Friends in fast breaks,

I called out the trade demand last week - It was a knowable threat. Knowable as in it came out a few hours before lock and knowable as in "Kyrie hasn't been annoying in five minutes so he needs some attention". So he went and dashed our top OAD pick plans, scattering us to the winds of our back ups. So glad I decided to build the back up functionality 🙌

MAKE YOUR WEEK 16 PICKS

• Walking Bucket Wilt OAD >>
• The Worm Survivor >>
• Pick deadline: 4pm PT Friday (2/10)

So we've got our first meaningful (to our competition) trade. Mr. Third Eye is now listed for DAL, but there's still plenty of rumblings of more trades that might happen. I've seen R. Westbrook, P. Siakam, F. Van Vleet, G. Hayward, and D. Ayton popping up in trade discussions. That's one extra angle to keep in mind this week with your picks. The deadline is 2/9. Our picks lock 2/10. So a last minute trade would almost certainly mean that player probably isn't playing one or two nights later with no prep. If you suddenly hear about your guy moving cross-country... maybe change your plans!

Another quick reminder of what's happening the next few weeks: The All Star Game is not this coming weekend, but the following weekend (2/19). That means there are no games on Friday or Saturday, which means we've got a bye week, yay! We'll have the week off, and regroup for Week 17 picks which will lock on 2/24.

In terms of implications for our competitions, Week 17 means...

• Wilt OAD - Interval 3 starts
• Worm Survivor - We move to double picks
• Swaggy P-redictions - We'll have another prediction round
• We might run another short bonus competition or two, depending on how adventurous we're feeling

ONE AND DONE RECAP

Weekly Standings | Player Performance | Overall Standings

Backup Picks

• 14 of our pickable players didn't play this week, and 6 of those got at least one pick
  • I'm gonna say it feels like our first stab at an injury warning was successful
• But our biggest problem wasn't surprise injuries, it was K. Irving's late trade request
  • The news broke at about 11am PT on Friday, about 5 hours before lock
  • He then sat out the BKN game, meaning our top pick of the week (44 people) didn't play for his own selfish reasons and put us in jeopardy
• In total, we had 61 picks on DNPs
• We unfortunately ended had 10 double DNPs that receive zero points this week, apologies to the unlucky pickers
• Reminders
  • The Injury report is 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!
  • We do our best to provide an injury warning on players at the time of week opening (Late Sunday). We are not a source of truth, simply trying to help people not waste a pick on a player who might be in the middle of an extended injury

Results

• 12 of our picked players scored 30+ this week, handing 95 of us top notch results
• Our top scorer was S. Gilgeous, who threw up 42 points
  • 26 people were aboard for the ride
  • What's crazier is that this 42 points was a part of the 153-121 beatdown OKC gave HOU
  • This score perfectly matched a November SAC victory over BKN
  • It was OKC's second 150+ point game this SZN
  • It was also the 5th 150 point game for a team this SZN - Is this the inflation people keep talking about?
• Other big performers: J. Brunson (41 pts, 1 pick), J. Murray (41, 3), Z. Lavine (36, 4), G. Antetokounmpo (35, 8), K. Leonard (35, 3)
  • Big ups to the single picker on Brunson - Did you know he was gonna channel his All Star snub into a sick performance? I'm going to assume you did
• Our big miss of the week: B. Ingram (35 pts) went unpicked
  • Admittedly, he's been very injured and streaky in his first few games back
• We averaged 26.2 points per pick, still a marked improvement from our recent slump
  • The "average" pick players scored 22.7 points
• I think our biggest flop of the week was N. Jokic (14 pts, 23 picks)
  • Between J. Murray going off and Jokic being happy to play conductor, just not what you want to see out of your pick
• Some poor weekly performances: T. Haliburton (10 pts, 2 picks), J. Grant (10, 1), P. Banchero (11, 1), G. Hayward (12, 1), D. Murray (13, 2)

Standings Check
We have prizes for Overall points, as well as most points scored over three different Intervals (Weeks 1-8, Weeks 9-16, and Weeks 17-23). There's something to play for all SZN!

Interval 2 (Weeks 9-16) Standings

• We've got one week to go to close out Interval 2
• Then there's the All Star Break, and we dive into our final Interval starting Week 17
• We've got some more shuffling action and another new leader with @Pmbrennan13 this week
• It's a two point gap to 2nd place, and eight points down to 5th
• Considering we're consistently seeing 40 and 50 point games, the crown next week could still be held by someone entirely off the Top 5 board
• Remember - Interval 3 starts Week 17, after the All Star Break. Bring a friend!

Overall Standings

• We continue our leaderboard shuffle, with @PurpleNurple19 jumping back into the lead above @Bigrv51
  • Their gap above the rest of the field continues, though still not insurmountable
• Beyond those two, there's a lot more clumping in the standings
• We've dwindled to 36 people averageing 30 points per pick, down from 41 last week

Team SZN Performance

• I (@TheGM) got 33 points from big man J. Embiid
• @TheCommish took D. Lillard and netted 29 points
• @StatCzar got tricked by A. Edwards, only getting 19 points
• @Merf received 23 points from P. Siakam
• Overall, I (@TheGM) have our best placement at 84th
• 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 27 players and exited with 24, an 88.9% survival rate
• We definitely tasted some fear this week, but came out looking good
• Don't forget, we move to double picks in Week 17 (after the All Star Game)
• PHI (@ SAS), OKC (vs HOU), and TOR (@ HOU) just weren't really exciting
  • TOR got a tiny bit close in the last minutes, but HOU isn't closing out a comeback
• BKN (vs WAS) was excellent
  • AKA the 👋 Bye Kai game
  • BKN was already depleted with no Durant and Seth Curry going down in Q3
  • BKN went down 15-ish in the 1st, and that lead stayed through the half
  • This game looked done
  • Then they started whittling the lead down in the 3rd, to bring it back to even in the 4th
  • Porzingis and Cam Thomas battled it out scoring 13 and 19 respectively in the fourth, but BKN took it home in the end
  • Cam Thomas dropped a ridiculous 44 and Edmond "Don't act like you've heard of me" Sumner scored 29
  • Our 3 pickers survived 
• We lost 2 pickers on LAL (@ NOP) and 1 picker on MIN (vs ORL)
  • The LAL game was hard fought, and the MIN game was literally fought
  • This is the second ORL fight game of the SZN, with Mo Bamba starting it this time

Team SZN Performance

• We're all out 🤷
• Reminder: we play along for fun and pride, we can't win anything

Yours in hoops,
The GM