Friends in fast breaks,
Three players dropping 40+ for us, and they were our top 3 players? I don't know how we can start with a better bang than that. Welcome to the show!
MAKE YOUR PICKS >>
Due Friday (11/3) @ 4pm PT
HOUSEKEEPING
1) Our NBA Schedule is here
This lays our both our slate of which matchups are used for our OADs and Survivors, as well as the Player list for the Points OAD and some info on how they were picked. Feel free to start planning more in-depth now! They're also linked in the competition details area of each relevant pool.
2) Our Week 2 BONUS POOL is live. $500 in prizes and you can still get in!
If you refer a new user to The SZN and they join an NBA pool, you'll BOTH get added to it. It's a give one, get one kind of deal. It's what we call a "Wins Battle" - We made matchups between all teams and you have to predict who will have the most wins at the end of the season. Simple, fun, and another $500 to win.
As of writing, there are barely 20 people in. Share your referral link, get a friend in, and get another pool! P.S. for your friends - Missing a week of Points OAD will NOT cost you the crown! Our top 3 finishers last year ALL had a zero point week.
We'll add referrers in batches, but picks are due at the Friday deadline, just like the other pools.
3) Get your Squads together!
At The SZN, every Pool has extra prizes you can win by playing with friends. If you get 3 friends into a Squad for a Pool, you can ALL win when either:
- One of you wins the grand prize
- If your Top 3 pickers beat out the Top 3 from other Squads
Refer your friends and get in a Squad for more fun AND more ways to win!
RESULTS SUMMARY
Points OAD
L. Doncic led the way, throwing off-balance hook shot 3s to the tune of 49 points and a W. D. Mitchell and S. Curry were right behind at 43 and 41 points respectively. 3 Nostradamuses (Nostradami?) picked Luka and Mitchell, taking home the maximum 92 points possible this week.
We're only on year 2 of NBA on the SZN, but we've never seen our top 3 picks also be the top 3 scorers, this is just a straight up Halloween treat for us.
We had another 7 players score 30-39, and 7 more score 25+. That's a total of 3 + 7 + 7 = 17 players score 25+. 25+ is a quality pick in my book.
Our champ from last year, @dcwiek, averaged 31.3 points per pick last year. But we only had one pick per week back then, so I expect the average to drop with twice as many picks required.
On the DNP front, 6 available players bailed, including A. Simons who pulled out with less than 2 hours before lock and needs surgery. Who does that? Those 6 players caused 41 DNP picks that needed their backups. Unfortunately 3 players had their backup also DNP, leaving them with a zero for one of their picks.
Survivor #1
Our big loss was CHA - They didn't even want to PRETEND to be in the game against DET, leaving them a pretty comfortable lead all game. Stop worrying, we've got double elimination now, you all get one more before you gotta say goodbye.
DAL was our thriller, turning out a better result than W1 last year where they sank ~20% of the pool. Their whole strategy seems to be allowing the other team juuuust enough points that Luka has to do something wild and sometimes he gets to win. Not many players could do it the way he does.
BOS, DEN, and ORL were our other big picks. Their games were generally close, with DEN being the sweatiest thanks to MEM hustling.
Overall, a pretty successful W1, always the hardest one! And we all survived!
All 30 OAD
Obvious statement, but it's the same games as Survivor. But without the risk of elimination, your strategy shifts. You need to capitalize on bad teams with good matchups.
And that's what we did, making CHA our biggest pick. So when they blew it, they made 36 of us (myself included) waste a pick. Could have played it safer, but these are some of the risks you have to take.
Our other top picks were similar to Survivor (DAL, PHX, ORL), and all won.
Future weeks will have more stats as we accumulate data and get in the flow. Now go ball!
Yours in Roundball Rock,
The GM