What’s Gucci, sportsfans? It’s ya boy Baids and we’re back again for another installment of the Saturday Daily Notes. What I first noticed was my boy DSJ. It may have been in a loss, but local favourite, Dennis Smith Jr, came through in a big way, hitting a nice little rainbow for 21/5/6/2/2 with only one turnover on 8-of-16 shooting with two threes. He’s one of the most NBA-ready rookies I’ve seen, and I’d probably rather have him over the likes of Lonzo Ball in redrafts. Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy basketball:
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Harrison Barnes – He’s continuing last year’s trend of nice efficient points with decent boards and meh threes. 23/12/1/0/0 tonight as he’s at 18.8/6.6/1.8/0.6/0.2 on the season. It’s definitely solid production, but nothing at all to get excited about. But at least the Mavericks came close to challenging the Cavs!
Wesley Mathews – 12/2/6/2 on 3-of-13 shooting with two threes. His FG% has been atrocious since joining the Mavs, shooting under 40% in every season. If you really need his steals (~1.1spg last 3 years) and threes (2.4 3pg last 3 years), he may be worth. Otherwise, he’s a pretty heavy drain on a lot of stats without providing great value anywhere else.
Kevin Love – Klove carried the Cavs tonight, going for 29/15/3 on 11-for-19 shooting with three threes and 4-for-4 FT. He hit the shots he needed to make and maybe this means Klove is really rounding into form.
JR Smith – 17/3/3/2 with four threes as he finally pops off like we hoped. He’s been killing it his last few games and might be worth a pickup, if you need some cheap scoring/threes and steals.
Jae Crowder – 15/7/3 on 4-of-13 shooting as he put up popcorn numbers, but nothing else. If you’re still holding on, there’s certainly better on the waiver wire.
Kyle Korver – 13/3 with three threes on 4-of-7 shooting. He hasn’t been overwhelming, but he’s been the lone consistent shooter on the Cavs this season, outside of maybe LeBron. If you need efficient threes, you could definitely do worse.
LeBron James – Speaking of consistency, LeBraaan went for 19/11/4 with six turnovers. Unspectacular game in the scheme of things, but he is still The King. The Cavs won and LeBron is always the biggest reason why.
DeMarcus Cousins – 35/15/5/ as he continues his crusade to prove the haters wrong. He did have eight turnovers, but he also shot 14-of-23 with four threes, so can you really complain?
Anthony Davis – 25/10/5/2/2 as he rainbows in DMC’s shadow. The Brow is spicy, but the Cousin is spicier!
E’Twaun Moore – The only other Pelican outside of AD and DMC to score more than nine points as he goes for 18/4/1/1 on 9-for-12 shooting with nothing else. But the Pels still beat the Clippers! I’m not sure if this is an indication of how good the Pelicans are, or an indictment of the Clippers.
Blake Griffin – 26/4/6/1 on 9-for-27 shooting as he mostly put up empty stats in a game the Clips probably should have won. Neverthewhomstness, Blake’s individual stats are juicy this season. No CP, no prob… P?
Austin Rivers – Patrick Beverley didn’t play and, as a result, the coach’s son played 34 minutes, going 19/3/2/2 in 34 minutes. Meh.
Jawun Evans+Sindarius Thornwell – A combined 18/6/5/3 in 55 minutes. Not much to see here with Milos Teodosic and PatBev both out.
Taurean Prince – Led the Hawks in scoring as they suffered yet another loss, this time to the Wizards. 19/3/3/3/1 with five turnovers on 6-of-12 shooting. The Fresh Prince is coming along nicely in a lost Hawks season.
Dewayne Dedmon – 13/8 with five turnovers on five-of-eight shooting. The five turnovers are disgusting, but Dedmon’s been a very solid play this year. He’s a very low-key guy for boards-n-blocks rest of season.
Dennis Schroder – 7/7/5 with four turnovers against that “stingy” Washington defence. He’s been tearing it up, so you’ll let this game slide.
Marco Belinelli – 15/2/1/1 on 5-of-8 shooting with four threes. He’s bouncing back from a small slump, and the Hawks are a team in desperate need of scoring. THRAGNOF, baby!
Bradley Beal – 19/4/4/3 on 7-of-13 shooting as he lead the Wizards in scoring in a relatively easy Wiz win. Beal’s the real deal!!
Markieff Morris – 18/4/0/1/2 on 8-of-10 shooting with two threes. Not a bad game, and now that Kieff is in full swing, he might put up some valuable numbers for people out there who need scoring from their F positions.
John Wall – 13/5/5/1/2 on 4-of-8 shooting. He didn’t need to carry the game against a bottom team like the Hawks. Don’t worry about this mediocre showing.
Kelly Oubre – 18/7/1/1 on 5-of-8 shooting in a nice game. He’s had a pretty solid start to the season, but is not someone to truly rely on. He has his good games and his bad games, but he’s mostly a deeper league play.
Kristaps Porzingis – The Knicks are 7-5. Lmao. Most of this has to do with Kristaps just completely balling out. Last night, he had 34/5/2/0/2 on 11-of-21 shooting with four threes. This dude is special.
Courtney Lee – The next-highest Knicks scorer with 20 points on 7-of-9 shooting and five threes. If you need a lil bit of efficient scoring and steals in a deeper league, I’d pounce on Courts.
Enes Kanter – 17/13/1/1 on 8-of-13 shooting as he continues his rampage on scoring and rebounding. Not much else, but he does what he does and he does it well.
Skal Labissiere – 19/6/1/2 as he led the Kings in scoring. The Kings are 3-9. It makes sense.
Buddy Hield – 17/7/4 as he also hit four threes in a big loss to the Knicks. Might be worth a look as a THRAGNOF (with a few bonus rebounds).
Sacramento Kings – No other player scored in double digits. Getting blown out by the Knicks must be pretty surreal.
James Harden – In my mind, for no reason in particular, I pronounce his name Yames Yarden. Yames went off for 38/4/8 on 11-of-25 shooting with six threes. Yames!
Eric Gordon – Another 26 points with six threes as he’s just been going crazy with Chris Paul injured. He’s averaging a career-best 23 points this year on more than four threes per game (!!!). Maybe this drops when CP3 comes back, but holy shizz, what a start for the oft-injured Gordon.
Clint Capela – 7/14/3/2/3 tonight. Why have there been so many rainbows tonight? I’m calling shenanigans…
Tyreke Evans – Former rookie sensation Tyreke Evans led your Grizzlies in scoring with 22/5/6/3 as he chugs along with his surprisingly incredible season. He’s up to 17.8/4.8/3.1 on the year! That would be his highest PPG since 2011. Crazy.
Chandler Parsons – 10/5/2 in 20 minutes. Somebody please get this guy out of my face.
Marc Gasol – 15/9/3 as he didn’t have his best game. He’s still having a pretty satisfying season, and is averaging his most rebounds since 2013 and most blocks since 2012. Also the most three pointers of his career. Diversify!
Giannis Antetokounmpo – 33/15/3/1/1. Your mcm didn’t even rainbow lmaooo what a noob.
Eric Bledsoe – 11/2/2/1/1 off the bench, with five turnovers on 4-of-13 shooting and no threes. It’s growing pains and the Bucks still won. I’m willing to write this one off.
Malcolm Brogdon – 16/3/3/3 off the bench on 5-of-11 shooting with two threes and only two turnovers. He significantly outplayed Bledsoe tonight, but Bledsoe is probably still the better player. Regardless, Brogdon is naicu, and owners shouldn’t be selling him off for cheap.
Kyle Kuzma – 21/11/1/1/1 as he continues to show how valuable he can be. It blows my mind how good he’s been. Especially with Larry Nance out, Kuuuz will be a force to be reckoned with offensively.
Lonzo Ball – 19/12/13/3/4 as he gets a PHAT triple double rainbow (in a loss) as he avenges his fallen brother LiAngelo. He also shot 7-of-12 with 3-of-5 from three. Pretty, pretty decent, but he’s still been pretty painful to own. Hopefully Zo can continue this a little bit going forward.
Kentavious Caldwell-Pope – I really expected more from KCP this season. 7/5/2/1 on 3-of-10 shooting as he has another bad night. I wouldn’t hesitate to drop him for a hot hand.
Julius Randle – 17/9/1 in another decent game. He’s an okay player, but he can’t defend and he has no offensive game outside the post. When Nance is back, I’d worry that Randle will lose some minutes again.
Bryn Forbes – The Spurs won by 37, and it was still closer than it probably should’ve been. Forbes played 34 minutes which was by far the most of any Spurs player. He had 13/2/3. Meh. Whatever.
Pau Gasol – Played 27 minutes with 21/10/4/2/1 in 27 minutes. Great showing from the elderly Spaniard. But this was a cake walk, so don’t expect this going forward.
San Antonio Spurs – Nobody outside of Bryn Forbes played more than 27 minutes. Brandon Paul came the next closest with 25. It wasn’t a close game. There’s not much to read into here.
Jerian Grant – Grant played 32 minutes and went 9/1/8. Woof.
Lauri Markkanen – Literally the only Bulls player to play at least one minute and not have a double-digit negative plus-minus. Seriously. He only went 6/2/2 in 15 minutes and was a -8. The next best was Paul Zipser starting at SF with -11 in 8 minutes. Denzel Valentine had -33 in 30 minutes. Your 2017/18 Bulls, everyone!
Draymond Green – The only Warrior to play more than 30 minutes against the relatively lowly Sixers. He went 10/10/7/2/5. Not that bad considering his D stats have been severely lacking thus far.
Kevin Durant – 29/5/4/2/2 as he ALSO rainbowed in 28 minutes. Klay Thompson went 23/1/2/1 in 30 minutes and Steph Curry went 22/4/9/1 in 30 minutes as well. The Warriors won by 21.
Philadelphia 76ers – No 76ers played 30 minutes or more. JJ Redick came the closest, going for 17/1/6/3 in almost 30 minutes. Meh.
Robert Covington came the next closest, going for 11/4/2 with two threes in almost 30 minutes. Blech.
TJ McConnell – TJ came the next next closest, going for 6/2/7/1 in 29 minutes flat. Blech blech.
Ben Simmons – The boy wonder went for 13/5/8/2 on 6-for-17 shooting. Not the best game, but keep in mind he’s a rookie. This kid is special.
Donovan Mitchell – Even with the other Utah guards healthy, Mitchell has carved out a really nice role for himself, going for 26/3/3/1 tonight and leading the Jazz in scoring in only 25 minutes. What a player.
Derrick Favors – Nice little comeback game for Derrick as starts at C and goes for 24/12/0/1/2. I like him more than guys like Marcin Gortat going forward, so the buy low window is closing quick.
Joe Ingles – 17/6/5/1 on 6-of-11 shooting. An extremely smart player and he’s having a mini breakout season.
D’angelo Russell – 26/6/3 as he continues his Most Improved Player campaign.
Allen Crabbe – 4/5/0/0/1. Just let him go.
Rondae Hollis-Jefferson – 19/6/3/1/1 with 4-of-10 FG and 11-of-12 FT. The efficiency has been an extremely welcome surprise this season, and he’s been scoring like crazy on this depleted Nets team. If you had the foresight to grab him early, you’re laughing.
DeMarre Carroll – 15/7/0/1 as he continues on his bounce-back campaign after a woeful stint with the Raptors. Why couldn’t you do this for the Raps……..!?
Jamal Murray – Explodes for 32/4/1 on 12-of-21 shooting and six threes. But even this Herculean performance didn’t lead the Nuggets in plus-minus in their win over the Magic, as that honour belonged to the irreplaceable…
Nikola Jokic – This guy! 12/17/9/4/1 in an incredible near-triple-double. Only 3-for-8 shooting, but are you really complaining?
Will Barton – 26/9/5/1/1 as he started in place of the ailing Gary Harris. Will the Thrill! He’s carving out a nice role for himself once again, but his upside is limited when all the guards ahead of him are healthy.
Paul Millsap – 16/8/8/1/2. He still looks like he’s adjusting to the Denver schemes, but he’s a great player and is an especially great compliment to Jokic. Expect him to get better as the season goes on.
Evan Fournier – The Virgin continues to chug along, going for 18/1/3/1 on 7-for-9 shooting. Maybe he doesn’t continue the 20+ppg pace, but he definitely looks more comfortable out there than he has in years past.
Aaron Gordon – The true dunk champ only went for 13/3/5 with a three on Saturday. We all have those days!
Nikola Vucevic – 8/6/2 on 4-of-12 shooting. We all have those days…!
Jonathon Simmons – 18/3/3/1. Forget D-Lo. Is J-Sims the Most Improved Player this year???
Marreese Speights – 19/2/0/1. Lol! What the heck? Get this guy outta here.
TJ Warren – The lowly Suns beat the T-Wolves, largely in part to Warren’s huge night. 35/6/0/1/1 on 15-for-22 shooting. Wow. Somebody’s gotta score I guess. TJ won’t get you many (any) threes, but he’ll get you efficient points, some rebounds, and a sprinkling of steals. Grab him if you can use him!
Devin Booker – Also went for 35 points in the Suns win. Full line of 35/9/6/1 on 13-for-22 shooting with five threes. Good game for Kobe-lite.
Marquese Chriss – Finally showed some life, going for 13/7/2/0/5 on 4-of-7 shooting with three threes. I want to see a little bit more before I put too much faith in Chriss, but this is an extremely encouraging sight.
Jimmy Butler – Finally had himself a relatively big night, but it was all for naught. 25/7/6/1/1 in the loss to the Suns. Only went 5-for-17 from FG, but killed it with 14-for-16 FT.
Taj Gibson – 16/11/0/2 on 6-for-11 shooting. Jesus, what happened to Gorgui Dieng? We all used to love that guy.
Andrew Wiggins – 27/1/0/2 with one three as he continues to only score points. I mean, the points are nice and all, but he’s as one-dimensional as you can get.
Karl-Anthony Towns – 17/12/2/1/2 on 8-of-19 shooting. He was my lede last week, and this week he’s the very last. Nothing personal, kid. But you gotta beat the Suns!
That about does it for the Saturday recap. As always, leave any questions, concerns or coupons in the comments below! Cheers.
