Day 125 of 170: Spiced Up Curry Love

Categorized as: Author: Erik, Fantasy Basketball
Posted on: February 28th, 2011

Line of the Night: The last several Golden State Warriors games have been all about Monta Ellis. Last night however, in a valiant losing effort, Stephen Curry (2.40) caught fire and brought back the sizzle that landed him in the tail end of most people’s  first-round fantasy drafts this season. It’s nice to see some of his old form bubble up to the surface. It’s been awhile since we’ve seen Steph dominate the fantasy lines. Alas, his 33 points (5 threes, 13-21 from the field), 11 rebounds, and 2 steals were not enough as the Warriors fell to Minnesota 123-126. The T-Wolves came up with a huge win, especially considering that four of the Warriors’ five starters scored 20 points or more!

Honorable Mentions:

Minnesota was carried by the efforts of this man, Kevin Love (2.27), who once again came up with a huge, monster game for the T-Wolves.  The tweets were coming in, projecting Kevin to drop a 40-20, but sadly his owners will have to settle for 37 points (3 threes, 8-13 from the field), 23 boards, and 2 steals. Well that’s if you can really call that kind of a line something that can be settled for. Ha! So yeah, Golden State at Minnesota was a fantasy Curry-Love festival!

I suppose one good “Kevin Line” deserves another as Kevin Martin (2.23) came up with a hot game of his own as the Rockets’ back court was just too much for Chris Paul and company to handle. As each Houston game rolls by and I look the box scores lit up by Kevin Martin classics like last night, I end up second guessing myself as I wonder if this is/was the season that I should have mustered up the intestinal fortitude to draft Kev-Mart. As long as he doesn’t sprain, tweak, twist anything in his anatomy that shouldn’t, lines like 33 points (4 threes, 13-13 from the line), 5 rebounds, and 4 steals will continue to haunt me for the remainder of this season.
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Grant Hill (2.18) showed us some vintage Grant Hill with a rare explosion 34 points (4 threes), 9 rebounds, and 4 dimes. It did help that it was a game that went into overtime and that Phoenix was facing Indiana.

Indiana was missing the injured Mike Dunleavy as they had to lean heavily on Danny Granger (1.95) to do, well, everything. Unfortunately Danny’s 25 points (3 threes), 6 assists, and 3 steals were not enough to carry the Pacers passed the Suns.

Waiver Wire Line of the Night: Dont’ look now folks, but with Corey Brewer shipped off the New York for the “meh-inspiring” Anthony Randolph and the wrong player named Curry, Wesley Johnson (1.62) now has free reign to blossom into the explosive scoring talent we knew David Kahn drafted him for. This is Johnson’s second straight solid performance with 17 points (4 threes), 7 rebounds, 4 steals, and 2 blocks. I know he’s owned in like 35% of leagues, but a good number of those teams are abandoned, auto-draft teams and I’m pretty sure Wes is hanging around somewhere in your league’s FA pools. That is of course unless you’re in a league with me as I’ve grabbed Johnson in about five leagues in favor of my recently poor performing C.J. Miles among other names who are irritating me too much for me to mention. I know we’ve recommended to wait for THREE solid games before grabbing a guy, but just consider me the eager guinea pig who is willing to  take one for the team and risk that third, unknown game ahead of everyone else.

Pick Up Lines:
Consider this one as an aggressive “Erik Deep League Special” kind of grab. As soon as James Johnson (0.97) (3% owned) found himself on the Raptors’ starting lineup, my fantasy radar echoed with that proverbial, reverberating ping. Bargnani was out for the night with flu-like symptoms, but counting cats aficionados out there must have raised an eyebrow or two upon seeing Johnson’s 8 points, 7 rebounds, 7 assists, 2 steals, and 2 blocks. James who? The fantasy hoops world all but forgot that in 2009-10 Johnson had a late-season run of being a multi-cat contributor for the Bulls, well seeing him get assigned to the D-League can kind of shorten a lot of people’s memories. He was, however, an intriguing 1/1/1 guy with good percentages. Perhaps we can ask Nels take down JJ’s poster off his guest room’s wall for a bit and weigh in on Johnson’s brief stint as a fantasy viable Bull.

Injuries of the Night: Antawn Jamison (-0.14) broke the pinkie of his non-shooting hand in Cleveland’s loss to the Philadelphia 76ers. Whoa! As if this season couldn’t get any worse for the Cavs as it is. Keep an eye on Samardo Samuels, well at least for you deep-leaguers out there, as he’ll likely replace Jamison in the starting lineup if he should miss anytime

Tony Parker (-1.04) left San Antonio’s game against Memphis in the second quarter with a bruised thigh in the second quarter and did not return. He finished the night with 2 points, 2 rebounds, and 2 assists. Word is out that he might miss the Spurs’ upcoming road trip. George Hill makes for an interesting grab and insert for this week.

Luis Scola (-0.75) suffered a “knee strain” in Houston’s win over New Orleans and finished with 6 points, 6 rebounds, and 3 assists.

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

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Tags: Antawn Jamison, Danny Granger, James Johnson, Kevin Love, Kevin Martin, Luis Scola, Stephen Curry, Tony Parker, Wesley Johnson