The Basketball Diaries March 22

by David Kaplen (headChopper) Last Updated 2014-03-23 05:12:12

Good morning Grinders and happy tournament Saturday to you. As you settle in for some college basketball today I hope your finding time to glance at this article and perhaps you can grab a piece of info from it to help you out today in the NBA. It was a rough night last night and I don’t even know where to begin with this analysis, but let’s give it a whirl.

Top 10 Fantasy Scores from Fanduel on Friday Night

This table jumps off the board, especially for people who took Westbrook last night. 5 of the top 10 NBA scorers last night on Fanduel came from the double overtime OKC/Toronto game. What is brutal for those Russell owners is two-fold. First he left after a few minutes of the 3rd Q, so he lost all those 2nd half minutes and also missed out on 2 OT’s. The 2nd part is that if he plays he either gets all those extra minutes and that equals points OR maybe there isn’t even an OT and all those other guys from that game are held more in check as opposed to going crazy. Injuries kill in NBA, but this was a double whammy.

John Wall Wall was a target of mine on all sites because of the matchup. Looking at the percentages owned around the industry last night, a lot of people felt the same way
 

Russell Westbrook I touched on the injury earlier. He killed me. He got shafted out of points and the problem compiled when popular players in that game then went crazy in 2 OT’s.
 

Eric Bledsoe He was the last guy on my roster. After I put in my first 8 guys that I had about $7K left over and he fit. SG is a thin position on Fanduel and I thought he was a top 4 or 5 guy in that player pool so I rolled with him. I didn’t target him, he just fit and it paid off.
 

Monta Ellis I liked the matchup and I like the player . Throw in the position restriction on Fanduel and it made Ellis my top SG target for Friday. He gets a bum rap, but he always plays a heavy dose of minutes in competitive games and is capable of putting up 25+ real life points any night.
 

Trevor Ariza With the Lakers and the 76er’s playing last night, everyone was loading up on Wizards and Knicks. Ariza has cooled lately but the matchup and minutes were something that made him a target for me across all sites. It didn’t pay off with that subpar game.
 

J.R. Smith Talk about a bummer. I’m not sure how you can be a notorious gunner in a free flowing game and only put up 11.6 fantasy points. The only saving grace on J.R was that he was cheap enough on FD that he was heavily owned last night and it didn’t kill you in cash games because of that. However in GPP’s you were drawing dead after this performance if you rostered him, but you were a leg up on half the field if you faded him.
 

Drew Gooden Another decent game for Gooden at minimum price. As long as he remains $3,500 I think he is a solid cash game option. He gets just enough playing time to pay that off every night.
 

Amar’e Stoudemire I chose to go the cheaper route with Amare as opposed to the more expensive Carmelo here. He ended with a nice game for that price and I cannot complain. With his shaky knees and decrepit body his price is bordering on unplayable except these types of matchups.
 

Marc Gasol Another injury for me as Gasol left this game in the 3rd Q just when he was starting to get it rolling on the Heat. He was about even in fantasy points with Randolph when he left the game and then to watch Zach put up a 25-14 monster line only makes a man dream of what could have been. The reasoning on Gasol was that it is a weak Heat interior and Gasol has been playing good minutes lately. His price was modest on FD and I didn’t want to pay up for Cousins or Noah and didn’t want to risk a low dollar guy like Hibbert or Sims.