Line of the Night: For the second time in three days Kevin Love (2.85) tops the GMTR charts with his hit “Love Is All Around. The lyrics go: 28 points (4 threes, 4-4 from the line), 11 rebounds, and 4 blocks. Not quite as impressive as Sunday’s performance,
Honorable Mentions: Marcin Gortat (1.84) continues to make his case for a high draft pick next season with 21 points (9-15 from the field), 14 rebounds, and 2 blocks while Tim Duncan (1.73) came back from being old to score 26 points (11-16 from the field, 4-4 from the line) with 11 rebounds. Pau Gasol (1.72) is two spots ahead of his brother Marc according to the Player Rater for the year and with Marc possibly out for a few games, Pau has the chance to pull further ahead with 19 points, and 17 rebounds. Of course, considering he’s already at #13, there’s not a lot of room to move up.
Josh Smith (1.72) continued to pretty much ignore the defensive side of the floor, and while I’m sure owners won’t mind his 30 points, 18 rebounds, and 5 assists, nor even the 2 steals, his 1 lonely block is certainly going to impact owners who thought they had that category all but locked up when they drafted him. Speaking of blocking shots, though, if you drafted Serge Ibaka (1.63), then you probably do have that category locked up as Serge added another 8 points, 12 rebounds, and 6 blocks to give him 3.3 blocks per game for the entire year. Yes, that leads the league by a wide margin.
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Waiver Wire Line of the Night: Jodie Meeks (2.33) started in place of Evan Turner who started in place of Andre Iguodala, and Meeks LIT IT UP with 31 points on 7 threes, going 11-16 from the field (33% owned). It was Meeks’s second start and while his first didn’t go so well, he’s got a pretty good body of work to inform you on how he will play given 30 minutes a game. If you’ve got daily changes, you can probably afford to wait until closer to Philly’s next game on Friday to see if Iguodala is recovered enough to play.
Speaking of 76ers, Adam Levitan at Rotoworld has a short piece on his prospects. There have been a couple recent comments asking about Hawes and while I’m still skeptical given his inability to play bigger minutes consistently this year, he did have a positive WARP last night, and has been on the plus side in 4 of his last 6 games, so I’d say he’s probably better than just about any other player out there if you’re in one of the 53% of leagues where he’s still available.
Pick Up Lines: Grant Hill sat out and Shannon Brown (2.22) went off for 32 points (5 threes, 11-18 from the field, 5-5 from the line) (13% owned). I would not pick up Brown unless you’re in a daily changes league and put him in if Hill is not going to play again.
With Marc Gasol out, and Zach Randolph still playing limited minutes, Dante Cunningham (2.10) scored 13 points (6-9 from the field) to go with 14 rebounds, 2 steals, and 4 blocks (1% owned). Rotoworld has conflicting reports on Gasol, but if it looks like he’s going to miss Friday’s game, then Cunningham is probably in line for another good chunk of minutes. Speaking of Cunningham… I just made a typo where I put “Cunning{space}ham.” Cunning Ham. What does that name even mean? He’s a sly slice of pig?
Looks like Matt Barnes (1.65) got some extra PT after Andrew Bynum was bench (more below) and ended up with 18 points (3 threes, 7-10 from the field), 10 rebounds, and 2 blocks (9% owned). I guess Mike Brown wants guys who are going to make their shots in the game. Shock!
Perhaps as another result of Bynum’s benching (though not any more directly than Matt Barnes’s extra minutes) Brandon Rush (1.62) got some extra time because the W’s starting Center Jeremy Tyler barely played and Andris Biedrins didn’t play at all… leaving the Warriors free to put David Lee at Center and play a smaller ball team against the “Bynum-less” Lakers. Rush had 23 points (9-15 from the field), and 2 blocks (23% owned). Rush has played decently, but not brilliantly, but he does seem like a pretty good pick up if you want a three and you like getting a block or two from the SG position.
Ekpe Udoh (1.24) is definitely adapting to life in Milwaukee (as is Monta Ellis, though he didn’t make our Honorable Mentions list despite scoring 33 points). Udoh got his first start for the Bucks and while he only shot 3-8 from the field, he ended up with 8 points, 10 rebounds, 2 steals, and 3 blocks (9% owned). Vintage Ekpe Udoh, right there.
Finally we get to our real Line of the Night with J.J. Hickson (1.06) who scored 21 points (9-10 from the field) and had 4 rebounds, 3 steals, and 1 block (24% owned). Hickson played 26 minutes off the bench for the Blazers who quickly subbed him in for the struggling Joel Pryzbilla. If anyone was questioning picking up him, please do not question any longer. Even though he’s only played 3 games with the Blazers and only 2 of them have been good fantasy games, I think he should be added by anyone who needs a big man. Mike Gallagher has a podcast where I can only assume he talked about Hickson since that’s the picture he put in the post.
Biggest Loser: Speaking of big men, I’m a little surprised that Andrew Bynum isn’t on here as he evidently became quite the chucker last night which led to his being benched for the last 9 minutes of the game. However, it is well-known ball hawk Jamal Crawford (-1.09) who put up 7 shots and made only 1 for 2 points, 1 rebound, and 1 assists who gets the nod. Crawford is only 71% owned, but there were not a lot of highly-owned guys who sucked it up last night. Good thing for fantasy owners, I suppose, but it makes it hard to make fun of anyone. Zach Randolph is the first guy at 90% or more and his game wasn’t really that bad.
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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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