Day 101 of 170: Anything Durant Can Do, LeBron Can Do Better

Categorized as: Author: Nels, Fantasy Basketball, Miami Heat
Posted on: February 4th, 2011

Line of the Night: Its a little difficult to talk about the #3 fantasy player (as of today) on the day when the #4 fantasy player (Kevin Love) was left off the All Star team, but LeBron James (3.12) did better than his best, and better than Kevin Durant’s best with 51 points (3 threes, 17-25 from the field), 11 rebounds, and 8 assists. Or, to pun-ify it, he was LeBrontomatic.

Honorable Mentions: Dorell Wright (1.34) had the second best line, but his 16 points (4 threes), 6 assists, and 2 steals speak to the kind of night it was with only 3 games on the schedule. Jameer Nelson (1.30) bounced back after a few bad games with 22 points (8-8 from the line), 6 rebounds, and 6 assists. Andrew Bynum (1.05) had a double-double with 10 points and 10 rebounds, adding 6 assists and 3 blocks as well. It wasn’t enough for the Lakers to beat out the Spurs, though. Those guys just keep winning. And winning. And winning.

***

Waiver Wire Line of the Night: Andrew Bogut missed his second straight game, and this time not only did Ersan Ilyasova (1.16) pick up the slack with 23 points and 13 rebounds, but Carlos Delfino (1.50) came through with 20 points, 8 rebounds, 5 assists, and 5 steals. Delf is quite good at stealing the ball. I’m not sure how, but he gets it done. And while Ilyasova will probably come back down to marginal fantasy pick up territory when Bogut is back, Delf has the potential to keep scoring double-digits with a few rebounds, assists, and steals per game. There is a reason I made sure to call him Delf twice in the preceding paragraph. And the reason is this:

Pick Up Lines: Luc Mbah a Moute (1.24) was another Buck who took advantage of Andrew Bogut’s injury to the tune of 15 points, 19 rebounds, 5 assists, and 2 steals. Certainly if Bogut ends up as anything worse than day-to-day, LMaM is a good pick up, but for now, probably best to leave him bee. Pun intended (as in: leave him alone so you don’t get stung like he was bee who was stinging you with his stinger and you were allergic to bee stings).

Keyon Dooling (0.89) had a nice Point Guard playing basketball game with 9 points (3 threes), 9 assists, and 2 steals. Just in time Keyon! (See below)

Eddie House (0.27) had 10 points (2 threes), 6 rebounds, and 3 assists. He’s only 4% owned, so if you need an extra 3-pointer or two per game and don’t mind the random collection of other minor contributions, then hey, take a look!

Biggest Loser: It’s hard to pick someone who had 17 points and 16 rebounds, and since most people who pick Dwight Howard (-0.77) don’t really expect to win the Free Throw Percentage category, I think maybe his 3-13 from the line last night should just be ignored. Which leaves George Hill (-0.46), who I actually owned in several leagues this season, but I dropped him a while back because of lines like this: 8 points, 3 rebounds, 1 assist, and 2-6 from the field. But in spite of his performance, or perhaps just to spite him, the Spurs won anyway. And winning.

Back From Injury: Brandon Jennings (-0.49) has now played 4 games since coming back from injury, this time staying out there for 19 minutes and ending up with 2 points. 2 rebounds, 6 assists, and going 1-6 from the field. If he pukes up another line like that against Detroit on Saturday, his owners in weekly leagues are going to have a stupidly tough time deciding whether or not to play him next week. But if you only want to make decisions regarding the full slate of games tonight, head over to FanDuel to check out their array of daily games that you can play for cash money. And winning.

***

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

Do not miss a day of the Fantasy NBA. Subscribe to Give Me The Rock right now. You can also get bonus (and easily digestible) content by following GMTR on Twitter, or become a fan of GMTR on Facebook! We’re so social!

Other Stuff Like This:

• Day 81 of 124: Where Mike D’Antoni Hits the Emergency Eject Button (76)
• First Month Report Card: Top Small Forwards in Fantasy Basketball (2)
• Day 78 of 170: Jameer Tops Huge Games By Dirk, LeBron, Dwight, and Dwyane (2)
• Day 102 of 124: the Return of Eric Gordon (18)
• Day 79 of 124: You’ve Just Been Bismacked (8)
• Day 78 of 124: Not-so-Dragic Loss of Kyle Lowry (33)
• Day 64 of 124: West All-Stars Win, Few Players Hurt (8)

Tags: Andrew Bynum, Brandon Jennings, Carlos Delfino, Dorrell Wright, Dwight Howard, George Hill, Jameer Nelson, LeBron James