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Welcome to your midweek guidance for Week 23!  In this post, I identify widely-available players who can help you win your head-to-head matchup.  This will serve as my final 2022-23 post.  Thank you for your loyalty and engagement throughout the season.  If it weren’t for you, I’d simply be doing this for my health, which consistently plays second fiddle to my dependence on Mountain Dew and California Burritos.  So I guess that means I wouldn’t be doing this at all if it weren’t for you.

Please, blog, may I have some more?

Welcome to your midweek guidance for Week 16!  In this post, I identify widely-available players who can help you win your head-to-head matchup.  With the trade deadline just around the corner, it’s almost time to see if any of those popular long-term stashes pan out.  We’ve already seen one relegated to the ash heap, with the annual Myles Turner trade rumors mostly fizzling out last week.

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For the first four years of Terry Rozier’s career, he shot under 40% from the field. Boston fans were trying to figure out ways to bend the space/time continuum so that they could travel back to December 16, 1773, stuff Rozier into a wooden crate, and throw him/it into the harbor. Mercifully, Rozier was traded to the Hornets and the field goal percentage increased to 42%. With no harbors close to Charlotte, that must’ve taken a huge weight off of his shoulders. The efficiency continued to improve over the next two seasons and Terry was no longer scary to his teammates and organization. Instead, he was scary for the opposition. But, but, but….Scary Terry reared his ugly head once again this season. No, not that Scary Terry. The other Scary Terry. For the first 27 games this season, Rozier was shooting 38% from the field and 30% from downtown. In 13 games since the calendar flipped from 2022 to 2023, he’s converted 46% of his attempts and 38% from downtown. Last night, he continued the trend:

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I was high on Precious Achiuwa in the offseason, as he showed flashes at the end of last season, both offensively and defensively. He improved his shooting and was able to make it rain from downtown. In addition, he exhibited the ability to make life difficult for Joel Embiid while also being able to switch on the perimeter against guards. Most importantly, though, Nick Nurse spoke glowingly about him over the summer, commenting on his work ethic and finally “getting it.” Then the season started, and it didn’t go as planned. He had two monster games while playing over 33 minutes in each, but after that, was relegated to playing in the teens. To stick a rusty knife into my belly, Achiuwa then succumbed to injury and missed the next 24 games. My Precious once had bling that blinded the eyes, but now was as dull as my jokes. Upon returning to action, he was once again playing in the teens, but slowly but surely, the playing time increased. Christian Koloko was sent down to the G League and my Precious began to glisten once again. Over the last five games, he received 28, 21, 26, 21 and 37 minutes, starting in the most recent contest and putting up 17 points, 11 rebounds, 3 assists, 2 steals and 2 blocks.

Please, blog, may I have some more?

I’ve always had the need for speed. Since I was able to reach the pedals, my legs always pushed them to the metal. Video games helped to refine my urges, as the experience of playing countless other driving games gave me the experience and instincts to anticipate potential hazards while identifying slivers of space to maneuver through. For you New Yorkers, I used to pick up a buddy on the Jersey side of the GW bridge then see how fast I could make it to the east side of Manhattan. Sure, that was driving on expert mode, and we should’ve died more than a few times, but we always escaped unscathed. Oh, what a thrill. The same emotion is elicited when I watch the fantasy points rack up for Joel Embiid this season. He’s scored at least 30 points 11 times this season with three over 40 and a high of 59. On Sunday, he did this:

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Regarding last week’s suggestions, Larry Nance Jr. continued his impressive performances and is now top 65 for the year in per-game value, Jevon Carter was serviceable and Charles Bassey concluded his 5-game week, so you can safely drop him again. On the Sell front, Jerami Grant had some down performances, so the sell high window might be closing and Onyeka Okongwu showed no signs of being a standard league player moving forward.

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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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Welcome to your midweek guidance for Week Five!  In this post, I identify widely-available players who can help you down the stretch of your head-to-head matchup.  A number of last week’s recommendations panned out, with no-brainers like Aleksej Pokusevski, Cam Payne, and Gabe Vincent stepping up to provide big production.  This week presents a totally different picture, with a slew of teams playing just two games for the week and one team playing five.  Plus, we have new injuries and illnesses to consider.

Please, blog, may I have some more?