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The Utah Jazz are the most interesting team for fantasy heading into the 2022-23 NBA season. It is a team on the downswing with plenty of veteran players to trade and young players to develop. Not to mention a talented few players who are gonna get a huge usage rate boost. The tricky part is determining which players are which, who’s gonna thrive, and who’s not gonna get any playing time at all.

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The Indiana Pacers defeated the Portland Trail Blazers 129-98. In a rarity for this version of the Pacers, they were the more veteran team. Oshae Brissett spearheaded the Pacers’ attack, as he tallied 24 points (8-10 FG, 2-3 3PT), nine rebounds, one assist, and one steal. His day also included a highlight reveal reverse dunk in transition which came off a behind-the-back pass from Lance Stephenson. Have I mentioned that the Pacers are fun now!? Justin Anderson added 18 points, six rebounds, four assists, and one steal. Jalen Smith notched 17 points, five rebounds, and one block in just 17 minutes of play. I’m not sure if Smith will ever become the player the Suns hoped they were getting when he was drafted with the 10th pick in 2020, but he has at least grown into an intriguing prospect. He was 2-of-3 from behind the arc and also whipped out a Dirk-esque step-back off the dribble in the midrange. Terry Taylor (17) and Duane Washington Jr. (13) both had solid games as well. The Pacers led wire to wire and the lack of competitiveness of the game is reflected in the lower minute totals for Tyrese Haliburton and Buddy Hield. Haliburton finished the game with 10 points, four rebounds, and seven assists. Hield tallied nine points, three rebounds, two assists, and two steals. Finally, Lance Stephenson scored just two points, but grabbed six rebounds, dished out 11 assists, and swiped three steals.

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Welcome to your midweek guidance for Week 19!  The goal of this post is to identify widely available players who can help you win your head-to-head matchup.  This week, the Suns once again take center stage, as Devin Booker joins Chris Paul on the sidelines.  If you didn’t have the option to stash Cam Payne through the final stages of his absence, now is a good time to grab him.  It won’t be long until he’s owned in more than 50% of leagues across most fantasy platforms, at which point I’ll no longer be able to use pain puns in my title.  Until that day comes, I will exhaust them without shame.  This week’s is brought to you by Tyler Durden:

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Dejounte Murray comes in as our fantasy star of the night for Friday, posting a huge stat line and helping to beat the Hawks 136-121 as an heavy underdog. Murray scored 32 points while dishing out 15 assists and grabbing 10 rebounds. This was arguably the best game of Murray’s career, but more games like this could be in his future now that Derrick White is off the team. He has unlimited upside without White next to him and should be seen as a top asset for the rest of the season. He is just outside of the top-15 players and should be able to push higher after the All-Star Break. Keldon Johnson finished as the second-leading scorer with 26 points on 6-8 three-point shooting. There should be extra opportunities without White, but Johnson should not be relied on to score like this on a game-to-game basis.

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This is where the men get separated from the boys. True decisions have to be made. Do you draft for need or best player available? Do you take a shot at that rookie, even though historically, it hasn’t been a good bet? What about the good players who have fallen due to injury concerns? Decisions, decisions, decisions. Speaking of decisions, there have been around 10% of NBA players who are choosing not to get vaccinated. Kyrie Irving, Andrew Wiggins, and Jonathan Isaac are the most known out of the group. Irving and Wiggins are in danger of not being allowed to play in their home arenas due to protocols. So be wary of drafting these players.

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The Oklahoma City Thunder were one of the most fun teams to watch last season. Can they do it again this year? With one of the youngest teams in the league, they seemed poised to showcase their blossoming young talent spearheaded by Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. This past off-season the Thunder waived Kemba Walker and Josh Hall while losing Tony Bradley, as he signed with the Chicago Bulls and Svi Mykhailuk who will be in a Raptors jersey this upcoming season. On the other side of the coin, they acquired Derrick Favors via trade while bringing in four new neophytes from this year’s draft – Josh Giddey with the sixth overall pick, Tre Mann (18th), Jeremiah Robinson-Earl (32nd), and Aaron Wiggins (55th). 

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Now that it’s looking like I’ll likely lose in my championship matchup this week (boooooooooooo!), I guess it’s time to turn to helping you all out in your championship runs this week. By the way, please move your playoffs up to avoid all the silliness. It happened earlier this year, but I’m a strong proponent of just absolutely skipping the last month of the season as teams randomly sit people and rest up for their playoff pushes.

Anyways, do yourself a favor and take a look at the opponent you are up against. Identify the categories where you guys are close (so if you are both bad at winning a category or if you both are middling at a category or both good at winning a category) and stock up on guys to win those categories. Most leagues are nine category leagues, so remember you only need to win five of them.

That said, here are the guys coming up with a boatload of games, all under 50% owned on Yahoo! that can help you win specific categories.

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If you haven’t heard of statistical scarcity before, it’s a pretty simple concept. Basically, the less of a statistic available in the pool of rostered fantasy players, the more valuable it is. It’s important to keep in mind that this is comparative scarcity as well. So even while league wide there may be rebounds being grabbed, we’re going to look at the top 188 players in 9-cat according to Basketball Monster and see where their production lands.

Sure, Dwight Howard has grabbed 6.8 rebounds per game this season, but he doesn’t do enough to warrant being in the top 188 for fantasy value and he’s only rostered in 12% of Yahoo! leagues as of the writing of this article, so he’s probably not producing that for many teams. Make sense?

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Health is wealth this season for the New Orleans Pelicans. Before the NBA Bubble, the Pelicans were in the midst of a breakout season for Brandon Ingram, and we finally got to see Zion Williamson in action. He had some crazy highlights in his first few games, and the team looked to be in a great position to make a run at the 8th seed in the Western Conference. After the return from the break, though, the team looked disengaged, most notably Lonzo Ball, and the team went on to lose six of eight games in the play-in tournament. This offseason, the team fired Alvin Gentry and hired Stan Van Gundy as the new head coach. They also traded their most tenured player in Jrue Holiday in an attempt to build for the future. With this retooled roster though, the Pelicans have a strong shot at a low playoff seed.

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The very name Utah Jazz evokes a strange and out of place image.  New Orleans Jazz. Well, that makes sense.  Alas, we live in a funny world where the funkiest thing in the state of Utah is, beyond epic snowboarding, epic wild water rafting; the Utah Jazz basketball team.  This city thrives on their pro sports franchise and warms the hearts of the players who play here with down home charm.  In today’s fast paced, metropolis based NBA landscape, the Utah Jazz play to their own trumpet.  They develop players, extend them, and build year after year upon the prior year’s efforts.  Last year’s Jazz made ripples in the West, garnering the 6th seed without the 20 ppg from Bojan Bogdanovic.  They would fall to the Nuggets for a first round exit in the Bubble.  Will this snub from the 2nd round provide some grit and determination?

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Today we’ll learn all about the most often overlooked team stat in fantasy basketball: Pace. If you’re into daily fantasy sports and don’t know why “pace” matters, I’d like to invite you to my heads up lobby on Fanduel. Just kidding. Mostly. If you’re in a season-long league, it’s a bit more forgivable if you haven’t been taking this into account. This article should change that. There are going to be many, many roster moves in the next month or so, but one thing that should hold (mostly) steady is pace.

Let’s take a look at which teams will have the fastest pace in the 2020-2021 season and why that matters.

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