Line of the Night: I’m bucking trend here and selecting Carlos Boozer (4.7) over Kobe Bryant (5.3) and LeBron James (5.3). The GMTR club only has a couple rules, but one of them is when a man hits 17 of 20 shots in a game, you give him the line of the night award. That shooting performance led Boozer to 36 points. He also pulled in 11 rebounds as the Jazz beat the Pistons 103 to 93.
Honorable Mentions: Kobe scored 31, had 4 steals and was 15 of 16 from the line; LeBron had one of those sissy triple-doubles (30/11/10) where he barely manages 10 assists – come on Lebron, even Ricky Davis can get one of those; Deron Williams (4.7) went for 21 points and 14 assists. He also blocked three shots. Maybe Williams can give Boozer a shot-blocking lesson or two.
Waiver Wire Line of the Night: Jamario Moon (4.6). Here’s how out of nowhere Jamario Moon came from. A couple of weeks ago in the CBS Sports 30-man league, someone actually had to ask the commissioner to add Moon to the list of available free agents so he could be picked up. Now he’s scoring 15 points and blocking 6 shots while playing 36 minutes for the Raptors.
Jorge Garbajosa could be on his way to season ending surgery, so Jason Kapono is the only thing standing in the way of consistently big minutes for Moon. He’s still a lot inconsistent for my taste, but Moon has improved since the start of the season and is getting the minutes, so he may be worth taking a flyer on in deeper leagues or leagues with a lot of bench spots.
Jose Calderon (4.6) is probably no longer available on waivers, but he had his best game yet starting in place of an injured T.J. Ford. Calderon scored 19 points and added 14 assists as the Raptors beat the Bulls.
Goat of the Night: I try to only select players here who at least have a moderate impact on fantasy teams, but Vladimir Radmanovic’s (0.7) performance was so horribly bad, it trumps all else. He was 0 for 10 from the field (0 for 7 from beyond the arc) and finished with 1 point, 0 rebounds, 2 assists, and 3 turnovers. And all that in just 24 minutes of play.
Dishonorable Mentions: Between sitting out games and these 1 for 10 shooting performances, Troy Murphy (1.3) has to be killing fantasy owners this year. He’s all over the place in his game-to-game performance; Damien Wilkins (1.5) scored 2 points in 25 minutes; is a Ben Wallace (1.8) who doesn’t rebound or block shots actually a Ben Wallace?