After getting down as much as 23 points, I was going to pose the question – is Nicolas Batum the glue for the Blazers?
But then the Charlotte Hornets looked like the Kelly Tripucka Charlotte Hornets, hiked up their shorts, and got run out of Portland in the second half. This is Damian Lillard‘s show! 29/4/7/2/0 hitting 5 treys and 12 of 21 shots for The Omen.
With Batum out last night (and is hopeful to miss only two more and returning next Monday – he likes the weekly league fantasy players!), a lot of minutes opened up for Blazers SF. And of all the options, I don’t think anyone would’ve projected Allen Crabbe as the starter! Play Chris Kaman at the 3! I actually remember watching a few of Crabbe’s games at Cal when they were in the NCAA tourney and thought he was a good little player. But dude had 4 combined minutes on the season! And even the starting role did nothing for him, going 2/2/2/0/0 in 22 minutes shooting 1-4. Allen Crabby, want more rock! Crabbe has virtually no value, and Batum’s injury just means a few stats will trickle down through the Blazers starters and role players.
The under-the-radar winner is Steve Blake, who nearly rainbowed for 5/4/2/2/1. Season-high 25 minutes and he’s averaging over 3 dimes a game this year. Your line-up is probably filled out tomorrow and Saturday for the next two Blazers games, but hey, if you have one streaming spot open and need a little PG love, don’t be afraid to turn to grown-up Dewey for help. Here’s what else went down in fantasy hoops last night:
Tobias Harris – You don’t need a analrapist to figure out he might be the steal of the draft at this point, with a redonkulous 23/13/5/1/1 line last night, shooting 8-16 (2-5 3PTM 5-5 FT). He’s actually hit all 5 cats in a surreal 6 straight games. Mini-Brow!
Evan Fournier – 24/2/2/3/0 hitting four threes. The Virgin strikes again! 19+ points and 2+ treys the past three games, plus chipping in a couple dimes and shooting over 50%. Victor Oladipo still looms, but yeah, I Like A Virgin as a pickup.
Nikola Vucevic – Ballin’ hard! And TOin’ hard! 18/8/6/2/3 rainbow line is tough to complain about! But 6 TO and 2-5 FT makes this look like a Josh Smith line!
Channing Frye – Five treys last night, giving him 8 in the past 2. Played an absurd 43 minutes given his age and off the MCL sprain, but Vaughn ran his starters into the ground except…
Elfird Payton – …who only played 19 minutes. Scarier than that is it was for the benefit of Luke Ridnour, who played the other 29 PG minutes. Not that it helped, as the Magic choked a lead in this one… Chalking it up to a coaching moment, as no one would think Luke Ridnour is a way to win NBA games…
Jonas Valanciunas – The Luminescence is almost completely out! He needs some of that candle oil the Maccabees had… 20 minutes of 4/7/1/0/0 with 3 TO shooting 1-5 FG and 2-4 FT. Wowzer! Not much you can do but hope it’s a fluke, as at least he’d gotten a swat every game this year until last night…
James Johnson – Uh oh, the neck tat strikes again! 22 minutes last night for 6/10/2/1/1. Per-36s still looking saucy! But he hadn’t boarded more than 4 in any other game despite pretty consistent run… 14ers need to take a good look if they need steals and blocks though, mostly a streamer for 12ers and under.
Zaza Pachulia – I tweeted last night that this might be the assist of the year… From Zaza! Well, I guess it wasn’t amazing, but the overall play was. A huge 8/10/4/2/1 near rainbow in 22 minutes last night, and the Bucks won two in a row for the first time since I dunno, the Glenn Robinson years? A big reason was the bench, who dominated the depleted Thunder second unit. The Bucks starting front line was useless, so other than Larry Sanders it’s tough to start anyone. Even poor ol’ Jabari Parker, who is playing well, but Kidd is benching late as he is Larry Drewing us. Hold onto JabJab, but let him marinate if you have a full slate of games with a full roster.
Giannis Antetokounmpo – Shouldn’t be part of that bench, but making minutes count even if not starting for 14/9/1/0/2 shooting 6-13. I hope you held strong, we told ya to be patient!
O.J. Mayo – An empty 19 points after not topping double digits for five straight. Lite Mayo.
Reggie Jackson – Near rainbow! 29/4/4/2/1 hitting two treys and shooting 12-21. 43 minutes?! Man, the Thunder are desperate. Scott Brooks to become a player/coach after watching this game…
Jeremy Lamb – Sometimes the lamb is cold! Just like a falafel stand… Had a good line last night of 6/8/3/2/0 but shot 2-13. Sometimes the lamb is tough! We got an Anthony Morrow sighting, and he did exactly what Morrow does – 10 points and no other stats except hitting a trey and logging one TO. I think Pete Nice would call that “an empty wing”, like when you get boneless fried wings and only get the breading bit when you think there’s some chicken in it, ya know?! F it, I’ll leave the wing puns for Petey… Pretty soon it’s going to be all you can eat wings as OKC gets healthy, and no one wants wings made of lamb… I lied!
Guess the Kobe Stat Line – Like Jeremy Lin and his bajillion TOs a game, I dropped the ball on this one! Kobe for a 28/7/6/4/0 line last night, continuing to tank your FG% with his high-volume sub-40% shooting, going 10-26. Slim was closer than me in our Pod guesses yesterday! So nice work Slim! Alas, I will not forget for today, and neither should you with your guesses! As Slim suggested on the Pod – new stipulation: guess how many FG he attempts as a tie breaker. Which is fitting as he set the NBA record for most missed shots last night! For tonight, in what should be an offensively charged game, give me 33/5/3 on 31 shots. Good luck!
Jordan Hill – One of our better calls this year. Rainbow alert! 13/14/3/2/2 last night against a tough Grizzlies D, mainly Marc Gasol. A team drafting Harris and Hill late is looking dominant on their front line!
Ed Davis – Doing it in small doses, but mightily consistent with another very usable 27 minutes last night of 6/5/1/0/3 shooting 3-4. Carlos Boozer as an obstacle for huge PT makes me madder than Joakim Noah at perceived bad calls…
Beno Udrih – Whoa, REL debut for my team went well! 16/1/3/1/0 shooting 8-11. He’s played decent, which might make Nick Calathes lose a little hair as he finishes up his 13 game suspension. The suspended list is Just For Men!
Dirk Nowitzki – Passed Hakeen the Dream for 9th most points all-time, and most by a foreign-born player. And fitting he did it in a very stereotypical-for-Dirk fantasy fashion, with a 23/7/3/0/1 line hitting two treys with shining %s shooting 7-12 FG 7-8 FT. The Germinator has germinated so many with fantasy wins, that we’re all baby mommas!
Jameer Nelson – Is hamstrung out. 5/5/5/0/0 before tweaking the hammy, but says he aims to not miss any time before the Mavs play again Thursday. I’ve been all out on Jameer for a while, so even a minor injury to the injury-riddled-career of Jameer gives me more impetus to grab Devin Harris. 34 minutes of 12/2/5/3/0 last night. And then Raymond Felton is gonna be back too; sheesh what were the Mavs thinking with all these old PGs?! Mark Cuban really needs to run his offseason moves in front of the sharks on Shark Tank before making these moves. Mr. Wonderful would crush these PG adds yelling at Cuban that they’re older than him!
Ramon Sessions – A very serviceable 36 minutes of 6-9 shooting (2-3 3PTM 405 FT) 18 points scored ball, but no assists?! 18/3/0/0/0 as Darren Collison sat out with a stiff shoulder. The Kings have a toughie against Memphis on Thursday, so even if Colly is out again, I’m not going to be too big on The Sessions. I’d rather Helen Hunt, who be lookin’ fine in her milf years!
Rudy Gay – Near quadrupledub! 26/8/8 with 7 TO. Gay and DeMarcus Cousins accounted for 13 of the team’s 17 assists… The Kings can’t get Colly back soon enough!
Ben McLemore – Has gotten hot recently since adding Ryan Lewis. 6-12 last night for 17/4/0/1/1, and even though he notched a steal and a block, hit four treys for the second game in a row. If you need to pop some tags, he’s a ThrAGNOF you can have in your pocket. Played 39 minutes in this one too, as the Kings have soured on Nik Stauskas even more than his parents soured on the letter C.
LaMarcus Aldridge – Wish he was pumping in the steals and blocks, but 25/14/3/0/0 shooting 10-21 and 5-5 FT will work aight. He’s hit 4 treys on the season as a marginal boost to his value, but the flip side is only one block in the last five. I mean, with Robin Lopez starting at the 5, everyone is going to take their post-ups on his worthless ass!
Chris Kaman – The Lakers were terrible last year, and even when Pau Gasol was hurt, D’Antoni refused to play him even after a few monster games. Looks like Portland is the big winner, getting another hugely productive game last night on the cheap, for 12/8/2/0/2 shooting 6-10 in 18 minutes. 7 blocks in the past two games, and even in his underutilization (that so should be a word!) last year, still was a 10.4 Pts 1.0 Blk guy in 19 minutes. Usable for some streaming big man stats fa sho (I’m fine with those not being words).
Wesley Matthews – Shot terribly (5-15), but handed out a season-high 7 dimes. Only had one 7 assist game last year, and last time he had more was in February of the 12-13 season when he had 8. #BatumEffect! Somebody has to handle a little extra facilitating, and another source of some of that trickle down of stats. Trickle down economics! Kaman his pants knows something about that! I think Matthews is a little underrated given his great FG% on so many 3-pt shots, but if he racks up a few more big assist games while Batum is out, you might be able to sell high to a team light on dimes. Say, a Ricky Rubio owner?
Lance Stephenson – Pretty much no way Lance doesn’t win the rebounding title for guards… Finally hit some threes last night! 2-4 from deep, but otherwise an empty 14/14/3/1/0 line shooting 5-10 and 2-4 FT. Selling high to a team needing boards is a must.
Al Jefferson – 2 rebounds. “Stop goin’ over my back, Lance!” Eh, just one of those things and Portland missed 17 treys, so probably some long boards in there.
Michael Kidd-Gilchrist – Steve Clifford was the Big Red Goat last night. Really needs to rethink his rotations, as the starters plowed their way to the big lead, but he sat MKG and Marvin Williams late and down the stretch as Portland merked the Hornets in the second half. 12/5/1 shooting 4-6 FG and 4-4 FT for MKG in a very encouraging and efficient line. The 20 minutes sucks, and Clifford hopefully isn’t too dumb and reflects on this game realizing MKG needs more run.
Cory Joseph – After two bad shooting games (1-11 past 2), got it back on track for 5-7 FG 11/0/4/2/0. Besides those two cold games, he’s 24-34 from the field in his other 5 Spurs’ contests. Only 4 TO total this year too in 7 games – 3 coming in one game – so 6 games worth of 1 TO total ball. Rumor has it that Popovich even sat out his own son in a Father/Son softball game, so there’s no reason to expect Tony Parker, who has played all 7 games, to not get some DNPs coming up soon.
Kawhi Leonard – Maybe not as big as his past 2, but is anyone still concerned with his eyes?! 19/6/1/1/0 shooting 7-11 (2-3 3PTM 3-3 FT) and no TO. Woverwy.
#OccupyDraymondGreen – I really need to try and get this trending when he has his next career game… Slowed down last night a tad for 9/4/5/0/1 shooting 2-7, but one FGM was a trey, 4-4 FT and finally cut down on the TO with only 1 last night. So much occupying, so little time!
Harrison Barnes – Season-high 22 points. Meh. 22/8/0/0/1 and just got hot hitting 9-12. He’s the Robin Lopez of wings.
Klay Thompson – Layed off the PornHub to heal his strained hand tendon, and played well for 29/5/4/1/0 shooting 9-17 (5-6 3PTM 6-6 FT). “A ThrAGNOF in the hand is worth two on the wire!” Or something like that… Wait, that’s the opposite of ThrAGNOF advice!
Streamer Picks
Isaiah Canaan (4% owned) – A pretty full slate as per the usual on Wednesdays, but Canaan is an easy play tonight going against the even rawer rookie Zach Lavine, as Patrick Beverley is still nursing the bad hammy. You’re not going to get many dimes, that’s for James Harden to rack up, but he’s hit multi-3s and has at least 1 steal in 5 straight.
Thabo Sefolosha (2% owned) – With DeMarre Carroll out with a groin strain, Thabo is a great play for owners looking for steals as well. Against the hapless Jazz, I could see 8 or 9 long boards coming his way, since Trey Burke is going to be his normal atrocious 3-point shooting self… “Look ma, all bricks!”
I hope everyone’s teams has a nice humpday, and good luck tonight!
