The Basketball Diaries March 8
What up on a glorious Saturday morning Grinders. I’m here to recap my so-so Friday night in the NBA. I have a pic of my cash game lineup for Fanduel and my opponent. Today I chose to analyze danwahoo, who is a successful player on Fanduel. What jumped off to me about this matchup is that we had more than half our roster overlapping. Yet he put up a monster 360 and I scored a pedestrian 275. It’s crazy how those 1 or 2 late decisions can thrust you into a huge night or collapse your team. So, let’s get to it.
Top 10 Producers from Friday Night
| Player | $Salary | Fantasy Points |
|---|---|---|
| Anthony Davis | $9200 | 58.3 |
| LaMarcus Aldridge | $9300 | 57.9 |
| Kenneth Faried | $5900 | 56.6 |
| Ty Lawson | $8700 | 56.3 |
| Kevin Love | $11600 | 54.3 |
| Carmelo Anthony | $10200 | 49.8 |
| Kemba Walker | $8100 | 49.6 |
| Al Jefferson | $9800 | 43.4 |
| Jeff Adrien | $4000 | 43 |
| Rajon Rondo | $7500 | 42.9 |
The guy who looks s really out of place on the list is Jeff Adrien. However he was playing well and when they announced Ilyasova as being out for the game he jumped up on many peoples sleeper list. I played him on other sites, but on Fanduel I didn’t roster him. Reason being that position flexibility is tough to manage over there and I was locked into 2 SF’s already. We’ll talk about that later.
Also, good to see LaMarcus snap out of his funk. He’s been bad for a while now and also was on a minutes cap since the injury. I think that was the main reason everyone was avoiding him. But he came out of it last night. I’d still hold off on him in cash games until he does it again.
Everyone else in the top 10 is not a shocker. Some would say Faried with the monster game is surprising, and I would say that I didn’t expect a 50+ out of him, but after I researched and saw some numbers I thought he would be a solid play and I’ll discuss below.
Overlapping Players
Rajon Rondo
Kent Bazemore
Tyreke Evans
Wilson Chandler
Kenneth Faried
Faried was a great play last night and was also a very popular one. He was on 41% of the Fanduel Slam rosters. That is so heavy. He was on my cash teams simply because the pace of the game is one that would benefit him more than anyone else. He had already played the Lakers twice this season and dominated in limited minutes. He had been playing in the 32 minute range lately and I thought that was good for 40 points in this game. He actually went a step beyond. He played 38 minutes and tuned up the Lakers for a 56 point night.
I played Tyreke Evans along with everyone else in my cash games and 45% of the Slam field. I figured the price increase would run a lot of people off but it didn’t.
We overlapped with Kent Bazemore and that was a total flameout. What makes it worse for me was that this was the game that a lot of others faded him. I don’t know how they did it when he had been rock steady with the Lakers. Since his trade he only finished less than 20 fantasy points 1 time. The game had a 229 total and his price was still reasonable. Of course this is the game he only plays 16 minutes and gets less than 10 points. I’m not surprised that he had a down to earth game, I’m just surprised I was one of the few that played him in cash games.
Hits
We already talked about Adrien. He became a great sleeper when ‘Sova was ruled out. He is a solid player but unless ‘Sova or John Henson are out, I won’t be playing him in any lineups.
Ty Lawson was a monster last night, as expected. I was on him on some sites where the price was right, but avoided him on Fanduel because he was the 2nd highest priced guy and just a bit less than Curry. It’s not a surprise he exploited the great matchup, but I was scared of the heel injury that slowed him down in the 2nd half of the last game. I didn’t want to spend that kind of money on a passive player if it was still bothering him.
Misses
Well Josh Smith was hot garbage last night. I went out of the way to roster him because I thought the matchup was favorable for his style of play. I figured it would be an up and down tempo and that suited him. Also with Pekovic back I figured there was a chance at Drummond foul trouble and that would open up more minutes for Smoove and even a shot at PF against Love. Drummond did get into trouble, but Smoove still only played 29 minutes because of the blowout. Worst of all, since I was locked into him and I loved Wilson Chandler also, it cut off my chance at rostering Jeff Adrien. Instead I went Henson and that cost me. Henson was fair for only $4,900, but because I replaced Dirk for him last minute, that put me with enough money to roster Curry. So I went with it. Epic fail.
Stephen Curry had around 29 points at halftime and ended the game with 29 points. I went to sleep at halftime so I don’t know exactly what happened, but I was surprised to check the box score and see him not score a point or record an assist in the 2nd half. The switch to Henson, which netted me Curry, FROM my original of Dirk and Brandon Jennings cost me around 20 points and a bunch of cash games.