Jrue Holiday

Son

Fantasy Basketball: No Biggie, Dinwiddie Was Unbelievable

December 13, 2018 | 2018 Fantasy Basketball, Fantasy Basketball Daily Notes | 4 Comments

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I loved Biggie. Being born and raised on the West Coast, that may be viewed as blasphemy, but whatever. Even though I went to school in NY and worked in the City for many of years, the simple fact of the matter was that he was a smooth, lyrical genius. He was Unbelievable. “Live from Bedford-Stuyvesant, the livest one…Representing BK to the fullest.” Indeed he did, which is exactly what Spencer Dinwiddie did last night.

PTS REB AST STL BLK TOV 3PT FG FT
39 2 5 1 0 4 4/6 11/18 13/14

All in 30 minutes off the bench. He was Unbelievable. The 39 points were a career-high and, over the past four games, he’s been a top 40 player with an insane usage rate of 34.1!!! Now, he’s not going to start and will likely average a tick under 30 minutes per game, but Dinwiddie is a professional getter of buckets and will chip in 2 threeecolas, 5 rebounds, and 0.5 steals per game, which will place him in the top 110 range. But, as last night showed, he will Hypnotize from time to time.

Here’s what else I saw last night:

Please, blog, may I have some more?
Son

Fantasy Basketball: Monday Morning Blues

December 11, 2018 | 2018 Fantasy Basketball, Fantasy Basketball Daily Notes | 10 Comments

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Mondays can be rough for many. Some may be recovering from too many adult beverages, while others may still have the bass bumping in their heads from the clubbing. There are those that went out of town and….are still mentally there. Whatever the case may be, for those that don’t work on the weekends, Mondays are a recuperation and recovery day. Which is apparently what happened in the NBA, as players were scratched left and right, and many others got injured during the game. I’m not saying that the nightlife was the culprit, but I just wrote it so….All jokes aside, yesterday was one of the craziest slates I’ve seen in a while. Below is a list of the inactives:

Pre-game:

John Wall (heel)
Ish Smith (groin)
Kyrie Irving (shoulder)
Gordon Hayward (illness)
Al Horford (knee)
Aron Baynes (ankle)
Blake Griffin (rest)
Reggie Bullock (ankle)
Hassan Whiteside (personal)
Evan Fournier (personal)
Stanley Johnson (knee)
E’Twaun Moore (rest)
Dennis Smith Jr. (wrist)
Giannis Antetokounmpo (neck)
Jamal Crawford (knee)
During the game:

Jimmy Butler (groin)
Henry Ellenson (ankle)
Glenn Robinson III (ankle)
Otto Porter Jr. (knee)
Nikola Mirotic (ankle)
Tristan Thompson (foot)
Lou Williams (hamstring)
Thank goodness tomorrow is Tuesday.

Here’s what else I saw last night:

Please, blog, may I have some more?
Son

Fantasy Basketball: I Did It Galloway

December 10, 2018 | 2018 Fantasy Basketball, Fantasy Basketball Daily Notes | 39 Comments

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Frank Sinatra was a cool cat. A member of the Rat Pack, Sinatra was a singer, actor, producer, and was considered one of the most iconic performers of his generation. “Ol’ Blue Eyes” would make the women swoon and get Son to sing one of his most famous tunes….My Way….at a K-Town karaoke establishment.

“Regrets, I’ve had a few…But then again, too few to mention. I did what I had to do…And saw it through without exemption. I planned each chartered course….Each careful step along the byway….And more, much more than this….I did it my way.”

Sounds like my fantasy career, which brings me to Langston Galloway.

PTS REB AST STL BLK TOV 3PT FG FT
24 3 3 2 0 0 4/10 9/20 2/3

Played 37 minutes yesterday. The prior game, Galloway played 31 minutes and attempted 15 shots, with nine from downtown. The Pistons are banged up right now, as Ish Smith, Reggie Bullock, and Stanley Johnson are all down with injuries. You could regret picking up Galloway, as he’s a career 38% shooter from the field. But then again, he is a career 35% from downtown. Sometimes, you gotta do what you gotta do. If you need threeecolas, Galloway has attempted 19 in the past two games. Chart the course. With each injury that the Pistons endure along the way, there will be minutes and shot attempts….and more, more like this….realize that you did it Galloway.

Here’s what else I saw last night:

Please, blog, may I have some more?
Tad

Fantasy Basketball: Run The Numbers – Find the Most Valuable Stats

December 6, 2018 | 2018 Fantasy Basketball, Run the Numbers | 3 Comments

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I used to play a lot of fighting video games. Street Fighter 2, Mortal Kombat, and the like. I think I aged out around the time they were up to Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 and Super Street Fighter 2 Championship of Everything Ever Edition Turbo. But I know they kept going, adding more characters, merging games. And that’s sort of what I wanted to do this week. I’ve written a decent amount about stuff like category specialists, how scarce the stats in each category are, how volume skews percentage stats, and just how detrimental the percentage and turnover performances of your players can be. Well, today, we’re going to witness a 2018 battle royale of sorts. Using Basketball Monster, I took the standard deviation value of each individual’s statistical performance in each category, and ranked them. Other sites have slightly different values due mostly to alternate assumptions and weights. There are some writers out there who have explained fantasy basketball standard deviation values in depth and in ways that are much more exciting than those in my old college statistics books. So, if you’re really curious, you can find out more with a little searching. I’ll just say that, in general, a standard deviation score of 2 means that the performance is roughly better than almost 98% of the rest of the league. A score of 3 is about where you’d expect the best performance in the league to be, as it’s usually around the 99.9th percentile. Same thing for negative values, just reversed. So, if you see a value exceeding 3, and I’ve shared some of those insane standard deviation scores from the last few decades in previous posts, it’s super-valuable (turbo edition 64?). Some categories don’t have anyone reaching 2 or -2, meaning the numbers are more bunched up together. But some have some extreme outliers. That’s what we’re looking for today.

Boban’s gotta be in there somewhere, right?

I present to you the most and least valuable individual category performances of the year (per-game through 12/4, with some small sample players removed).

Please, blog, may I have some more?
Son

Fantasy Basketball: The Holiday Season

December 4, 2018 | 2018 Fantasy Basketball, Fantasy Basketball Daily Notes | 34 Comments

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We are recuperating from the Thanksgiving holiday, but no rest for the weary, as preparations are beginning in earnest for Christmas. Then, it’s a quick turnaround for New Year’s followed by Groundhog Day. What? You don’t bow down to Punxsutawney Phil? You heathen. Valentine’s Day is next with Chinese New Year right after that. I married Chinese to hedge against the possibility that they rule the world in my lifetime. You don’t need to take it that far, but you may want to start celebrating that particular holiday. Just in case. St. Patrick’s Day, Good Friday, Easter, Patriot’s Day, Cinco de Mayo, Mother’s Day….I think you get the point. The holidays keep coming and going, which is exactly what Jrue Holiday does on the basketball court, as he played 42 minutes last night.

PTS REB AST STL BLK TOV 3PT FG FT
32 4 14 4 1 1 4/8 12/23 4/6

On the season, Holiday is averaging over 36 minutes per game. Since the holiday seasons are usually about giving, it’s only appropriate that he’s third in the NBA in assists (9 per game). The turnovers are a little high (3.7) and the free throw percentage is a little low (75%), but he’s providing 20.6 points, 1.4 threeecolas, 4.6 rebounds, 1.6 steals, and 0.8 blocks, which is good for the #27 player in fantasy. This Holiday always be working and providing.

Beep. Boop. Bop. You know what else doesn’t take holidays off? The Stocktonator, which is probably why it had Holiday so high last night.

Here’s what else I saw last night:

Please, blog, may I have some more?
Kevin

Fantasy Basketball: The Best Nikola

December 1, 2018 | 2018 Fantasy Basketball, Fantasy Basketball Daily Notes | Leave a comment

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Ok, so he might not really be better than Nikola Jokic in real life, but heading into the game against Phoenix, Nikola Vucevic was ranked a mind-boggling 5th in overall fantasy value for standard leagues. Can we stop pretending like he’s not a superstar? He’s a complete player with no real holes, excels at scoring, grabbing boards, is sneaky good at assists, manages great percentages, and averages a triple one. What’s not to love?

Nikola Vucevic

FG FT 3PT Points Reb Assists Steals Blocks TO
11/20 1/2 2/5 25 15 3 1 1 2

What a beast. 25/15/3 with 2 3’s, 1 steal, and 1 block is such a nice all around contributing line. He’s way above his career averages in scoring and percentages, so a lot of fantasy GMs have been trying to move him. He won’t retain that top 5 ranking, but for a player that most GM’s drafted after pick 50, he’s paid off a ton. I love his game (scoring, shooting, boards, nice playmaking, and a triple 1, with very good percentages) and is my type of player.

Please, blog, may I have some more?
Son

Fantasy Basketball: RussellMania

November 29, 2018 | 2018 Fantasy Basketball, Fantasy Basketball Daily Notes | 25 Comments

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In the 1980s, WrestleMania was the merde. Pardon my French. They were spectacles of extraordinary frenzy. Rabid fans would pack 90,000 strong into stadiums to watch freakishly athletic men do freakishly mind-numbing things. And there in lies the crux of everything: the men. For all the Barnum and Bailey antics that Vince McMahon could project, without those freakishly athletic men doing freakisly mind-numbing things, he’d have to take off three or four zeros from that 90,000 figure. As Coach SamWinters from The Program so eloquently stated, “When’s the last time 80,0000 people showed up to watch a kid do a damn chemistry experiment?” The same concept applies to the NBA. Teams wouldn’t be worth billions of dollars without the freakishly athletic men doing freakishly mind-numbing things. One of the biggest stars in the NBA is Russell Westbrook and last night he went HAM.

PTS REB AST STL BLK TOV 3PT FG FT
23 19 15 2 0 3 2/5 10/17 1/2

By messing around last night, Westbrook moved into a tie for third place with Jason Kidd for the most triple-dubs all-time. Oscar Robertson had 181, Magic Johnson 138, and Westbrook and Kidd are both at 107. That in of itself is impressive, but he wasn’t far away from a 20/20/20 game, which got me thinking….has anyone ever attained the double-triple-dub? Wilt Chamberlain in 1968 with 22 points, 25 rebounds, and 21 assists. Ha! That is so sick. Anyways, hope you enjoyed RussellMania last night.

Beep. Boop. Bop. The Stocktonator must love wrestling because it had Westbrook as it’s #4 player last night.

Here’s what else I saw last night:

Please, blog, may I have some more?
Kevin

Fantasy Basketball: They Forgot About Dre

November 24, 2018 | 2018 Fantasy Basketball, Fantasy Basketball Daily Notes | 6 Comments

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Ok, maybe they didn’t forget him, but Andre Drummond definitely doesn’t get the credit he’s due. He might have gotten lost in a massive 13-game night, filled with double-doubles, but let’s give Dre his due. He’s leading the league in rebounding, going for 16 boards a game, and averaging a career-high 19.4 points.

FG FT 3PT Points Reb Assists Steals Blocks TO
9/18 5/8 0/1 23 20 1 3 5 1

I’m not sure what’s more impressive, the 23 and 20 or the 8 combined stocks. Over the past three seasons, Drummond had been averaging 1.5 steals per game (those are guard number!) So far this year, he’s only averaging 0.9 steals, but that is still great for a center. If the steals come back up, so will his fantasy value, but the free throw percentage will always be his anchor. If you punt free throw percentage, Drummond is a clear-cut top 10 player. 

Please, blog, may I have some more?
Son

Fantasy Basketball: The Fultz Stops Here

November 22, 2018 | 2018 Fantasy Basketball, Fantasy Basketball Daily Notes | 67 Comments

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Man…I really feel for Markelle Fultz. He was the #24 recruit out of high school and received scholarships from over 20 colleges, participated in the McDonald’s All-American Game, was a member of the Team USA Under-18 squad, First-Team All-Pac-12 and Third-Team All-American in college, and was selected with the first overall pick in the 2017 NBA Draft. On top of the world, as they say, at the tender age of 19 years old. But then the yips surfaced. “The condition occurs suddenly and without apparent explanation…It is poorly understood and has no known treatment or therapy. Athletes affected by the yips sometimes recover their ability, which may require a change in technique. Many are forced to abandon their sport at the highest level.” The most well-known athletes to succumb to the yips are Chuck Knoblauch, Nick Anderson, Mike Vanderjagt, and Rick Ankiel. Is Fultz about to join them?

It’s looking likely, as TheAthletic wrote an article yesterday saying that Fultz is dealing with wrist and shoulder issues AND would prefer to move to another team. I’ve been a mental midget at times in my life and have dealt with depression as well, so I empathize but understand some of the realities of the shituation. I was able to hunker down in my cave and deal with my demons, but he’s in the public sphere with everyone all up in his business. The pressure and attention must be debilitating. I feel for you Fultz and wish the best.

This is a fantasy website, though, so I must address the implications from a fantasy perspective. The Fultz stops here. Do not use the Fultz, as the issues seems to be mental. He took an entire season off to deal with it, yet it’s only gotten worse. If he’s having trouble with this, imagine Draymond Green yapping about the yips in his ear. He’s a drop in most formats. I guess in the deepest of leagues, you could stash him as a lottery ticket, but that’s about it.

Did the Boston Celtics sabotage him? I guess the most important thing to take away from all of this is that one should always be cynical when a team is willing to pass on the consensus number one overall pick in the draft.

Here’s what else I saw last night:

Please, blog, may I have some more?
Son

Fantasy Basketball: No One is Stabbing This Julius in the Back

November 20, 2018 | 2018 Fantasy Basketball, Fantasy Basketball Daily Notes | 50 Comments

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Julius Caesar was a brilliant tactician and politician, who expanded the Roman Empire. He got greedy, though, when he declared himself dictator. As a result, members of the Roman Senate conspired and stabbed him in the back, both literally and figuratively. Julius Randle is a no-nonsense player who bullies defenders down low. Bull in a china shop is an apt description, especially since he’s 6′ 9″ and 250 pounds. After he spent the first four years of his career in Los Angeles, he took his talents to New Orleans and didn’t mess around. He was the same bull that he had been with the Lakers. Last night, though….

PTS REB AST STL BLK TOV 3PT FG FT
21 14 10 1 0 0 0/1 9/13 3/3

….Julius did mess around, notching his sixth career triple-dub. In only 25 minutes! There’s been nothing but love for Julius in New Orleans, as he provides the team with a physical presence down low, who can also be a playmaker in the third-fastest team in the NBA for offensive pace. Ain’t nobody stabbing this Julius in the back. From a fantasy perspective, though, don’t go slicing and dicing your team to acquire his services. He’s a fine player, as he’s currently the 87th player according to Basketball Monster. The issues are the limited minutes, lack of threeecolas, low assists, and miniscule defensive contributions. Hopefully no one comes and stab me in the back now.

Here’s what else I saw last night:

Please, blog, may I have some more?