Friends in fast breaks,

REMINDER: Our bonus Survivor competition, The Worm Survivor, will begin on 12/23 alongside our normal lock time for Walking Bucket OAD and VC Survivor. It's completely free for you to play as an NBA SZN member. GO JOIN >> And bring a friend.

MAKE YOUR WEEK 9 PICKS

• Walking Bucket Wilt OAD >>
• VC's Knees Survivor >>
• The Worm Survivor >>
• Pick deadline: 4pm PT Friday (12/23)

The holidays are here! Hopefully you're getting at least a little time off to relax and spend time with friends, family, or whomever you care about in the world.

For Commish and I, that includes you all. Lounging on my couch, watching scores roll in, reveling in the trials and tribulations of the outcomes - That's one lucky part of this job that we only get to enjoy thanks to you. I'm hoping you have an excellent holiday to go along with some big performances to put a smile on your face.

Now let's look at how last week shook out.

ONE AND DONE RECAP

Weekly Standings | Player Performance | Overall Standings

Backup Picks

• 15 of our pickable players didn't play, and 7 of those got at least one pick
• In total, 36 picks were on those 7 DNPs, with the majority on G. Antetokounmpo (22 picks) who sat out due to some knee soreness
• We had 3 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

• 10 of our picked players scored 30+ points this week, netting 225 of us top notch results
• Our top performer was D. Booker, throwing down a SCORCHING 58 points against the Pelicans
  • This is a (new high!) for scoring in our competition, as well as the second highest scoring performance of the season - Just a point shy of Embiids 59-point outburst back in November
  • Book had been on a cold streak, notching 11 to 20 points in his last five games on a rough 33% FG%
  • Did that make @Jscala, @Manfresh, or @phquawl doubt him? Not a chance.
  • These three bagged basically two weeks-worth of points in one shot, with some interesting impacts on our standings... see the next section
• Some of our other big scorers this week: D. Mitchell (41 points, 19 picks), S. Gilgeous (35, 32), J. Embiid (34, 66), and L. Doncic (33, 26)
• We had a couple big misses this week: F. VanVleet (39 points) and C. Wood (32) both popped off without a single picker
  • VanVleet had been having a lackluster season so far (Raptor fan opinions), but he threw up 39 in the game before our window, then did it again in our window
  • Wood has been inconsistent, but that is heavily affected by his minutes, with Coach Kidd insisting he come off the bench and so far averaging under 30 minutes a game
• We averaged 27.9 points per pick this week
  • The "average" player selected scored 21.1 points this week
• Our only decently-picked flops this week were due to incomplete: A. Davis (10 pts, 17 picks) got injured again and J. Morant (6, 13) got ejected for Techs
• Some of our other worst weekly performances: L. Dort (3pts, 1 pick), B. Simmons (10, 1), T. Rozier (10, 2), K. Thomson (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!

Interval 1 has come to a close! Interval 2 starts this week, and we all start at zero again. Our Overall numbers will keep piling up as well. I'll now split our Standings reporting into the current Interval as well as the Overall for max visibility.

Interval 1 Standings

• Congratulations to our ten winners! Prizes go out after the SZN concludes.
• @mfeeney21 manages to hold onto the lead from last week, becoming our first ever NBA Interval champ!
  • They got there via 289 points, which averages out to 36.1 points per pick
• @phquawl jumped into second place fomr outside the top 5 thanks to their timely D. Booker pick this week
  • This is what "it's anybody's game" looks like!
• Poking throught their picks...
  • D. Mitchell and T. Young were used most, by seven pickers
    • Six used J. Tatum, L. Doncic, D. Booker, D. DeRozanJ. Embiid
  • Only one picker has used P. George, J. Morant, or P. Siakam
  • Best pick: D. Booker for 58 points
  • Worst pick: P. George for 17 points
• Let's get Interval 2 started!

Overall Standings

• Obviously, this just matches Interval 1 one last time this week
• But as you saw above, a LOT of top notch players have already been burned to sit atop the standings after 8 weeks
• We'll have to start scrounging between the couch cushions to find more quality performances and stay atop the leaderboard for the entire SZN
• We've still got 52 people averaging 30+ points per pick, we'll see how long this holds

Team SZN Performance

• I (@TheGM) dropped another (semi-intentional) stinker, with T. Rozier scoring a paltry 10 points
• @StatCzar got 30 points with Z. Williamson, @TheCommish snatched 27 with J. Harden, and @Merf took J. Randle for 19
• Overall, @StatCzar has our best placement at 39th
• 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 12 players and exited with 5, a 41.7%
• BOS (vs ORL), our top team with 7 picks, lost
  • ORL was on a 4 game winning streak coming into the game, accounting for almost their wins this season
  • But this game, they looked like the 1-seed
  • Things were fine for the first quarter, then the Magic turned on the jets and held the lead for the rest of the game
• Our four other picked teams won this week
  • BKN (@ TOR) pulled out the win on a buzzer-beating 3
  • PHI (vs GSW) comfortably put away the depleted Warriors
  • SAC (@ DET) knocked off the Pistons
  • LAC (vs WAS) came from behind in the 4th to seal it

Team SZN Performance

• Ya'll really let @TheCommish reach the top 5. For shame. WAS let us down when they couldn't put away a vintage Kawhi game.
• Reminder: we play along for fun and pride, we can't win anything

Yours in hoops,
The GM