Line of the Night: Danny Granger, who had been rumored to be making his return to the court last night, instead sat out and let the Paul George show take over. George led the Pacers to a big win over the Bobcats with his first career triple-double, scoring 23 points, with 12 rebounds, 12 assists and 2 steals (2.31 WARP). George is now up to #10 overall on our player rater for the season and while it remains to be seen how the return of Granger will affect George, right now he’s a first round fantasy play.

Honorable Mentions: Vince Carter – who is having a career resurgence with the Mavs – passed Larry Bird on the all-time scoring list thanks to his 26 points, 6 threes, 5 rebounds and 2 steals (2.24 WARP) in a win over the Kings. Dirk Nowitzki had his second great fantasy game in a row, scoring 17 points, with 8 rebounds, 6 assists and 3 steals (1.99 WARP) on the night. As long as he can stay healthy, he’s posed for a strong second half after what can only be classified as a disaster first half of the year.

Ricky Rubio nearly triple-doubled with 18 points, 9 rebounds, 10 assists and 4 steals (2.00 WARP). With his fifth double-digit assist game out of his last 6 games, I’d say he’s fully recovered from the ACL injury. The same can’t be said for Derrick Rose, who seems rather amenable to missing the season if that’s the way the rehab process bounces. Rose stashers beware – if Rose coming back for your fantasy H2H playoffs is currently your plan A, you might want to formulate a plan B at this point.

Al Horford with 26 points, 12 rebounds, 5 assists and 2 steals (1.79 WARP) and Josh Smith with 30 points, 10 rebounds, 5 assists and 2 blocks (1.67 WARP) both had huge games as Atlanta smoked Orlando 108-76. With the trade deadline fast approaching, this might have actually been the last game for Smith in a Hawks uniform.

Waiver Wire Line of the Night: Ah, got to love the week right before the All-Star break when anyone with an injury greater than a hangnail decides to take a few games off. Deron Williams is no exception, as he’s sat out the past two games with ankle tendinitis. C.J. Watson (2% owned) started in his place for the Nets and had a big game against the Nuggets with 25 points, 5 threes, 6 assists and 2 steals (1.90 WARP) in 36 minutes on the court. Williams is expected back after the break, making Watson’s value extremely short-lived.

Pick Up Lines: Alan Anderson (6% owned) had his first legitimately good game since the Rudy Gay trade, scoring 26 points, on 10-16 shooting from the field and 6-8 from three (1.44 WARP). Looks like a Andrea Bargnani illness had a cascading effect that gave Anderson 30 minutes off the bench. A preview of what life will be like for him if Bargnani is traded? Maybe, but for now Anderson is way too inconsistent with Gay on the team to be worth adding in leagues.

After missing a game with lower back pain, Chauncey Billups (26% owned) returned to the Clippers lineup and scored 19 points, on 6-9 from the field with 4 threes (1.23 WARP) in only 20 minutes on the court. It’s not a good sign that Billups already missed a game with back issues after he just returned from injury, and while I’m no doctor, history suggests that he’s going to breakdown again. If you’re in a streaming situation he’s an option, but it’s hard to trust him otherwise.

The thing I said about C.J Miles? Ditto goes for Jordan Hamilton (0% owned), who scored 15 points, with 3 threes and 2 steals (1.22 WARP) off the bench for the Nuggets in the wake of both Danilo Gallinari and Andre Iguodala sitting out.

Derrick Williams (17% owned) put up a huge 24 points and 16 rebounds (1.14 WARP) in the Wolves loss to the Jazz. Williams has been inconsistent (to put it kindly) in the wake of the Love injury, but he’s slowly been getting better, up to the point where he’s averaged 16 points, 8 rebounds, 0.8 threes and 0.8 blocks per game over his last 4 games. Williams is worth a look in many leagues at this point as Love is going to be out a while longer.

Samuel Dalembert (47% owned) continues to tear it up while Larry Sanders is out, finishing with 17 points, 14 rebounds and 3 blocks (1.09 WARP) in 32 minutes against the Sixers. The interesting thing at this point will be to see what happens between Dalembert and Sanders post All-Star break. If I’m a Sanders owner, I’m at least a little nervous about the situation and am hoping Dalembert just gets traded during the break.

Biggest Loser: It’s hard to get too down on Carmelo Anthony because he did score 12 points and grab 12 rebounds despite injuring his arm in the game. But Melo’s “dead arm” did result in a horrific 5-24 shooting performance from the field and 1-4 from the line. He also turned the ball over 4 times in the game (-1.06 WARP). And he might miss the All-Star game because of the injury. Bad night all around for Melo.

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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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