2012 Fantasy Basketball: Wesley Matthews, Carmelo Anthony, J.R. Smith, Joakim Noah and More

If you’ve just started your championship week, good luck! Fantasy basketball season is officially over, well at least for those who participated in GMTR leagues. If your fantasy league’s playoffs also ended last night, and you won (or at least placed) then celebrate as well. Give yourselves a pat on the back for a fantasy season well played.


Congratulations to noy101 (GMTR Readers League, Standard Snake Draft) and to (World) PEACE OUT (GMTR Dynasty League) for winning in their respective leagues. Good Game.


As for this blog’s authors, we didn’t do too shabby. Patrick finished second in the keeper league, while Nels and I took second and third places respectively in the the Readers league. It’s nice to see that we were able to save some face and take a step up onto the winners’ podium. I unfortunately do not know the results of the GMTR Auction League that Patrick was in charge of, so we’ll let him chime in his congratulatory remarks in the comments later on.


With that out of the way, let’s move on and recap last night’s games and see how our beloved NBA players fared for us in fantasy basketball.


Line of the Night: Wesley Matthews (2.52) made the most of Portland’s need for offense in the wake of them losing LaMarcus Aldridge for the rest of the season. While it wasn’t enough for the Trail Blazers to defeat the Sacramento Kings, Matthews’ 31 points, EIGHT treys, one steal, one block, and three assists were nonetheless impressive for our player rater. Either he or Nicolas Batum will be the top fantasy performers for the team, for the remainder of the season.


Honorable Mentions:


Carmelo Anthony (2.40) had a valiant yet futile attempt to take on the Miami Heat single-handed. He and J.R. Smith (1.54) were obviously not enough to salvage a win. Melo bore the brunt of the scoring load and scored literally half of New York’s total output with 42 points! He added nine rebounds and five assists to his line. Smith on the other hand had 16 points, four three pointers, seven rebounds and three steals. JR is only owned in 41% of Yahoo leagues and looks like he’s going to remain productive for what remains of the NBA’s regular season.


Joakim Noah (2.19) steamrolled over the Detroit Pistons via an impressive 20-point, 17-board performance! He was a perfect four for four from the line and added two blocks as well.


Two Jasons did well for their teams. The first, Jason Terry (1.85) led all of the Dallas Mavericks in fantasy performances for the night via 21 points (5 threes)and four assists. While Jason Richardson (1.81) lifted Orlando versus the hapless Cleveland Cavaliers with 16 points and four treys of his own. J-Rich also logged six boards and two steals.


Pau Gasol (1.75) had a sweet 20-10 night with, well literally,  20 points and 10 rebounds. Beyond his big man role he moonlighted as a guard very briefly by handing out five assists and knocked down not one, but TWO back-to-back shots from downtown.


***


Waiver Wire Line of the Night: Greg Stiemsma (2.31) made the most of Boston’s Big (or should I say OLD) Three getting the night off. Greg not-so-quietly scored eight points and grabbed five boards, but added four steals and six blocks! It’s a shame the Celts only have three games this week. But hey, if you need blocks, Greg’s your man! (11% owned)


Pick Up Lines: Daniel Orton (1.59), whose name made me do a double take as I thought I was reading about professional wrestling then realized that dude’s name was Randy. So yeah, Daniel who? As you can imagine, he’s not owned at all, anywhere, but had a good enough night to log a ping on our rater’s fantasy radar as he had a productive defensive night with 11 points, five steals, and three  blocks. Glen Davis has a hyperextended knee and is expected to miss tonight’s game. So yeah, Orton might just be worth some stream material this week, as long as Davis is out.


Chase Budinger (1.57) broke his streak of quiet games and exploded for 19 points and five treys. He nailed four of those threes in his first 12 minutes on the court, so clearly he caught fire from the get go. He added six rebounds and a couple of steals to his performance. With Kyle Lowry back and feeling better, these nights will be seen less and less.


Derrick Brown (1.54) was the lone fantasy bright spot for the Charlotte Bobcats last night as he scored 15 points (6-10 from the field), grabbed seven rebounds, and three steals. He’s a gamble of an add, but with Corey Maggette done for the season, Brown will be getting enough burn to warrant at least a serious look in deep leagues. (2% owned)


Biggest Loser:


O.J. Mayo (-1.46) was awful in his 27 minutes on the floor for the Grizzlies as they lost to the New Orleans Hornets. Mayo scored 11 points, but he also committed six turnovers and was just three of twelve from the field.


Al Harrington (-0.89) does have a partially torn meniscus and is just gutting it out for the rest of these remaining days of the season, so we understand. But also do understand that his injury is severe enough to limit him on most nights and thus resulting in lines similar to 5 points, 4 rebounds, 1 assists , 2-9 from the field.


Tony Allen (-0.85) is back in action for the Grizzlies but obviously is in need of shaking off some rust. He might not recover in time to make much of an impact as his four points, and two boards weren’t really signs of an encouraging return.


Marcus Camby (-0.77) left Houston’s game early with a sore back and only managed to log one rebound and two assists for his owners.


***


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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