Friends in fast breaks,

Reminder: Another NBA Survivor, free and included with your NBA SZN membership, was announced. It starts on 12/23. GO JOIN >>

I said it last week - We've had a 40+ point scorer on the board every week, that feels crazy. And that by pointing this out, I was jinxing us. I love being right, but not like THIS. This week we couldn't muster 40, although we got really close.

And that bonus Survivor competition I mentioned above? Man, it could it not be coming at a better time. We're staring down the barrel of 2.7% of the pool left after 7 weeks. We've been (very reasonable fans) of picking on the bottom feeders. But that's come back and bit us HARD these last two weeks. Looking at some recent performances:

• HOU - Beat PHX, PHI, and MIL
• SAS - Beat MIA
• OKC - Beat ATL and MIN
• DET - Beat DAL and MIA
• ORL - Beat TORx2 and LAC
• CHA - Yeah... they haven't beaten someone good very recently

Yes, they're still bad teams. But even if they finish the season matching their projected 25%+ win rates... Do you know which 25% those are gonna be? It's not just the bad beating up on the bad. Sometimes they chin check a playoff contender.

MAKE YOUR WEEK 8 PICKS

• Walking Bucket Wilt OAD >>
• VC's Knees Survivor >>
• Pick deadline: 4pm PT Friday (12/16)

ONE AND DONE RECAP

Weekly Standings | Player Performance | Overall Standings

Backup Picks

• 13 of our pickable players didn't play, and 7 of those got at least one pick
• In total, 34 picks were on those 7 DNPs, with the majority on D. Mitchell (19 picks) who was a late scratch with an illness
• We did end up with 5 double DNPs that receive zero points this week, apologies to those unlucky pickers
• Reminder - the Injury report is now linked near the top of the picking page, it can't fix last minute DNPs, but it's a very quick and basic line of defense!

Results

• Again, apologies for my big scoring jinx
• 19 of our picked players scored 30+ points (new high!), picked by 179 of us 
• Our top performer was J. Embiid scoring 38 points for 33 picker
  • Since coming back from his injury, the man has been on a MISSION
  • His last 6 games to date: 30, 19, 35, 39, 38, 53
• Some of our other big scorers this week: D. Lillard (36 pts, 12 picks), P. Siakam (36, 11), P. George (36, 3), Z. Williamson (35, 5), K. Durant (34, 39), F. Wagner (34, 2), K. Thompson (34, 2)
  • Huge props to the F. Wagner and K. Thompson pickers: Those are MOXIE picks, you need to explain your brilliance when you're dropping bombs like these!
• We averaged 26.4 points per pick
  • The "average" player selected scored 24.4 points this week (new high!)
  • We had a few flops amongst our top picks: J. Tatum (18 pts, 35 picks), J. Morant (15, 29), D. Booker (14, 25)
• Some of the worst weekly performers: S. Barnes (6 points, 1 pick), J. Brunson (11, 1), B. Adebayo (12, 1)

Standings Check
We have prizes for Overall points, as well as most points scored over three different Intervals (First 8 weeks, middle 8 weeks, and final 7 weeks). There's something to play for all SZN!

• Reminder: Overall and the First Interval are effectively the same right now
• ONE MORE WEEK in Interval 1!!!
• @mfeeney21, who has been jockeying in the top 5 for a couple weeks sits on top this week at 254 points, a 36.3 PPG pace so far
• We still have 68 players averaging 30 points per pick so far, still eroding over time

Team SZN Performance

• I (@TheGM) brought shame, with A. Edwards posting an embarassing 14 points
• @StatCzar scooped 36 points with P. Siakam, @TheCommish grabbed 30 with J. Butler, and @Merf took T. Herro for 23
• Overall, @StatCzar has our best Overall placement at 34th
• Reminder: We play along for fun and pride, we can't win anything

SURVIVOR RECAP

Weekly Standings | Game Outcomes | Golden Spreadsheet

Results

• We entered the week with 29 players and exited with 12, a 41.4% survival rate
• Nothing feels safe at this point
• Amongst the 5 teams we picked, 2 of them lost
• This was the second week in a row that our top pick lost
• MIA (vs SAS), our top team with 12 picks, lost
  • MIA has been unpredictable lately, 5-5 in their last 10 to date
  • That includes victories against BOS and ATL, but losses to SAS and DET
  • How can we trust you?!?
• TOR (@ ORL), our other big loss, cost us 5 more pickers
  • ORL was just IN CONTROL for most of this game
  • They'd build up a ~10 point lead, TOR would scrap back to a tie, then ORL would break open another gap
  • This happened four times (literally every quarer) with the final ORL pull-away sealing the same in the final minutes
  • It was also a heck of a statement game from F. Wagner, an underappreciated lottery pick in last year's rookie class

Team SZN Performance

• @TheCommish pulled through on MEM. He's been bragging about winning the (unofficial, in his case) crown, don't let him do it!
• Reminder: we play along for fun and pride, we can't win anything

Yours in hoops,
The GM