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Greetings from November Madness, AKA the NBA final play in tournament pool night!  Now that I read it, November Madness doesn’t work. No alliteration.  There were a few exciting games, though. Boston over Chicago This, however, was not one of the exciting games.  Wow is Chicago bad.  Like, they gave up a putback dunk to […]

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The end of each year is now deemed “Silly Season,” when resting vets on contenders and breakout youngsters on tanking teams play havoc with lineup decisions.  Three weeks into the season, I now declare this time of the year “Wacky Season,” with Wednesday night a perfect example. There are players who started injured coming back, […]

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Last night we saw the transition from Shaedon Sharpe the cool shiny gadget that’s just for show, to the I Gotta Have This In My Daily Life type of tool. 

With Anfernee Simons out 6 weeks [sad face] and Scoot Henderson injured mid-game, Sharpe took over with 25 points in the second half, scoring on all three levels and finishing with a 27-7-5-1-2 stat line (9-16 FG, 3-6 3PT, 8-10 FT). 

Sharpe has been hitting the glass early on this season, averaging nearly 6 per game (including several smooth offensive putbacks) and has 9 stocks in five games. I still need to see him continue to be aggressive, as the youngster tends to stand around and wait for his turn. If he can, this could be one of the better breakouts of the first couple months of the fantasy season. 

Here’s what else was noteworthy to me on another packed Wednesday slate, with some boring blowouts and a couple nail biters. 

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Welcome to the 2023-24 Fantasy Rankings! We’ll continue this wonderful (is it? Yes!) journey with other positions and formats, including all positional rankings for both Roto and Points leagues, and then of course wrapping it all up with our Dynasty Rankings. What will be released is just the pure rankings; analysis and other amazing draft preparational content (ooooh, sounds so official) will be released after our aforementioned rankings “journey”. Remember, it’s not about the destination, but the friends we made along the way! Especially if it ends in a Fantasy Championship, in which case, it is sorta-kinda about the destination, which is also fine. Because who cares about friends when you can hoist a trophy in their general direction? I mean, I’m talking both literally and figuratively here folks. Just as long as you hoist, it counts. As they say, it’s all about the hoisting… (I think.)

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As the wheels continued to fall off the Wizards’ season Wednesday night, Nikola Jokic kept rollin’ in the opposite direction to the tune of 31 points, 12 rebounds, seven assists and three steals in a convincing 118-104 win for Denver. His absolutely insane efficiency continued, as he shot 12-of-16 from the field and 5-of-5 at the charity stripe. This guy fills up the box score and basically doesn’t miss in the process.

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Most things in life have an ebb and flow to them. Some have steady drumbeats while others are volatile like an illiquid capital market. In order to get to the top of any venture, there is usually a combination of both. At some point, there are breakthroughs and jumps of multiple levels. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander was selected by the Clippers with the 11th overall pick in the 2018 NBA Draft. He averaged 26.5 minutes per game as a rookie and showed that he belonged, putting up 10.8 points, 2.8 rebounds, 3.3 assists, 1.2 steals and 0.5 blocks while shooting 47% from the field and 80% from the line. He was the 141st player for fantasy on a per-game basis. He was then traded to the Thunder in the Paul George deal and immediately played 34.7 minutes per contest. He finished as the 53rd player for fantasy, the first significant jump in his career. He improved in each of the next two seasons, but at a pace akin to the sink filling up, drip by drip, finishing 44th then 32nd. Then 2022 happened, and Shai rocketed up to where he is now, as a top 5 player. Yesterday, he continued to show that he is now one of the best and most well-rounded players in the NBA:

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As Adam Schefter and Ian Rapoport fire off one “BREAKING” tweet after another, I just have to be honest: Writing about basketball tonight sort of feels like being the undercard for a Jon Jones fight. Is anyone gonna care about the NBA tonight, while the NFL free agency frenzy carries on deep into the wee hours?

NO? Well, I’ll just go ahead and MAKE you care. Didn’t mean to sound like Tony Soprano, sorry. Let’s get into my NBA Wednesday fantasy basketball notes and analysis.

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After being elevated to the All-Star team as an injury reserve, De’Aaron Fox helped the Sacramento Kings play spoiler to the debut of the Dallas Mavericks’ new dynamic duo. After missing his last two shots in regulation, Fox went into takeover mode in overtime, scoring 14 of the Kings’ 19 points.

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Wooooooooo, the NBA trade deadline is cookin’ now!

Wednesday night shook up the landscape of the league, as D’Angelo Russell, Malik Beasley, Jarred Vanderbilt are now Lakers, Mike Conley is a Timberwolf, Josh Hart is a Knick and Russell Westbrook is playin’ the blues in Utah (for now). But more on that later. First, let’s get into our regularly scheduled programming: My Wednesday fantasy recap.

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