Alternate Title: Where the Grizz struggle to find warm bodies.

Line of the Night: By “back”, I mean because Kevin Durant went all of 8 days between his last LotN and this one where he had 27 points on 10-16 from the field, 7 rebounds, and 6 assists (1.34 WARP). Even though only 44 players played in NBA games last night, that’s still an impressive fantasy line that I’m sure any owner would be happy to have.

Honorable Mentions: Usually when there’s only 2 games on the schedule, the fantasy performances can be pretty mediocre and still make the Honorable Mentions… but check out these hot California and Oklahoma nights:

O.J. Mayo had 25 points, going 8-13 from the field with 3 threes, 5 rebounds, and 6 assists (1.32 WARP). He was followed up by David Lee‘s near triple double of 15 points, 20 rebounds, and 9 assists (1.10 WARP). Also in that game: Klay Thompson had 27 points on 11-18 from the field, with 3 threes (0.80 WARP), while Vince Carter had 22 points, 4 threes, 4 assists, and 2 steals (0.73 WARP), and Shawn Marion scored 18 points on 8-11 from the field with 17 rebounds (0.59 WARP). Vince Carter and Shawn Marion? I guess I should have saved the warm bodies for this part… Still, don’t let looks be deceiving… Without Dirk Nowitzki, who sat with a right adductor (inner thigh) strain, the Mavs ended up losing by three. Dirk is day-to-day, so Dirk owners need not worry too much… he probably just worked a bit too much too soon.

In the other game (OKC vs MEM), Mike Conley put up 17 points, 3 threes, 4 assists, and 3 steals (0.91 WARP) while teammate Zach Randolph somehow claims and Honorable Mention thanks to his 19 rebounds and 3 steals even in spite of his 9 points on 4-17 shooting (23.5%) (0.49 WARP). That kind of makes you scratch your head at the Biggest Loser selection down there, but the Player Rater has no human biases to cloud its judgement. And sometimes, its judgement is harsh.

Backing up KD was the ever faithful Russell Westbrook who had 21 points, 9 rebounds, 6 assists, and a temper tantrum (0.72 WARP). When you’re up by 25 Westy, that’s the time to just come down and bomb a random three, not try to back some guy down starting out at the three-point line.

Injury of the Night: Even though it happened on Wednesday and I believe was commented on in yesterday’s post, in case you missed it, tough break for Glen Davis who broke his foot, putting him out 8-12 weeks according to initial reports. The decision is easy for my H2H leagues because as a compassionate commissioner, I make them end before the actual end of the season. That means people in those leagues can pretty safely put Davis out of his misery (and looking at that Magic team, it is misery). If your league goes longer, it’s still probably for the best to leave Davis behind since he was only at #117 on the Player Rater anyway. Besides the already surging Nikola Vucevic, I’d say that Andrew Nicholson and Gustavo Ayon probably get some extra time… Ayon is probably the better pick since he played better (when he played) while Davis was out earlier this season.

Waiver Wire Line of the Night: Jerryd Bayless (12% owned at the time of the stats pull; up to 15% at the time of writing) had 23 points on 9-17 shooting with 2 threes, 3 rebounds, 6 assists and a steal (0.71 WARP). That’s Bayless’s 4th game over 30 minutes, making him the surprise winner of the Memphis deals (perhaps not the only one, but we’ll have to wait to see if there are others). With Wayne Ellington’s 16 minutes out of the way, Bayless is cleared for a some good minutes at SG. Not sure how long that will last, but if you’re in a Roto league, or a H2H league with daily changes, I’d jump on Bayless before Quincy Pondexter is recovered enough to resume play and before Austin Daye and Tayshaun Prince attempt to fill in for Rudy Gay, moving Tony Allen back to SG and Bayless back to the bench.

Pick Up Lines: Nick Collison (4% owned) had a strong night for the Thunder with 12 points, 4-4 from the line, and 7 rebounds (0.64 WARP). With a similar line (at least in 2 categories) Harrison Barnes (44% owned) had 12 points, 4-4 from the line, and 5 assists (0.44 WARP).

Carl Landry (44% owned) came back from a left shoulder contusion with 10 points and 6 rebounds (0.15 WARP).

And finally, Kendrick Perkins (8% owned) is inching towards being a deep league add with 7 points, 7 rebounds, and 2 blocks (0.08 WARP).

Biggest Loser: While Zach Randolph shot only 23.5%, it was Marc Gasol who the Player Rater deemed the Biggest Loser despite his 16 points (4-5 from the line), 7 rebounds, and 3 assists. He did only shoot 40% on 15 attempts and also 4 turnovers leading to a -0.46 WARP. Sorry Marc. Tough break. I’m sure playing without Rudy Gay will get better once Jerryd Bayless stops taking all of Rudy’s shots and gives them back to you and Zach.

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Daily rankings and stats come from the FBC H2H Player Rater (beta version). They are based on the stat Wins Above Replacement Player (WARP) an estimate of the number of wins a player produces per week in H2H leagues over a replacement (waiver wire) player.

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