Welcome to your midweek guidance for Week 21!  In this post, I identify widely-available players who can help you win your head-to-head playoff matchup.  Since we generally know the capabilities of most players at this point, I take on a conservative mindset in the fantasy playoffs.  Every add has the potential to swing a matchup, and there’s no reason to make speculative adds this close to the finish line.  A couple pieces of advice may seem obvious, but are worth repeating: If you’re in a tight one and have a cap on your weekly player acquisitions, I recommend making your adds as close to tip off as possible in order to avoid wasting an add on a late scratch.  This also means that, unless you’re way behind and needing to take a moonshot to catch up, you should wait until an injured player is actually ruled out before adding his replacement.  Give yourself the best chance to win!

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Burning bridges. No good, as you never know what the universe has in store for the future. Having water under the bridge? A good sign because that means climate change hasn’t evaporated a big percentage of the water on Earth. Mikal Bridges? Well, he was always a solid fantasy asset because he chipped in everywhere without hurting anywhere. Now, Mikal is making it rain so many fantasy goodies that the water flowing under this Bridges is causing the fantasy landscape to transform before our eyes. On Sunday, there was a flash flood warning due to:

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You read that right. Valentine’s Day is an objectively stupid holiday, and after 18 years of marriage the wife and I were good with a nice cup of coffee and takeout for the day. Then I watched the Bucks vs. Celtics game on TNT, and took a huge gamble at that! It paid off though, but please honor my sacrifice for your benefit and click on this article multiple times. I took the huge risk for all of you.

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I mean, you can, but would it be allowed in modern English? Perhaps, perhaps not. Am I supposed to know English? But let’s go deeper, something your mother enjoys all the time. In this regard, one might ponder not just about your mother, but also the fact that you can’t spell “luck” with Luka because the dude is just pure talent and skill. Luck is the last thing he needs. And don’t look at me, I’m not a Luka Doncic fanboy either, I’ve honestly never seen so much basketball talent executed in the slowest way possible. Man moves like the most agile molasses I’ve ever seen and I swear it takes roughly 18 minutes to wind up his shot. And the constant chirping… sure, I understand he doesn’t get the same calls like Steph does, but 18 technical fouls per quarter can sometimes be exhausting to watch.

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The Grizzlies completed a back-to-back Southeast division sweep with a win over the Magic that probably should have been by more points. If only Dillon Brooks didn’t use up 18 shots to score a paltry 11 points. Brooks is a frustrating player, both if you’re being guarded by him, and if he’s on your fantasy team—and he’s on far too many of those. He’s rostered in 72 percent of Yahoo! standard leagues despite barely landing inside the overall top-200, ranking behind eight of his teammates. He’s not shy about shooting the rock, hoisting nearly 16 times a game despite connecting just a tick above 40 percent. He recorded six rebounds and six assists, which was a pleasant surprise as it doubled his usual output in those cats. And he had no defensive stats, which is all too common an occurrence for Brooks. At least he makes some threes, though he’s made more than one in a contest in just one of his past nine outings. The PPG looks nice, but he harms your team more than he helps. Cut bait if you haven’t already.

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Regarding last week’s suggestions, Walker Kessler was already a hot add but Kelly Olynyk missing some time with an ankle injury makes him even more must add, while Jordan Goodwin had a good run and is still a steals specialist but with the Wizards healthier, he becomes more of a 16-team league player. Finally, Maxi Kleber got unlucky and injured his hamstring in practice, while the two “Sell” suggestions from last week, Jalen Smith and John Wall did nothing to change their status as players I don’t want in my fantasy team.

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In this life, do-overs are rare. The opportunity to go back and change the mistakes of the past is reserved for science fiction plots or melancholy discussions over a pint in dimly-lit watering holes. But over this last week, I was presented with an opportunity to do just that – to go back with the knowledge of hindsight and fix where I failed, to atone, to set things right. I had screwed up once and now I was gifted a second chance. Please, I told myself, don’t blow it again. 

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The 2022 NBA Draft class has been quite a delight, right?

No. 1 overall selection Paolo Banchero is averaging 22 points, seven rebounds and four assists per game; 15/4/4 for Jaden Ivey (No. 5 pick), 18 PPG for Bennedict Mathurin (No. 6), and 12 and seven for Jabari Smith Jr. (No. 3). We’ve also seen promising flashes from Jalen Duren (leading all rookies with 7.3 rebounds per game), Keegan Murray (12 and four) and Andrew Nembhard (leading in three-point percentage at 40.4). All this positivity comes even without uber-popular Chet Holmgren, the No. 2 overall pick who suffered a season-ending Lisfranc injury before ever taking the floor in an NBA regular season game. Big things comin’ in the future, for sure.

That leads us into Wednesday night in fantasy basketball, one highlighted by two of the rising rookies I referenced above.

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You can’t win a championship at the beginning of a season, but you can lose one. Much as it pains me to say, I think I’ve already lost.

After a successful Writer’s League last year that ended against Kostas in the semifinal and a pretty intensive offseason of thinking about hoops, I came into this year’s draft feeling like I was in decent shape to post a good showing again. But this year ain’t last year. Stats and success don’t carry over, and if you’re resting on laurels rather than applying lessons learned, there’s no way to bank Ws on account of “experience.” If you’ve been following Kelder’s weekly recaps, you might have noticed that my team isn’t anywhere in the mix. Indeed, you’ve got to scroll almost the way to the bottom of the table to see my name. A record of 19-34-1 is good enough for 11th and I feel all but certain the hole that I’ve put myself in is going to be too deep to recover from. I’m not quite ready to quit on some other struggling squads, but I think it’s safe to let go of preseason expectations at this point and set a different goal for the remaining three-quarters of the season here in the Writer’s League.

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Buy Low. Sell High. 

It’s a simple concept, projected every week of every season in fantasy sports. And for good reason. It’s the foundational strategy to get the most out of in-season trades and improve your roster. The only problem is that it’s all based on general consensus of which players are performing below ADP and should improve, and who’s overplaying their hand and is due for regression. There’s always variable opinions on what the best moves are in the buy low / sell market. But, for the most part, there’s agreement of what players fit in that box on any given week.

So – if for nothing else other than a matter of practice – let’s think outside the box for a moment, using as an example the biggest sell high candidate of the moment. 

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The big Fin Lauri Markkanen put up a big stat line, hit a big shot and led the Jazz to a big win Friday night over the Suns. He scored a career-high 38 points on a silly 15-of-18 from the floor, 2-of-3 from deep and 6-of-8 at the line, and added 6 rebounds, 3 assists, a steal and a giveaway to the line. 

So far this season Markkanen has delivered late 2nd / early third-round value, which isn’t too  surprising. The skills were evident, it was just a matter of the fit and program in what was supposed to be a tanking Jazz team. And so far he’s fit like a glove worn by a big white dude in Utah. 

His counting stats aren’t too far from this 2019-20 breakout sophomore season, before things got stormy in the Windy City. The major difference is his ability to get shots inside, and being surrounded by willing and able passers helps, too. Markkanen is shooting 65.6% on 2-point shots with nearly 10 attempts a game, numbers comparable only to Nikola Jokic. The other improvement in the stat line is nearly 2.5 assists per game – again a result of playing in an offense that complements his skill set. 

Most of his career high points were actually easy buckets while taking advantage of a string of blown defensive plays. However, the difficulty level was high on this Kobe/Dirk vintage turnaround jumper:

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Another day, another Brooklyn Nets story. I suppose this news is helpful on a slow day, with minimal fantasy basketball and DFS action. Kyrie Irving has been suspended by the Brooklyn Nets, for failure to comply with team actions and simple measures. This is interesting, considering the team handed out the suspension in the wake of the news breaking that Brooklyn is nearing contract finalization with shunned Boston Celtics Head Coach, Ime Udoka.

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