The Numbers Game – Trades, Waives, And …

February 24, 2017 | Fantasy Basketball Daily Notes | 12 Comments

by: JG

… A Long Ass post trade deadline analysis (couldn’t come up with a word that rhymes with automobiles). I’ll dive deep into a couple of trades (Boogie and Nerlens Noel). I’ll also cover the much hyped but somewhat boring (thanks to Boston, Indiana & Chicago!) trade deadline that has come and gone.

Oh and by the way, if you’d rather just listen to an analysis instead of read and see some copy/pasted stats from NBA.COM, just go ahead and listen to JB’s podcast.

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The Trade Deadline Loometh! (Semi-Live Post)

February 23, 2017 | Fantasy Basketball Daily Notes | 104 Comments

by: JB Gilpin

Razzball Nation! The Trade Deadline is here! Fantasy Basketball’s most interesting day south of the year change has arrived, and fantasy owners have itchy trigger fingers on their wires, ready to find that newly minted asset after a deal. Forge me some upside, fantasy gods! Wait, wait, in no way did I mean to compare NBA GMs to gods… Vlade Divac is like, “that’s the nicest thing anyone has ever said about me!”

I’m going to try and keep this post updating throughout the trades up through the 3:00 PM EST deadline, then Slim and I will record the Pod and post a little later tonight. Be sure and keep up with the comments, and break news if you see a deal done before I or another commenter! Let’s throw around the last-minute rumors, and turn this into a Trade Deadline hub! Here’s the trades that have gone down so far (not including the Cousins one, which I do think will end up being the biggest deal of the “Trade Deadline” period though…), plus updates throughout the morning and afternoon:

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Choo Choo! Don’t Let The Dieng Train Chug Along Under Your Radar!

November 28, 2016 | Fantasy Basketball Daily Notes | 99 Comments

by: JB Gilpin

Choo Choo!

Watch out league, The Dieng Train is about to run ya over like you’re Magic defenders! Our season chugs along through Thanksgiving (although with our jeans barely fitting), heading into December with 3 guys flirting with Oscar Robinson for tripdub averages, Brow looking redonk, and a multitude of other breakouts and disappointments, but I don’t want the Dieng Train to slip under the radar! Like a German train station, Gorgui Dieng remains regular, consistent, and otherwise just mundane, bringing true multicat performance after performance from a big (minus treys). After a slow-ish start, the Dieng Train put together a nice weekend with a rainbow 11/7/2/3/4 against the Suns, then 15/6/2/1/2 in a tough-matchup-for-a-big against the Warriors. And even though I said “minus treys”, he actually hit a triple in each of them! Shot 11-22 overall, committed only 2 combined TO, and after hitting only 6 treys last year, maybe this is a part of his game we’ll start to see expand. Before you Dieng Train detractors type “BORING!” in the comments, I know his per-36 is a smidge down from last year. That said, he’s played 36+ minutes in 4 of the past 5 games, and it’s all due to that beautiful, cuddly, Tibby Tibs treatment. Run your starters to death! But well, when one of your starters is a effin’ train, you ride that rail! Here’s what else went down over Thanksgiving weekend in fantasy basketball:

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All I Want For Christmas Is A Little Offense…and the 7 Ahead

December 28, 2015 | Fantasy Basketball Daily Notes | 58 Comments

by: Matty

Earlier in the year when the NBA released its schedule for the 2015/2016 season, one of the very first things I did was flip forward to December 25th. I was really stoked to see five games, neatly stacked one after the other, for our holiday viewing pleasure. The excitement continued to grow right up until the games went live and we quickly learned that putting the ball through the hoop is, apparently, quite a bit more difficult on Christmas.

Anthony Davis in South Beach for a noon eastern tip-off against the Heat. What a great way to kick off the afternoon after tossing back a few coffee & Baileys, scarfing down some cinnamon buns, and opening some presents, right? Yeah… no. They needed overtime and the Pelicans still couldn’t hit the 90-point mark. Brow was nice (29/15/4/4/3), as was Chris Bosh, but the game was not pretty. At all.

So I says to myself, I says: “Self, one stinker does not a bad day make. We just got the ugly one outta the way early. This will not be a harbinger of things to come. No, sir, it will not.” Next up we got the weirdly entertaining (and enigmatic) Bulls visiting the dynamic duo of Russell Westbrook & Kevin Durant in front of an always raucous Oklahoma City crowd. Well, Chicago doubled up OKC in the third quarter (32-16) to quiet the crowd and pulled away as nobody other than the Thunder’s two stars bothered to show up. The league’s second most efficient team on offense couldn’t crack the century mark and fell 105-96.

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Mo Williams, Less Problems

November 11, 2015 | Fantasy Basketball Daily Notes | 80 Comments

by: Matty

Well, that was a bit of a bloodbath.

On what should have been a relatively quiet evening in the NBA, there sure wound up being a lot of noise. And not a lot of it was good noise. For a lot of fantasy owners, Tuesday probably sounded a bit like this.

Mid-game injuries, late-breaking inactives, and low minutes due to a few blowouts seemed to be the consistent narrative of the night.

We’ll get to all that depressing stuff, but let’s start out on a high note – Mo Williams had himself a game. On nearly perfect shooting (8-9 FGs, 9-10 FTs, 4-4 from 3-point range), Mo helped the Cavaliers slip past the Utah Jazz 118-114 in the best game of the night. In addition to the stellar percentages, Williams chipped in six boards, six dimes, and stole the ball twice just for funzies. Five turnovers took a bit of shine off an otherwise brilliant outing, but this still goes down as one of the top fantasy lines of the evening. Mo Williams will continue to be a must-start player until Kyrie Irving comes back, and common sense would suggest that if Mo keeps balling at a high level and the Cavs keep winning, there’s no reason to rush Kyrie back anytime soon. So it’s a bit of a snowball effect in that the immediate returns are great, but they’re also likely to help extend Mo’s opportunity for a 30+ MPG role on a title contending team. People waiting on Irving to return won’t enjoy hearing that, but it’s championship-or-bust in Cleveland, so Kyrie isn’t coming back with health a single percentage point below 100.

Not to be outdone, LeBron James had himself a phenomenal fourth quarter, scoring 17 points (6-8 FGs), 4 rebounds, 3 assists and a steal as the Cavs scored 38 points in the final frame against one heck of a good defensive team. LBJ finished the game with 31/7/8/2/0 and dropped in a three pointer. He matched Mo Will’s five giveaways and missed four of his 12 freebies, but for all intents and purposes this was a win for LeBron owners as he made it out of the game healthy after soldiering through an owwy on his thigh.

Let’s get on to the rest of the notables…

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Triple-Double Bonanza!

April 2, 2015 | Fantasy Basketball Daily Notes | 17 Comments

by: JB Gilpin

Everyone put on their big boy, triple-double pants last night, that’s for sure! Imagine the same pants Fat Albert would wear… With extra room built in for his Prince Albert!

First there was Bootstraps Bootstraps (!!), Evan Turner raising fantasy-owners’ Jolly Rogers for his patented tripdub with nothing else. 13/11/12/0/0 on 6-17 FG with one trey. But hey, a tripdub is a tripdub – and only 1 TO! Then, just a few minutes later, Boogie was like,”Ello Poppet!” Miss Turner was easily upstaged by DeMarcus Cousins, who had one of the best lines on the season. Tripdub? Check. Goromotaro? Check. Rainbow line? Check. Double rainbow line? Almost! 24/21/10/3/6, but did only hit 2-6 FT. And Beard may have upstaged EVEN THAT himself in that game, but more later… Then Russell Westbrook went into double-digits with his triple-doubles! 31/11/11 for his 10th tripdub, but took him a bajillion shots for 10-32 FG (2-11 3PTM 9-11 FT). Man, just a great night of NBA basketball, and hopefully your championship teams reaped the rewards from this all-you-can eat stats buffet. A few more nights like this, and we’ll forget all about the tanking and DNP-rest issues impacting the NBA! Here’s what else went down last night in fantasy basketball action:

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Snitches Get Stitches!

March 25, 2015 | Fantasy Basketball Daily Notes | 51 Comments

by: JB Gilpin

…Well I dunno what he woulda snitched about, but ya know…

The injuries and tanking DNPs continue in one of the most utterly annoying final months to the NBA in recent memory. There will always be guys getting hurt, but we’ve lost yet another with Hassan Whiteside tearing up his hand and needing 10 stitches last night after jamming it up against the rim. Right in the webbing! Between the fingers! Youchie. After the game he said he couldn’t feel it. I’m no doctor, but none of that sounds good for his status tonight! I mean, sometimes losing all feeling in a hand can be good like in The Stranger… Certainly sounds like he’ll take at least a game off, unless they can fit him with one of those oven mitts they give guys in the NFL when they play with broken hands. It might end up being a good thing, because if Kelly Olynyk says something about Whiteside’s mama, we could see an even longer suspension! Here’s what else went down last night in another “dropping like flies” night of fantasy basketball action:

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Thibodeau Is Like A Cranky Billionaire, He Runs His Butler To Death!

March 24, 2015 | Fantasy Basketball Daily Notes | 49 Comments

by: JB Gilpin

Woooo, Jimmy Buckets is back! And Tom Thibodeau does what Tom Thibodeau does… Runs his guys to death.

After missing exactly 3 weeks with his elbow injury, Jimmy Butler returned last night and played a ridiculous 39-and-a-half minutes for 19/9/1/0/0. Almost 40 minutes?! And he shot 6-20!? Sure he’s taken a ton of shots the past week to be sure the elbow is healthy, but the aggression in that 7-10 FT really solidifies he should be 100% the rest of the way. That is, until Tibs plays him 63 minutes in a 3-OT game! Sheesh, I gotta wonder if I’ll ever be huge on Bulls again… Derrick Rose and all-a-dat, Joakim Noah goes through injury spells… And Tibs refuses to run his starters on any sort of minutes limits. I’m more posing the thought than really setting any personal beliefs in my fantasy bedrock, but Rose for sure I could never draft. You can call that Fred Flintstone because it’ll make my Fantasy Bedrock! I don’t think I’m using that lyric right… Here’s what else went down last night in fantasy basketball action:

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Bojan Bogdanovic Welcomes You To The Semis!

March 23, 2015 | Fantasy Basketball Daily Notes | 67 Comments

by: JB Gilpin

You don’t mess with the Bojan!

We’re into week 2 of the standard H2H playoffs, moving into the semis, and the squads with bye weeks are hoping to avoid the layover letdown. It’s like the NCAA Football championship thingy, the playoffs or bracket or 4-team finals or whatnot, who knows anymore?! But they have to wait like 4 months from their final regular season game to the title! That’s how long this week has seemed for my sitting around, lazy, bored bye week teams (speaking vicariously of course, I had zero!). Luckily it’s now how you enter the playoffs but how you exit, and with only two weeks left, you gotta ride the hot ThrAGNOFs! Bojan Bogdanovic fits the bill to a T (did I say that right?) with 12+ points in 4 straight and 17+ in 3 of 4. Also has chipped in multi-treys in the past 3 and if treys or points are a need, it’s time to ThrAGNOF! Why you don’t pay for these guys, as they literally grow on trees. Seriously, Bogdanovic’s great uncle was Groot. Here’s what else went down over the weekend in fantasy basketball action:

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Kawhi’s Got Eyes For The Boards

January 21, 2015 | Fantasy Basketball Daily Notes | 56 Comments

by: JB Gilpin

Woooo-ie! When I think about why I’ve had such a bad past four weeks, it became easy to forget just how good Kawhi Leonard is! My deep league REL squad (20 team, 340 players owned) couldn’t handle the loss and I went into a Nicolas Cage Leaving Las Vegas tailspin of drinkery. But I’m back baby! Unfortunately not with Elisabeth Shue though…

Hitting the glass harder than a Coloradoan at a dispensary, Kawhi gobbled down 15 boards in a 17/15/3/2/1 line hitting 6-13 FG, three treys and 2-2 FT. All is right with the world! No fear in that hand, and no other Spurs player had more than 5 boards. Box out, Jamba Jus! I’ve been a big Kawhi fan his whole career, and I’m still eagerly awaiting the day Pop decides he will finally run Kawhi for 35 MPG. Hasn’t gotten to 31 in his three games back from the hand injury, and while the minutes are up this year, it’s still only 32 MPG on the season. Give him the Jimmy Butler treatment! And then we’re talking some no-brainer first round shizz. Maybe the big workload will happen once the vets are gone and Pop will be forced to play his superstar, but maybe Pop likes playing his hockey line changes. At least we can look back on Tim Duncan who was playing 39 MPG his first 6 seasons. Let the stars play! Either way, it’s just good to have Kawhi back. Here’s what else went down on a short night of NBA action:

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Fantasy Basketball Infirmary: Week 9 Injury Analysis

December 26, 2014 | Fantasy Basketball Daily Notes | 5 Comments

by: Peter Kap

Hope everyone is having a happy holiday season. Whether you celebrate Christmas or not, Christmas has always a great day for basketball fans. We got a great slate of games, including some pretty amazing performances from John Wall, Russell Westbrook, and Dwayne Wade. We even got to see the Knicks’ teammates come to Qunicy Acy’s aid for a fight with John Wall.

Unfortunately, a few stars were missing from the Christmas games. The Thunder beat the Spurs in San Antonio, despite having superstar Kevin Durant on the sideline. He missed his fourth game in a row due to an ankle sprain. Durant was quoted as saying, “I can’t play basketball. I can’t run. I can’t jump. I’m not just sitting out just because. If I could play I would play. But I can’t play.”

Based on his comments, owners should expect to see him out another week or so. The injury is not related to his surgically repaired foot, but is similar to an injury he had in 2009, when he missed nine games. While Perry Jones will replace KD in the starting lineup, Durant is impossible to replace in real life and in fantasy. Owners will have to just wait for his return.

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Fantasy Basketball Infirmary: Week 6 Injury Analysis

December 5, 2014 | Fantasy Basketball Daily Notes | 22 Comments

by: Peter Kap

This was a very big week for the Thunder. They got both of their superstars back in a matter of days.

Russell Westbrook returned on Friday night, putting up 32 points, 7 rebounds, and 8 assists in only 24 minutes of clock. Now owners may be concerned with the lack of minutes, but know that Westbrook wasn’t on a minutes’ restriction. Instead, Westbrook, along with the rest of the starters, were pulled early since the Thunder were up 32 late in the game. They were playing the New York Knicks after all.

A few days later, Kevin Durant returned to score 27 points on Tuesday night. He showed little rust on the court, shooting 9-18 from twos, 3-8 from downtown, and 6-7 from the line. Durant didn’t do much else outside of the scoring, but those numbers will happen in due time. The important thing is that Westbrook and Durant are both back and healthy.

Westbrook and Durant immediately regain their statuses as two of the top ten fantasy producers. At the same time, their return also hurts the guys filling in for them. Reggie Jackson’s statistics will take a hit, as he won’t be needed as much as an offensive producer. In the two games since Westbrook returned, Jackson had his two lowest usage rates of the season and saw his field goal attempts decrease to 11 FGA per game (down from 17.9 without Durant and Westbrook). Now there is still value to be had with Jackson, since he’ll be getting around 30 minutes a night, but don’t expect the same numbers he was providing early in the season.

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