Day 31 of 170: The NBA Knows Better Than To Compete With Thanksgiving Football

Categorized as: Author: Nels, Fantasy Basketball, Washington Wizards
Posted on: November 26th, 2010

Thursdays are usually slow days in the NBA anyway, but it seems like the schedulers went out of their way this year to make sure that no one would want to watch anything but football.

Line of the Night: With the Hawks being 20 point winners over the Wizards, I would have though someone from A-Town would have this, but Gilbert Arenas (2.47) comes out on top with 21 points, 6 rebounds, 8 assists, 4 threes, and 3 steals, despite going only 39% from the floor.

Honorable Mentions: Josh Smith (2.43) is back in Beast Mode with 20 points, 14 rebounds, 5 assists, 2 steals, and 2 blocks, and he even went 4-4 from the line – a nice bonus for fantasy owners. Smith is shooting 72% from the line on the season, which is actually a career high for him, so keep in mine that he’s already given you that as a Christmas present when you’re doing your Black Friday shopping.

Waiver Wire Line of the Night: Luther Head (0.95) is actually having a pretty decent run lately. At least good enough to get him to #100 on the GMTR Player Rater. And considering he’s only owned in 4% of leagues, those 15 points, 7 assists, and 2 steals are yours for the taking.

Pick Up Lines: Nick Young (0.73) isn’t doing much besides scoring – as evidenced by his 20 points and 2 blocks being the only stats of significance last night – but he’s got 4 steals and 3 blocks in the last 6 games… not terrible for someone you can put at the G position and is available in 94% of leagues.

Biggest Loser: Tyreke Evans (-0.37) played 38 and shot 15.4% from the field and 57.1% from the line to end up with 8 points. His other numbers weren’t bad: 3 rebounds, 5 assists, 2 steals and 1 block, but with shooting like that, you need much better stats than those to make up for it.

On Tap: There’s 12 games tonight with some nice ones that should be good for just about all NBA fans. The heavy hitter will be when the 11-2 Lakers take the Pau and Kobe (and mostly Pau) show into Utah tonight, so there should be some nice fantasy performances for both sides there.

The Golden Rule: Golden State is in Memphis, so consider the Grizzlies as good plays tonight. The Clippers are in Phoenix, so while both teams are in the Top 10 in Opponent Points Allowed, I wouldn’t expect too much there. Blake Griffin should have another monster fantasy night, though. The Nuggets round out the Top 10 in OPA, and they’re hosting the Bulls, so Derrick Rose will probably have another “good for basketball, but not so good for fantasy” game. Meanwhile, the Denver big men should have a pretty decent night against not Carlos Boozer.

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Daily rankings and stats come from the GMTR H2H Player Rater (beta version).

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Tags: Gilbert arenas, Josh Smith, Luther Head, Nick Young, Tyreke Evans