Dispatch from a Basketball Blackout

December 29, 2021 | Fantasy Basketball Daily Notes |

On Monday, Mr. and Mrs. Hooper packed up the car, coaxed our puppy Buckets into the backseat, and left the Mecca of American basketball (Milwaukee) in our rearview mirror to pay a post-holiday visit to Mama and Papa Hooper in Ohio. Though it runs counter to who I eventually ended up becoming, there actually isn’t any basketball in this particular household, so this Tuesday night recap is coming to you more or less blind. I’ve scoured Twitter and box scores as best I can, and we’re on track to be back home for next Tuesday’s action, but because I didn’t watch any hoops last night, I’m foregoing nominating a lede player here and just getting straight into it.

It was a busy night Tuesday night across the league. Here’s what jumped out to me here in the hinterlands of hoops…

Please, blog, may I have some more?

The Season Comes Earlier Every Year

by: Mr. Hooper

And I’m not talking about Christmas.

Despite vaccination numbers north of 95%, a new variant of the Coronavirus has breached the walls of the NBA and is wreaking havoc on a league that is already being thinned out by non-virus injuries that stem from playing three seasons in two years. The sick are just getting sicker (Tuesday night’s Brooklyn/Washington matchup was postponed) and as a result, the NBA has thrown off some of their normal roster restrictions to ensure that teams can field full squads. Names that are normally reserved for the silly season of March and early April are now turning up before the unofficial start of the season on Christmas Day. Consider Marquese Chriss, one of the newest Dallas Mavericks, as an example. A lottery pick in 2016 who has never found his footing in the Association, Chriss was added as a reinforcement to the Mavs roster amid a Covid outbreak in Dallas. To his credit, Chriss looked springy, played well, and actually closed the game for Dallas against Minnesota before the ink dried on his contract. Chriss was joined out there by luminaries like Theo Pinson and Sterling Brown, and all across the league there were was a mix of old names and new showing up in NBA box scores. Guys like Wayne Seldon in New York and Tony Snell in Portland resurfaced after time spent in the NBA hinterland, while Marcus Garrett saw some burn in Miami, and Leandro Bolmaro and Nathan Knight popped up for the Timberwolves.

Amid these strange times in the NBA, it was good to see that Damian Lillard is still good for a bucket or two.

Please, blog, may I have some more?

The Best I’ve Ever Seen

December 15, 2021 | 2021-22 Fantasy Basketball, Fantasy Basketball Daily Notes |

by: Mr. Hooper

Last night at Madison Square Garden, Steph Curry — the greatest shooter ever, a player who irrevocably changed basketball simply by playing it in the way that best suits him and his unfathomable gifts — did a little legacy cementing. In front of previous record holders Ray Allen and Reggie Miller, his family and teammates, a packed house, God, and basketball fans the world over, Curry moved into first place in all-time three-pointers made.

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The Celtic Mamba

December 8, 2021 | 2021-22 Fantasy Basketball, Fantasy Basketball Daily Notes |

by: Mr. Hooper

After Jayson Tatum slammed home the first points of the game off a Laker turnover in last night’s renewal of acquaintances in the storied Lakers/Celtics rivalry, the possibility of a big night for number 0 cracked open ever so slightly. When he scored every one of Boston’s next 12 — including a banked tripled — and registered a swat and a steal by the end of the first quarter, a huge performance was all but locked in for the Celtic star. With a silky-smooth jumper and a 6’8″ frame, there wasn’t a whole lot that LA could do to put the shackles on the 23-year-old, three-level scorer.

In the past, Tatum has been chided for being a bit too Kobe-brained when it comes to shot selection — Stan Van Gundy bemoaned his year-over-year decrease in attempts at the rim on the broadcast — but it’s nights like these where you can get inside the young scorer’s head a little bit. If I can hit it from here, the thinking goes, how can it be a bad shot? Last night, while getting buckets from every corner of his idol’s backyard, Tatum was in full Mamba Mode.

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A Hard End to a Slow Start

December 1, 2021 | 2021-22 Fantasy Basketball, Fantasy Basketball Daily Notes |

by: Mr. Hooper

Finally, some Tuesday night sparkle! As long as the game with oblong pigskin is being played, Tuesday nights are one of the few days on the calendar that belong solely to the NBA. Unfortunately for those of us who do our recapping of these showcase nights, the product has been a bit underwhelming to start the season. Things started picking up with last week’s Lakers/Knicks matchup, but we jumped several levels last night with an extremely competitive Battle for New York and then a clash of Western Conference contenders as the Suns played host to the Warriors.

Please, blog, may I have some more?

A Garden Variety Triple Double

November 24, 2021 | 2021-22 Fantasy Basketball, Fantasy Basketball Daily Notes |

by: Mr. Hooper

For about two and half quarters in last night’s TNT showcase of the Lakeshow in MSG, it looked like we were in store for yet another Tuesday night disappointment (seriously, how bad have these national games been lately?). No LeBron, an under-the-weather Anthony Davis, and some ghastly shooting from the rest of the roster (LA shot 37.4% as a team) allowed the Knicks to amass a huge lead in front of the home crowd. How ugly was it? The Lakers never led, only drew even twice, and the Garden was rocking and bing-bonging through for most of the evening. Despite the dire straights, this is a Laker group with championship aspirations, so they got off the mat and competed in the second half. Though it was in a losing effort, Russell Westbook tried his best to make a game of it.

Please, blog, may I have some more?

DeRozan Plays the Hits

November 22, 2021 | 2021-22 Fantasy Basketball, Fantasy Basketball Daily Notes | 6 Comments

by: Mr. Hooper

Much was made of the Chicago Bulls’ offseason, and rightly so. Following his promotion to president of basketball ops in 2020, Arturas Karisovas attempted to put the GarPax era firmly in the rear-view this summer by flipping the roster over pretty dramatically and moving the center of gravity away from a Zach LaVine-shaped black hole to a more egalitarian committee featuring new-comer Lonzo Ball, a full-season of Nikola Vucevic, and the $85M man himself: DeMar DeRozan. Ink was spilled and hands were wrung about the money spent on the 32-year-0ld DD and how all these new pieces would fit together, but considering Chicago’s position atop the Eastern Conference as we approach the quarter post of the season, it’s hard to feel anything but positive about the early returns on the new-look Bulls. DeRozan in particular has been balling of late, and following Sunday’s performance against the Knicks, DD is now on the cusp of the top-10 in fantasy hoops. Like Sinatra before him, DeMar is doing it his way.

Please, blog, may I have some more?

Curry Reheating Instructions: Give Ball, Watch, Weep

November 17, 2021 | 2021-22 Fantasy Basketball, Fantasy Basketball Daily Notes | 6 Comments

by: Mr. Hooper

So, the Warriors might be good again, yeah? Coming into Tuesday’s showcase against Brooklyn with the best record in the Association, Golden State has spent the early-season feasting on one of the softest schedules in the league, and generally looking really good doing it. Steph Curry is in MVP-form, Draymond Green is locked-in and energized, and Andrew Wiggins and Jordan Poole have been steady, positive contributors. The bench is already deep and there’s help on the way as James Wiseman and Klay Thompson inch their way back to the rotation. Going into Brooklyn and getting the Nets at home, even sans Kyrie, figured to be a good, real test for the Warriors (if there is such a thing in November) as their schedule firms up ever so slightly. The Nets are a quality opponent. Despite the sluggish start from James Harden and getting nothing at all from Irving, Kevin Durant has been fabulous even by his own standards, and that’s been good enough to power Brooklyn to a totally-respectable 11-4 start. It was supposed to be a competitive, compelling game.

It wasn’t.

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Max Effort Required

November 10, 2021 | 2021-22 Fantasy Basketball, Fantasy Basketball Daily Notes |

by: Mr. Hooper

It’s easy to understand why, all those weeks ago, the good folks at TNT selected last night’s Bucks/Sixers game to be the NBA showcase game on a night with precious little professional basketball. They could bill it as the reigning champs versus the dramatic and talented challengers, right? Giannis and his gold medal running mates against The Process and Ben Simmons in a battle at the top of the Eastern Conference. The potential for an early-season statement was easy enough to see at the time, but then life happened.

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G’s Up, Motown Down

November 3, 2021 | 2021-22 Fantasy Basketball, Fantasy Basketball Daily Notes |

by: Mr. Hooper

Before the Bucks took on the Pistons in Detroit on Tuesday night, the matchup read a bit like one of those torturous “two trains are three hundred miles apart, traveling at two different speeds…” puzzles that I never learned how to solve in school. Yes, the Pistons are one of the worst teams in professional basketball, but they were catching an extremely shorthanded Milwaukee team in Motown, so it felt like there was a chance that they’d be able to steal one against the banged up Bucks. The reigning champs were without their starting center (Brook Lopez remained on the side lines with a bad back), starting point guard (Jrue Holiday was out with a turned ankle), starting wing (Khris Middleton tested positive for Covid and will be away from the team for a couple of weeks), and last year’s starting two-guard (Donte DiVincenzo’s rehab and recovery from ankle surgery continues), so there was a chance, after accounting for all these caveats, that the Little Engine That Could would turn into the Little Engine That Did, at least for the night.

Or not!

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A Mur-ray of Light in the Gloomy Season

October 27, 2021 | 2021-22 Fantasy Basketball, Fantasy Basketball Daily Notes | 2 Comments

by: Mr. Hooper

What a difference a week makes. It’s been seven days since opening night and Milwaukee’s ring ceremony, and the excitement that surged through me then has waned, even if only slightly. The fact of the matter is, we’re still talking about October basketball. There’s still a lot of ramping up to do, gel to set, and rhythm to be found. You’ll get glimpses of some pretty play during this part of the calendar, but there are more lows than highs in the early going. Any unconditional good is hard to find, just ask Dejounte Murray, who had a career night and still caught an L.

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Hangin’ with Mr. Hooper: My Guys for 2021-22

October 20, 2021 | 2021-22 Fantasy Basketball | 2 Comments

by: Mr. Hooper

A few weeks back, before the RazzJam drafts started, Son and I were talking about strategies for the upcoming year. “Talking about strategies” is a generous way of describing my contributions to the discussion. Mostly I was bellyaching about the mistakes I made last year (double guard to start, no real center…ever) and committing to not doing that again. Son, who I’m sure was saying something brilliant and valuable and actionable, was mostly there as a witness to me turning over new leaves.

Draft season kicked off with the RazzJam (slow draft, four-hour timer. Mine took 13 days to complete), and I was enjoying it so much that I kept finding myself in more draft rooms. By the time my RCL draft wrapped up on Monday night, I had seven rosters to manage — a medley of H2H and roto, 10- and 12- teamers, weekly and daily — which is significantly more than I normally play.

Please, blog, may I have some more?

Author: Mr. Hooper

Read some of Mr. Hooper's 100 posts

Dispatch from a Basketball Blackout

The Season Comes Earlier Every Year

The Best I’ve Ever Seen

The Celtic Mamba

A Hard End to a Slow Start

A Garden Variety Triple Double

DeRozan Plays the Hits

Curry Reheating Instructions: Give Ball, Watch, Weep

Max Effort Required

G’s Up, Motown Down

A Mur-ray of Light in the Gloomy Season

Hangin’ with Mr. Hooper: My Guys for 2021-22