Day 67 of 170: Playing The Odds

Categorized as: Author: Nels, Fantasy Basketball, Oklahoma City Thunder
Posted on: January 1st, 2011

If you’d been betting on games last night and went with your gut instinct (or just the team with the better record in every case except New Orleans at Boston) you would probably have a very nice start to the new year. If only fantasy basketball were that easy…

Line of the Night: Kevin Durant (2.36) ended the year on a high note with 33 points (5 threes), 2 blocks, going 6-6 from the line. After a shaky start to the season, Durant is back to #2 on the Player Rater.

Honorable Mentions: Other players to give a champagne toast to: Chris Paul (2.18) did his usual magic with 20 points, 5 rebounds, and 11 assists, coming up with 6 steals. After missing a few games, it looks like Jamal Crawford (2.14) might start another nice run, putting up 26 points (3 threes) and 5 steals. Russell Westbrook (1.85) and Pau Gasol (1.78) are working to keep their rankings up going into the new year. Westbrook had a very nice triple-double with 23 points, 10 rebounds, and 10 assists while adding 2 steals. Pau meanwhile had 20 points, 8 rebounds, 2 steals and 2 blocks, with another nice Pau Goal Percentage: 9-12 from the field.

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Waiver Wire Line of the Night: Chase Budinger (1.94) had the 4th best line of the night, thanks to 8-10 shooting. He ended up with 22 points (3 threes), 5 rebounds, and 4 assists. Looking at his game log, he’ll probably had another good game and then go back to single digit scoring with 4 rebounds a game.

Paul George (1.44) is the real find from last night, though. George makes his first appearance (that I know of) on Give Me The Rock by scoring 13 points, adding 7 rebounds and 5 steals while going 5-8 from the field. It was the first time he’s played significant minutes in nearly 2 months, but according to Yahoo’s fantasy news, coach Jim O’Brien is thinking about adding George as a more consistent part of the SG-SF rotation in Indiana. Certainly you can wait another game or two to see if that actually happens, but if George can play efficiently in 20 minutes a game, he’s probably worth picking up in deeper leagues and at least worth a look in the smaller ones.

Marquis Daniels (1.16) continues to try to lure fantasy owners in, but this time, we might actually have something. Daniels’s minutes have been up a bit since Kevin Garnett suffered his injury. Since Garnett is out for another week or so still, Daniels might be a good add for people who are desperate for anything they can get their hands on in deep leagues. The best part of his line wasn’t the 10 points or 4 assists, but the 2 steals and 2 blocks, which is not what you expect him to average, but for a guy playing 20 minutes a game, his defensive numbers are not bad. (And by not bad, I do mean for someone who’s available in 99% of leagues)

He’s only available in 52% of leagues, but I would be remiss to leave out DeMar DeRozan and his 37 points on 13-14 from the line. He was also 57% from the field, but with only 3 rebounds and no other stats to his credit, has there ever been a purer scoring performance? (Patrick – oh ye of the retorical question answers – you want to get on that one?)

Biggest Loser: Should old acquaintance be forgot and never brought to mind?

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

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Tags: Chase Budinger, DeMar DeRozan, Kevin Durant, Marquis Daniels, Paul George