So I had some friends in over the weekend, and they straight up Uncle Bucked me. I have no idea if I can use that as a verb, and I do mean the movie, they didn’t show up and immediately get cancelled like the recent TV series attempt. Well, I haven’t really seen either, but I think the point gets across! They went hard and seemed closer together than my lame, grandpa ass. Can’t hang like I used to!
In a similar way, when I took over Razzball Hoops, I sometimes felt like the lame black sheep of the family. Grey over there at baseball was clubbing like that scene from The Social Network, this song was playing, and was talking about how a million page views isn’t cool anymore. A billion page views is! Then football had Sky then Jay running a party boat like they were on Lake Minnetonka. But hoops over here was the ginger outcast, living like Harry Potter under the steps. Somehow and someway, we went to Hogwarts and became as cool as those other Wizards (although, not the awful 2-7 Washington ones…), and as fantasy hoops grew as the best global fantasy game, Razzball Hoops Nation came along with us for the ride. Either that, or you keep reading just because you think to yourself, “this clown is such a disgrace, he wears a jersey that says “Smart” and he’s the biggest doofus around!”
Like initiation into the Razzball fraternal order, we have a huge announcement. Huuuuuuge! Huge Gina! Razzball Basketball now has dedicated Player Pages! Wooooooo, drop the confetti, we’re part of the big boys! From here on out, you’ll see player names hyperlinked with our own internal player page system that imports several layers of stats: Per game stats, per 36, USG calculations, game logs, season stats, and contract information. Player pages also link to recent Razzball posts when the player was last mentioned, and coming soon will include next 7 days and DFS projections. We’re going to be looking into the future! Slow clap to Rudy for his work putting these together, and working with yours truly to hopefully deliver an awesome new tool that will overtake the player pages you use for your leagues. And let us know what you think! If you have additional things you want, things you hate, we want to know! Razzball Hoops is entirely based on our community and comments, so let us know if you like em!
To mark this triumphant new era for Razzball Hoops, I thought long and hard about who to hyperlink first. I do have an unhealthy KCP addiction, and slicky Ricky is oh so spicy, but why not go with the hottest guy in 2016, DeMar DeRozan! Time Magazine‘s sexiest man alive has nothing on DeMar! And nothing on those sleek player pages either! 33/7/4/2/0 against the Poppycockers, giving him 32+ points in 8 of his first 9 games. Invasion from Canada! While he’s obviously more than Wigginsing it, he only has 3 games under 54% from the field, his steals are at a career-high, and he’s likely going to regress a smidge. I’m certainly not giving him away, but if someone thinks his poutines AND gravy are completely legit, maybe you can get a little more value out of him than he’s worth. But if he’s carrying your scoring, ride this wave! Here’s what else went down in fantasy hoops action, now with players linked to their Razzball pages! Woooooo!
Gordon Hayward – Why you can feel good about drafting injured guys if it’s only a little dinky finger situation! 20/10/8/1/0 on Friday night with a tripdub flirt, then 25/9/4 on Saturday. He missed his first FT in that game though! Scrub! Shooting a horrific 6.4-6.6 FT a game for a paltry 97%. And he was extremely careless to boot, committing 1 TO in each game. Worthless! Damn, what a weekend…
Derrick Favors – The Gordon’s Fisherman might be looking at EVEN MORE USG (which you can check out on his page!!!!) with D-Fave exiting early on Saturday with knee soreness. It’s the same knee with the IT band issue, so this could be a little while. Boris Diaw also remains out, so on Sunday I added Trey Lyles where I could. Even with Favors only going 6 minutes, Lyles only played 20, going 4/5/0/1/1. But I think they want him involved, especially with this opening.
Nik Stauskas – The Sauce is still only good for the deep leagues, but back-to-back double-digit scoring games, and he did this on Friday night!
That’s Nik friggin’ Stauskas?! I don’t know if I take much out of one play, but dayuuuuum, the Sauce was tasty right there! First Sixers win in that one too… Trust the……. we get it.
Otto Porter – Andddddd, breathe. Exhale. The player I expected is back to being who I… expected. 11/8/5/0/1 on Friday and 8/4/1/0/2 on Saturday. Both are fine lines, but 2 TO in each, and it’s looking like he OttoCorrected his line.
Markieff Morris – It’s been a little up and down, but a big weekend from Kieff, going 20/5/1/1/1 and 24/15/2/0/3 against Chicago. Somebody teach the worst player in basketball (Rolo) how to box out!
Jimmy Butler – Tore it up against the Wiz on Saturday, going 37/8/9/3/0 with 14-14 FT. Wizards look like a mess, and if the Bulls can stay healthy, might make a solid little Eastern run!
Nikola Mirotic – I officially anoint him “JB’s most frustrating player”. Ridiculous near-rainbow line Saturday night for 17/11/1/2/2, with no TO, on 6-7 shooting and 2-2 FT with 3 treys. Even Otto Porter is like, “dayyyyyyuuuummmm, that’s a good Roto line!” And it came after 4 unusable games too… Ugh.
Lucas Nogueira – Playing so ill from Brazil! 10/7/1/1/2 on Friday followed up with a nutso 6/10/1/3/5 line with no TO against the Poppycockers. 27 then 26 minutes in those games as well, and both with Jonas Valanciunas back from his knee issue. Egg Nog has completely taken Jakob Poeltl‘s role/minutes (DNPs over the weekend), and even finished down the stretch over The Luminescent Lithuanian. I’d add Noguiera pretty much everywhere while hot. And if you’re a JV owner, you’re throwing up your arms and saying, “here we go again!”
Kemba Walker – I ranked him like last year wasn’t a fluke, and he’s showing us that last year wasn’t a fluke! 40/10/6 on Friday night, almost besting the almighty Raptors. Hit 7 treys in that one, getting him to 3.4 treys on 47% 3PTM shooting and 47.4% FG shooting. Sure, it’s going to go down some, but his FG% improvements last year definitely look like they’ve carried over.
Michael Kidd-Gilchrist – After missing a game due to back issues, plays 41 minutes last night. Talk about being careful with your injuries, Clifford! 11/10/2/1/0 with no TO – not huge – but I’m sure the task was to guard LeBron James, who had a pretty lowly night for being a King, of 19/8/8/1/1 with 3 TO on 8-21 shooting. I love some MKG…
Willy Hernangomez – Had a breakout showing against the C’s for 8/12/3/2/1, but shot 4-13 and committed 5 TO. Got the run with that game a blowout, then went back to 4 minutes of nothingball on Saturday. Would need some injuries to get PT.
Marcus Smart – Ugh, makes me want to get a new jersey! 12/6/10/3/0 as the starting wing next to Avery Bradley – frustrating in a week where I needed IT2/3’s AST – but then back to a measly 9/2/2/1/0 Saturday.
Kelly Olynyk – Olynyk of Nazareth has wandered through the desert, but may have finally wandered his way to a big role. Huge Gina lines of 19/7/3/1/0 with 3 treys on Friday, then 16/6/4/0/1 with 2 more treys Saturday. Along with Lyles, was my other big weekend add in RCLs. That said, Poppycockers and Pacers are great matchups against stretch-big men, and Al Horford remains out with a concussion. Olynyk, when on, is still a lot better than Amir Johnson though, and is easily their best PF (not counting Jae Crowder, who shifts over there sometimes). If he can roll next to big Al, watch out.
Russell Westbrook – After starting off mad hot, had been fine but not quite the superstar you needed, yet thankfully had an awesome weekend going 29/14/9/1/0 against the Clip, then 41/12/16/0/0 against the Magic, with only 6 combined TO. At 3.0 TO a game, he could be a non-punt!
Pau Gasol – Collective sigh of relief! 21/9/6/1/2 Friday, then old-man Gasol hung in there on a back-to-back for 15/7/6/0/2 Saturday. It got to the point of “do I drop Gasol?” comments. Whew, glad those are assuaged for a while!
Darren Collison – Why Ty Lawson got another “legacy start” over Colly makes no sense (Lawson is such a saint!), but 38 OT-fueled minutes for Colly on Friday night, going 20/5/4 on 9-16 shooting. No steals in that one, but they’ll come. Lawson better not start for the next Kings game on Wednesday!
Al-Farouq Aminu – After his calf flared up and it looked like a game-to-game thing, Stotts suddenly said Aminu will be re-evaluated in a couple of weeks. Yikes, that’s no bueno… Almost as no bueno as Meyers Leonard‘s haircut! Oscar Meyers got his weiner into the starting lineup, but put up pretty flaccid lines of 11/4/1/1/0 and 11/4/2/0/0 with a trey in each. It’s pretty low end, even if he got this one highlight dunk…
Omri Casspi only got out of the way because of that haircut!
Julius Randle – JFC I curse my REL team sometimes! With AST the narrowest cat this week, I joked that after Randle’s 6 AST debut, I was mad they dried up. Then what does he do?! Puts up 5, 8, then 3 dimes over his last 3 games, in a great stretch over 4 nights for my opp. The TO are still a little out of control (3.2:2.8 AST:TO), but he’s shooting 54.5% compared to an awful 42.9 last year, and the blocks are a smidge up to 0.7. It’s not really a full “breakout”, but I like the step forward.
Myles Turner – For the love of defense! 17/8/1/4/3 against the Celtics, hitting 6-8 FG and 5-5 FT. I was hoping the perimeter game would develop a little more this year (0.4 3PTM/per), but if he’s shooting 56.3%, maybe we don’t want him to step out!
Andrew Wiggins – Career-high alert! If only he got the Lakers every night! Although, the Lakers have been better, so maybe I should leave the team-shaming to the New York teams… Anywho, 47/4/3/0/1, which is actually your typical Wiggins-line with paltry ancillary stats in 41 minutes. Did get you 17-22 FT, but at 77.3%, if you were deadlocked at an 81-82% FT battle, he mighta lost it for you!
Zach LaVine – Sat with a sore right knee, to the chagrin of several I’m sure, on the pivotal Sunday night game… At least…
Ricky Rubio – …is back! Love my Ricky! Mi Amor! 7/6/6/1/0 in his return Saturday against the tough Clippers, then 10/4/10/3/0 yesterday. Hit a trey in both, and played a back-to-back. Seeing comments about him getting dropped in leagues was blasphemy. Blasphemous I say!
Nemanja Bjelica – Got the start with LaVine on the latrine, going 24/8/3/3/1 with only 1 TO and 5 treys. Anyone who caught wind of this in time and can stream day-of got a monster game! But, it was the Lakers, who ran their bench as much as the starters, and LaVine’s knee doesn’t sound serious… Not looking to add him anywhere really…
Giannis Antetokounmpo – Greeky getting freaky with a double rainbow! Ain’t seen nothin’ finer! 27/6/5/4/4 and such first round goodness…
Nikola Jokic – Exactly what you want to hear from your 3rd rounder (that is, if you bought into the hype several sites were pushing). “Coach, I wanna come off the bench.” Ouch! Driving a stake through fantasy owners’ souls! 6/3/1/1/0 in 20 minutes off the bench against the Pistons Saturday. Andre Drummond whopped up on Jusuf Nurkic too, who went only 0/2/0/1/0 with 2 TO in 17 minutes. Not much better from either last night, with Nurk going 8/9/0/0/1 and Jokic an absurd 0/5/3/1/0 with 5 fouls in 26 minutes. 26 minutes and zero points… Denver is quickly turning sour, thankfully Nuggets fans have something for the emotional distress…
Rondae Hollis-Jefferson – Welcome back to fantasy relevance, RHJ! 20/13/4/1/1 against the Suns, and defying all logic, the Brooklyn Mess are 4-5. If Kenny Asshat coaches this team to a winning record, I’ma be straight PISSED.
Sean Kilpatrick – I do love me some Kill Pat though, going 19/9/4/1/0 playing out-of-position starting PG again. Contributed to his 4 TO – I think at natural SG those will stay low – but he’s showing adaptability playing as a starter, began off the bench, now running some point… I like this dude.
Marquese Chriss – Showed a nice little nip slip of a flash Saturday going 16/5/0/1/0 on 7-15 shooting, and did that in 18 minutes Saturday! But then got fully clothed again for 4/6/1/0/0 with 4 TO last night, and fouled out in under 16 minutes… At least those of you who stayed up got a decent-enough game to watch with the Suns hanging with the Warriors!
Elfrid Payton – After his hair showed absolutely no bounce on Friday night against that suffocating Jazz D, he rubbed some Flubber in there and was back at work last night! 23/7/9/2/1 with 2 treys and nary a TO. He did have to show SOME part of the Elfrid that holds him back (0-2 FT), and while it’s been inconsistent, the TO are way down and his 0.8 STL I think are going to come way up.
Serge Ibaka – Revenge is best served with a Surge! Ya know, the soda? The one that caused kids to go in diabetic comas? Speaking of comas, Ibaka had been sleepwalking all season! Just needed to face off against his old Thunder compadres, and went 13-19 (2-2 3PTM 3-3 FT) 31/9/0/0/4, including banging the game-winner.
I’m gonna call Steven Adams “The Penguin” because he got some happy feet! Nice to see from Ibaka, and hopefully this kick-starts the season we were hoping for.
Victor Oladipo – Playing against his old team kick-started nothin’! 12/1/2/1/0, at least on an efficient 6-9 shooting with 1 TO. But this is not the droid you were looking for.
Be sure and click around on some player pages, and as I mentioned in the open, let us know what you think! I hope you ended week 3 strong and had a great weekend!
