Friends in fast breaks,

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MAKE YOUR WEEK 10 PICKS

• Walking Bucket Wilt OAD >>
• VC's Knees Survivor >>
• The Worm Survivor >>
• Pick deadline: 4pm PT Friday (12/30)

Luka, my new favorite cowboy, posted a dominant performance for our best scoring week yet in OAD. We respect the heck out of the BEAM around these parts, but SAC delivered painful losses in both Survivors. And we crown our Survivor champ! Let's get it.

ONE AND DONE RECAP

Weekly Standings | Player Performance | Overall Standings

Backup Picks

• 9 of our pickable players didn't play, and 5 of those got at least one pick
• In total, 42 picks were on those 9 DNPs, with plenty on D. Booker (13 picks), A. Davis (12), and Z. Williamson (15)
• We had 6 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

• 9 of our picked players scored 30+ points this week, getting 188 of us top notch results
• Our top performer was L. Doncic, gifting a 50-bomb clinic against the Rockets for 25 lucky pickers
  • I was one of those pickers, leaning hard on a Hedge of Happiness
  • For anyone who hasn't heard the term yet - A Hedge of Happiness is where you make a pick AGAINST your fandom in order to make sure you're guaranteed SOMETHING to be happy about
  • I picked Luka against my Rockets. If he had a bad game, at least that would mean the Rockets probably win. If he has a great game, then the Rockets probably lose. I'm happy either way!
• There were FOUR MORE players who dropped 40+: J. Embiid (44 points, 29 pickers), S. Gilgeous (44, 33), T. Haliburton (43, 2), and R. Barrett (44, 0)
  • Embiid and SGA dropping 40+? Impressive, but not at all surprising at this point
  • Haliburton though? Man has been dropping insane assist totals all season and Wally Szczerbiak trash talks his All-Star potential. Tyrese then drops 43 points and a W on MIA. That's how you respond!
  • But maybe the most surprising: RJ Barrett with the super efficient 44. It was so surprising he didn't get a single pick from us this week, a big missed opportunity.
• Our other big miss this week: Z. Lavine having his first big game in weeks, but none of us saw it coming
• We averaged 30.8 points per pick this week (new high!) 
  • The "average" player selected scored 23.6 points this week
• We didn't have a meaningful "flop" of a pick until D. Mitchell, who only scored 12 points but was only picked by 17 people
  • Even more interesting - this was tied as our WORST picked player this week, which is still MUCH better than past weeks where people have ended up with 10 or fewer points on a pick
• Our worst weekly performances: D. Mitchell (12pts, 17 picks), J. Morant (12, 7), J. Brunson (12, 2), B. Simmons (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 2 Standings

• We came out of the gates firing on all cylinders
• There was an NBA-record-tying five 40+ point games on 12/23, and we capitalized on four of them.
• That leaves our first standings of Interval 2 in a massive pile-up (as most intervals do), meaning it's too much to reasonably fit our 25-way tie for first for all the Luka pickers

Overall Standings

• Our top 5 stays almost entirely intact this week, though with some small shuffling after our big tie from last week was broken apart slightly
• Another batch of stars burned to stay in the lead this week between Embiid, James, Lillard, and Jokic
• We're UP to 70 (from 52) people averaging 30+ points per pick thanks to our Holiday extravaganza, the first time we've meaningfully increased since we started

Team SZN Performance

• I (@TheGM), along with @StatCzar and @TheCommish pulled our Luka's, notching 50 points while @Merf took G. Antetokounmpo for a respectable 26
• Overall, @StatCzar has our best placement at 10th
• Reminder: We play along for fun and pride, we can't win anything

VC'S KNEES RECAP

Weekly Standings | Game Outcomes | Golden Spreadsheet

Results

• We entered the week with 5 players and exited with "2", a 40% survival rate
  • Why the quotes around the "2"? Because Commish is one of the two!
• That means we have our true champion, @medicalmatt224!
• How did we get here?
• NYK (vs CHI) - 2 Pickers Lost
  • NYK were the favorites here - ESPN Analytics had them open the game with a 75% win probability
  • The game was tight the entire time, with leads barely exceeding 5 points at any moment
  • NYK held the lead the entire second half... Well, except for the moment it matters most
  • DeMar DeRozan (who EASILY would have won the newly announce "Jerry West Clutch Player of the Year" award last year), called game with a tough contested jumper from the top of the key
• SAC (vs WAS) - 1 Picker Lost
  • Again, SAC were the favorites rolling in, also with ~75% win probability at the open
  • The first quarter was close, looking like a good game
  • Then the second quarter happened... WAS busts a 28-9 run and ends up with a 30 point lead by the middle of the third
  • SAC just doesn't have it to overcome that mountain, dropping the game
• ORL (@SAS) - 2 Pickers Win
  • Through 3 quarters, this game was CLOSE
  • Like "we might be moving to a pick-off to find our champion" close
  • And then the FOURTH quarter happened...
  • ORL went 8/11 from three-point land and it was OVER
• Clearly, NBA Survivor isn't NEARLY as easy as we all thought it would be
  • This is where the NBA Survey is useful - How would you handle our Survivor difficulties? 
  • Should we just have had two survivors from the start?
  • Should we add a "mulligan" so you can lose one time while trying to last all season?
  • Just leave it alone? Let your voice be heard!

Team SZN Performance

• Sigh... @TheCommish made it to the final two. He can't win, but both he and our champ have agreed to keep playing for pride. 
• Reminder: we play along for fun and pride, we can't win anything

THE WORM RECAP

Weekly Standings | Game Outcomes | Golden Spreadsheet

Results

• We entered the week with 307 players and exited with 198, a 64.5% survival rate
  • Ya'll... I really thought we'd come through better than that!
• Let's review some of our biggest wins and losses
• ATL (vs DET) - 74 pickers Won
  • This ended exactly like we thought, with a 20+ point blowout
  • DET actually put up a good fight in the first half, but couldn't buy a bucket in the second and ATL cruised along scoring well
• BOS (vs MIN) - 44 pickers Won
  • There was some good back and forth here for most of the game! I don't think we thought we'd get kind of game out of it
  • But Jaylen brown took over the 4th, dropping 23 points and sealing things up tight
• DAL (@ HOU) - 33 pickers won
  • Get our cowboy Luka some help Dallas, good grief. He had to drop 50 to beat the Rockets?
  • This game was CLOSE and there was no good reason for it to be, DAL pickers shouldn't have needed to sweat
• SAC (vs WAS) - 41 pickers lost
  • I covered this as the deciding game of VC's Knees Survivor
  • WAS took over after the first with a huge run and it was never interesting again
• LAL (vs CHA) - 25 pickers lost
  • CHA has been bad, but LAL hasn't been meaningfully better
  • Not to mention CHA is back from injury land while LAL just lost Davis
  • CHA looked better most of the game, but Lebron willed LAL back to the cusp of victory with 18 points in the fourth
  • But then he accidentally goal-tended a Hayward layup with six seconds left, and then lost a shoe on his pass for the (missed) wide-open game-winning three attempt

Team SZN Performance

• Team SZN did relatively well, with TheCommish surviving on ATL and TheGM and Merf surviving on ORL. Only StatCzar perished on hometown CLE pick.
• Reminder: we play along for fun and pride, we can't win anything

Yours in hoops,
The GM