-8 from the field. Blake Griffin (1.25) chipped in 21 and 10 in the game (come on man, we all know 30 and 20 is the new 20 and 10).
For those of you who jumped on Randy Foye (0.56) when Chauncey Billups went down for the season, he had 12 points and 2 threes in that Clippers’ game. He’s not exactly setting the world on fire over the last three games, but it’s something if you need a warm body…
The Bobcats’ best line came all the way down at #37 thanks to Kemba Walker’s (0.78) 19 points and 4 assists on 4-13 shooting. He puts the “shoot” in Volume Shooter. And in only his second game back from injury, the Bobcats desperately inserted Corey Maggette (-0.16) into the starting lineup in place of Tyrus Thomas. Maggette finished with 12 and 6 in 25 minutes, while Thomas got 18 minutes off the bench and finished with 11 and 5. Maggette is worth a look if you play in a deeper league until he gets injured again, but if you happen to still be holding onto Thomas, I think it’s time to do your fantasy team a favor and drop him now.
Jason Richardson’s (2.23) start to the season was so brutal and injury prone I came very close to dropping him in one 12-man league where I couldn’t handle any more injuries. I’m glad I didn’t, as Richardson has turned things around over the last couple of weeks, including last night’s 31 point and 9 three game against the Bucks. Take that, Ryan Anderson. How sneaky good has Richardson been? Over the last two weeks, Richardson is ranked 10th on the GMTR player rater.
More on the Bucks’ best performance below.
Portland and Dallas went to 2 overtimes and yet still only finished with a score of 97-94. LaMarcus Aldridge (1.96) led the fantasy way with 33 points and 12 rebounds and Gerald Wallace (1.68) had 10 points, 10 rebounds and 4 steals in a losing effort.
Dallas’ best line actually came from Jason Kidd (0.72), who only scored 5 points, but added 8 boards and 8 assists in 31 minutes. I think a developing theme to this season is that when old guys take off time to rest (a la Dirk), they’ve come back strong. Remember that for future trading purposes.
Another guy who had a brutal start to the season was Jared Dudley (1.94). Like Richardson, he’s picked up his game recently, but in a win over the Kings last night he put up some next level ****: 20 points on 8-13 shooting with 3 threes, 10 rebounds, 2 steals and 2 blocks. If Dudley is someone still hanging out on your wire, you’ll want to snatch him up.
Marcus Thornton (1.45) led the Kings with 21 points, hitting 46 from three, while DeMarcus Cousins (0.62) added 26 and 9.
Finally, Jrue Holiday (1.67) helped the Sixers take down the Cavs with 20 points and 5 assists. And in his likely last start before the return of Kyrie Irving, Ramon Sessions continued his run with 19 points and 8 assists.
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Waiver Wire Line of the Night: Did Ersan Ilyasova (2.32) work out with Kevin Love over the summer or something? Ilyasova scored 17 points (on 7-10 from the field), with 16 rebounds in 33 minutes off the bench for the Bucks against the Magic. Ilyasova is now averaging a career best 8 rebounds per game (and 10.5 boards per 30). I’d love it if his minutes didn’t wildly swing from game to game like most of the Bucks, but he’s worth a look in most leagues if you’re in the market for a Kevin Love-extra-lite… well, provided that Scott Skiles gives him at least 25 minutes a game.
Pick Up Lines: Nikola Pekovic (1.76) continues to do his thing with Darko Milicic increasingly yesterday’s news. He finished with 21 points (on 9-10 from the field) and 13 rebounds against the Knicks and is going to give you exactly that – points, rebounds and percentages.
Remember Markieff Morris (1.67)? He had his first nice game off the bench for the Suns in what seems like forever with 18 points, 6 rebounds and 3 blocks against the Kings. He’s not shown any sort of consistency his rookie season, so leave him on waivers for now.
If you were streaming for threes last night and happen to take a shot on Gary Neal (1.40), he made you happy with 18 points on 8-10 shooting and a couple threes in 23 minutes of the bench for the Spurs. A decent plug and play if you need threes is about what I’d consider his ceiling though.
Iman Shumpert (1.30) will not go gentle into that good night. While the nation gets swept away in Jeremy Lin (-0.06) fever, Shumpert has quietly put together a few nice games in a row, including last night’s 20 points and 4 steals against the Wolves. Shumpert now has 9 steals over his last three games and remains one of the premier steals guys in the league. I wouldn’t necessarily go trading for him, but he’s a nice pickup if you are looking for a steals boost.
And while he’s not a waiver wire player by any means any longer, I should mention that Linsanity remains red hot as Lin brought home another nice 20, 6 and 8 against the Wolves. Watch out though, he might be starting to press a little as he also shot 8-24 from the field, turned the ball over 6 times and had his shot blocked 4 times. The rest of the Knicks’ starting lineup combined for 30 shots.
Speaking of Knicks, Steve Novak (0.99) went 4-6 from three and finished with 15 points and 6 rebounds. Novak has hit 16 threes over 4 games since Amare Stoudemire left the team, but it looks like his run is going to come to an end as Amare is expected back for the Knicks’ game on Tuesday against Toronto. It’s possible Novak keeps some portion of his minutes as the Knicks three point stretch the floor guy, but I’m not going to keep him on my team to find out.
I wasn’t kidding the other day when I said that Jordan Farmar (1.24) might be the team’s second best player (not counting Lopez) right now. Famar got 31 minutes off the bench against the Spurs and finished with 12 points, 6 rebounds and 7 assists. He’s been getting close to 30 minutes a game off the bench and is worth a look in most leagues even as MarShon Brooks works his way back into the rotation.
Alonzo Gee (0.65) just keeps putting up nice line after nice line for the Cavs, including yesterday’s 17 points and 6 rebounds in 24 minutes off the bench. He isn’t going to give you much other than points and some boards with good percentages, but unlike a lot of waiver wire guys out there (coughCarlosDelfinocough) he’s not going to kill you with horrible shooting lines every other night either.
Corey Brewer (0.33) returned after missing three games, got the start in Danilo Gallinari absence and played 34 minutes, scoring 19 points and adding 5 boards. Brewer is a career 42% shooter and is not going to light the world on fire with his scoring, but he’ll probably be worth owning while Gallinari is out. I would at least give him a look in fantasy leagues.
And I have to mention Tristan Thompson (0.20), who is currently available in 90% of Yahoo leagues at the moment. With Anderson Varejao out indefinitely with a fractured wrist (the preliminary timetable is 4-6 weeks – thanks stupid NBA season) Thompson becomes an intriguing speculation add.
As I mentioned in the comments of yesterday’s post, his per-30 minute numbers look something like this: 11.5 points, 8.8 rebounds and 2 blocks. That alone is enough to make a lot of people stop reading and add him immediately. Unfortunately, he’s not likely ever to see that much time with Varejao sidelined. Thompson is still a raw player skills-wise and is only 6-9 and 227 pounds, so it’s unlikely that he sees a lot of time at center unless the Cavs want to go really, really small. In fact, the Cavs started Semih Erden (-0.79) last night at center against the Sixers despite the fact that he was in Byron Scott’s doghouse for some reason or another I forget. Erden did nothing in 14 minutes, while Thompson had 8 boards and 2 blocks in 19 minutes, so Thompson is clearly the guy to grab in that situation with the hope that he sees more minutes while Varejao is out.
Biggest Loser: Another theme that’s been developing this season: It was a bad night to be a point guard. Again. Raymond Felton (-0.73) shot 4-17 from the field and finished with 9 points, 2 rebounds and 2 assists. Felton is shooting a painful 37% this season.
Well, it was fun while it lasted, but Luke Ridnour (-0.49) should be losing his starting SG job any day now for the Wolves after he’s been putting up horrible lines night after night like this: 5 points and 1 assist on 2-7 from the field.
On the positive side, Tyreke Evans (-0.46) did have 6 rebounds and 5 assists, but he complemented that with 4 turnovers and a 1-9 night from the field. Evans has really strung together some horrible shooting games lately, shooting 38% in the month of February.
Finally, Brandon Jennings (-0.35) is in full freefall mode: His 7 points, 5 rebounds and 5 assists against the Magic is not a disaster on the face of it, but the 3-14 shooting from the field is his 7th straight game of shooting 40% from the floor or less. Jennings should really stop thinking about his future and focus on actually playing basketball now.
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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.
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