Friends in fast breaks,
Commish spent the last PICKS email fawning over Anthony Davis and his surefire soon-to-be 30+ point outing .
Instead, we were treated to the worst top pick performance in NBA SZN history.
If you picked The Brow, that hurt. If you steered clear (or already used him), you likely did quite well. This duality will likely affect our final One-and-Done standings.
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It was just a supremely weird performance from Davis and the Lakers.
He played 30+ minutes. It was a close game. The Lakers won in come-from-behind fashion.
And yet... 8 points on just 7 shots.
Seven shots?! Dude had been averaging 20 shots per game while LeBron was out.
Sigh. Cue a modified Herm Edwards soundbite...
THAT'S WHY. THEY PLAY. THE GAME.
***
Beyond Davis, most of the big names showed up.
And thus we see a continuing theme: Those of us who saved a stable of big names for the stretch run are being rewarded.
Donovan Mitchell dropped 42. Embiid got 39. Kawhi found his form with 38.
It's certainly possible to hit on a big night from Zach Lavine (as many of us did), but the odds of continually nailing your deep cut picks is low.
The big guns are the big guns for a reason.
ONE AND DONE RECAP
Weekly Standings | Player Performance | Overall Standings
Backup Picks
- 17 of our pickable players didn't play this week, and 10 of them got at least one pick
- In total, we had 76 DNP picks, led by 32 of us on Kyrie in hopes of a Kyrie-without-Luka show
- Julius Randle was our most popular backup pick pressed into action with 11 nods. He posted a meh total of 19 points, well below his recent trendline
- We had 10 double DNPs; please be sure to use the injury report link and "Check injury report" note we've added to the picking page
Results
- Anthony Davis brought our average way down
- Our 24.4 points per pick was our lowest since Week 12
- But if you take Davis' dud out, our week actually looked OK
- 62% of our picks overall - and 72% of our non-Davis picks - posted above average point totals vs. the rest of the slate of pickable players
- Mitchell (42 points), Embiid (39), Kawhi (38), Jokic (37), Lavine (36), Steph (36), and SGA (35) is a pretty damn solid list of strong performances
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 3 (Weeks 17-23) Standings
- Last week's Interval 3 leader, @ronang01, fell from 1st all the way to T58th after picking Davis. Ouch.
- We have a new leader in @ericpf11 who has impressively gone Randle (46 points), Giannis (34), Mitchell (42) in the first three weeks of this final interval
- Saving the big guns!
- Four weeks to go, and given we're all digging deep, a LOT can change between now and then
| Rank | Username | Int. 3 Pts |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | ericpf11 | 122 |
| 2 | NEELERSBTB1 | 120 |
| 3 | Takedown197 | 119 |
| 4 | hightopper | 117 |
| 4 | Gaucho88 | 117 |
| 6 | KMac23 | 116 |
| 7 | RemixToIgnition | 113 |
| 8 | Pmbrennan13 | 111 |
| 8 | Graumann81 | 111 |
| 10 | rydstein | 109 |
| 10 | LeviLeo | 109 |
- Last week's overall leader, @PurpleNurple19, was also bitten by Davis. And thus we have a new leader
- @ Pmbrennan13 has ascended the throne for now, with 631 points
- They picked a great time to bag 39 points with an Embiid pick - a full 31 more than Davis scored
- @sholt417 is just 2 points back after getting 37 from Jokic
- @PurpleNurple19 is still just 13 points back, in 3rd place
- Here's the top 10, but remember, Overall prizes go all the way to 50th. (50th currently sits at 525 points)
| Rank | Username | Overall Pts |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Pmbrennan13 | 631 |
| 2 | sholt417 | 629 |
| 3 | PurpleNurple19 | 618 |
| 4 | Jscala | 611 |
| 5 | Bigrv51 | 610 |
| 6 | Gaucho88 | 604 |
| 7 | spencermai | 598 |
| 8 | rydstein | 592 |
| 9 | ericpf11 | 591 |
| 10 | Rickfrrr | 590 |
Team SZN Performance
- @StatCzar pulled the Embiid lever to the tune of 39 points
- @TheCommish and @TheGM took the wrong Bulls player as DeRozan (27 pts) was lapped by Lavine (36 pts)
- @Merf got a solid 28 from Booker, though without Durant he was hoping for more.
- And with that, GM, Commish, and Stat Czar are all within NINE points of each other in the Overall race. Gonna come down to the wire!
- 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 8 players and exited with 5, a 62.5% survival rate
- The Nuggets' weird loss to the Spurs dropped 3 people
- Commish is making a bold prediction that we have 2 weeks left of Worm Survivor. Our champ will be crowned in Week 21
- Per the Golden Spreadsheet, just too many good teams off the board or only available to one person. It's time to reach!
Yours in hoops,
The Commish