Recapping 171 Days of Fantasy Basketball

Categorized as: Author: Patrick, Fantasy Basketball, Fantasy Basketball Strategy
Posted on: April 26th, 2009

November through April of every year, Nels and I spend a ridiculous amount of time ignoring our lives, jobs, families and generally anything not related to fantasy basketball so we can recap every day of the NBA regular season in posts like this. I can’t speak for Nels, but this season was equally parts entertaining, grueling, informative, and grueling.

So, like a junkie experiencing withdrawal symptoms, I decided to waste even more time by going back through every single one of the daily posts and compiling a spreadsheet to track who got the line of the night, waiver line of the night, and biggest loser based on the nightly game scores provided by Basketball Monster. I figured this exercise might take a long time and it took twice as long as that, but I think it gives us an interesting snapshot of the 2008-09 fantasy season and hopefully provides me that one last hit I need to make it through the summer…

Lets start out with the 5 Highest Lines of the Year

Day 125. Dwyane Wade (2.30) – 46/8/10, 4 steals, 4 blocks, 16-29 shooting, 12-12 from the line (against the Knicks)
Day 134. Dwyane Wade (2.14) – 48/6/12, 5 threes, 71.4% FG shooting, and 72.2% free throw shooting on 18 free throw attempts. He also had 4 steals and 3 blocks (against the Bulls)
Day 117. Leandro Barbosa (2.08) – 41/7/7, 16-21 shooting, 6 steals and 5 threes (against OKC)
Day 169. J.R. Smith (2.02) – 45 points, 4 rebounds, 11-18 from three, 8-8 from the line (against the Kings)
Day 92. Chris Paul (1.99) – 27/10/15 with 7 steals (against the Sixers)

So, the three guys to break that magical 2 point game score barrier on Basketball Monster are Wade, Barbosa and J.R. Smith. Not quite the trio I would have put money on at the beginning of the year, but all guys who can bust out a scoring explosion on any given night. So, what does it take to put up a line like this? Obviously, the first thing you have to do is ball outta control (J.R. Smith and his 11 threes would qualify), but it take a lot of luck in the form of crappy games from other players on the same night since the scores are calculated relative to the other performances (I believe). LeBron James had some insane lines – like the 52 point game against the Knicks on February 4th – but Stephen Jackson also had a triple double that night and Jermaine O’Neal blocked 9 shots, so his line took a little bit of a hit, relatively speaking.

Worst Line that Actually Got Line of the Night

Day 116. Ronnie Brewer (0.73)

Nels had the dubious honor of recapping the 2-3 games that the NBA scheduled on nearly all Thursday nights. With only a few games to choose from, you can bet that there were some less than stellar performances that made it on to our leader board. The worst “best” line of the day happened on Day 116, which Nels creatively titled, I’m getting a little bored of Suck Ass Thursdays. In Nels’ words:

I mean, come on… when Ronnie Brewer tops the night with a 0.74 after scoring 16 points and getting 4 steals, it brings a bad name to Line of the Night.

Worst Line of the Year

Day 19. Kevin Durant (-1.07)

Not as a horrific line as I would have imagined. KD did manage to score 13 points in the game, but it came off 6-18 shooting (1-4 from the line) and he had 5 turnovers, 3 boards and 1 assist.

Top 5 Waiver Wire Lines of the Year

Day 68. Tyrus Thomas (1.50) – 15 points, with 8 boards and a career-high 8 blocks
Day 19. Anthony Morrow (1.31) – 37 points, 4 threes and 11 assists, while shooting 15-20 from the floor
Day 105. Beno Udrih (1.31) – 29/6/3, 11-14 shooting, 4 threes
Day 18. Brook Lopez (1.27) – 25 points, 9 rebounds and 4 blocked shots
Day 145. Chris Andersen (1.25) – 18 points, 11 boards and 6 blocks

As we’ve mentioned a few times, player raters love them some defense, so it’s not a surprise to see Thomas top the list with an 8 block game. Morrow’s game was impressive and came out of nowhere, but he disappeared as quickly as he arrived. Brook Lopez’s year is all that more amazing considering he wasn’t starting in November and only getting about 15 minutes a night before Josh Boone got hurt.

Most Lines of the Night

Chris Paul – 12
Dwyane Wade – 8
Lebron James – 8
Danny Granger – 5
Jason Kidd – 5
Dirk Nowitzki – 4
Gerald Wallace – 4
Kobe Bryant – 4
Troy Murphy – 4
Vince Carter – 4

I think this list follows our MVP discussion fairly well.

Worst Player with a LotN

In my opinion, either Quentin Richardson (Day 6) or Andray Blatche (Day 29). Both put up hugely, HUGELY, inconsistent numbers that added up to a whole bunch of nothing. Richardson finished at 161/184 on our rater while Blache was at 161/184.

Best Player without a LotN

Three guys look like they are in the running: Chris Bosh (ranked 16/15 on our rater), Amare Stoudemire (10/25), and Caron Butler (15/38). Bosh probably gets it because he played 77 games to Butler’s 67 and Amare’s 53.

Most Waiver Wire appearances

Quentin Richardson – 5
Tyrus Thomas – 4
Trevor Ariza – 4

These guys had the most waiver wire lines of the night. That didn’t make them good free agents so much as really frustrating players to own. Thomas and Ariza found some consistency towards the end of the season (and Thomas makes a tantalizing sleeper next year). Both were worthy of an end of the year pickup depending on what type of league you played in. Richardson, not so much.

Other Stuff Like This:

• GMTR Mock Draft Analysis: Round One (17)
• Day 54 of 170: Chris Paul Steals the Show (7)
• Day 112 of 124: the Beginning of the End (13)
• Day 92 of 124: A Tale of Two Kevins (22)
• Day 85 of 124: Capping Off “Paul Millsap Week” (17)
• Day 60 of 124: Where Stephen Curry Can’t Catch a Break (21)
• First Month Report Card: Top 20 Point Guards in Fantasy Basketball (13)

Tags: Chris Paul, Dwyane Wade, Kevin Durant, Tyrus Thomas