Friends in fast breaks,

My health is bouncing back, but the same can't be said for our picks. We had a big bump in DNPs this week, and it took a bit of a toll and that's a bummer. But we have our first prizes of NBA SZN now that Interval 1 has finished, and that's worth celebrating!

SCHEDULE REMINDER

We'll take W7 off and be back in action come W8 (locks on 12/15). This weekend's game slate wasn't set until the IST group stage finished, and because of the strategy of our Pools, we chose to exclude a week with an unknown slate of games 7 weeks in. This is one of two scheduled "bye weeks" we have this season, the other being All Star Weekend in February. Rest up and I'll send another update/reminder next week.

RESULTS SUMMARY

Points One-And-Done

M. Bridges went nuclear this week, putting up a big 42 points for 4 pickers. This included 26 in the first quarter, just a ridiculous barrage to knock off ORL on Saturday.

Our next top scorer was J. Butler, with only 33 points going out to 5 pickers with that DAWG in 'em.

The other top scorers were G. Antetokounmpo (32), T. Young (32), F. Wagner (31), K. Durant (30), D. Bane (30), and D. Murray (30). 

Multple big picks crashed and burned this week: D. Mitchell (44 picks) only scored 20. K. Irving (43) only managed 10 (!!!). And S. Gilgeous-Alexander (42) put up 17. We haven't seen a disappointing scoring week like this so far this season, and it came crashing in right at the close of Inerval 1.

We took a BIG dip from our 29.0 points/pick last week, sinking to a paltry 21.6 points/pick this week. What is this, the 2000s? This is supposed to be the time of point inflation, give us our points back! 

For DNPs, 13 pickable players from our roster didn't play, leading to a painful 108 DNP picks. A tough 33 picks Double DNP'd, resulting in zero points. Thankfully, it's a long SZN and there's plenty of time to make up ground!

As always - Double check the injury report (linked on the pick page) on Thursday or Friday to make sure your picks aren't out. We leave a note on known injured players during the week and remove players with longer-term injuries to try and help prevent this issue, but you have to take control of your destiny here.

WIth the end of Week 6 and therefore Interval 1, that means we have our first prize winners of NBA SZN! @Dufresne leapt into the lead by a single point, buoyed by 62 points from Durant + Giannis this week. Congrats to our winners! Reminder that prizes go out at the conclusion of NBA SZN and that Interval 2 starts in Week 8 when we come back from the bye week. We all start back at 0 for that la@Graumann81 is still in the lead by one point at 353. But one unlucky pick can set you back 30+ points, so there's a resonable chance for people as low as 25th place (324 points), to leap up the board. There are three Intervals and five places each, meaning every few weeks you've got something new to play for.

Survivor #1

There were 44 incorrect picks this week, resulting in 24 eliminations. We had a 81.3% win rate, and lost another 7% of the Pool in the process. We now stand at 61.7% remaining.

DAL was our only big loss this week. Luka was out for the birth of his first child (congrats) and Irving showed us just how flat his world is: 1 point on 0/7 shooting in the first half and 10 points by the end. D. Bane flexed his T-Rex arms for 30 as MEM smashed DAL from the second quarter onwards.

But this week could have been SO much worse. ORL (vs WAS) was a 5 point game until the final four minutes - that's 88 of you teetering on the edge. NOP (vs SAS) was neck-and-neck for the first half, until SAS decieded they wanted to score 2 points over a 6 minute stretch in the third saving 46 of you. MIN (@ CHA) was a battle til the end, as close as 4 points in the final 2 minutes to keep 18 of you alive. And CLE (@ DET) was even a 3 point game in the final 4 minutes saved another 17. This might be the most exciting week we've had so far.

All 30 One-And-Done

DAL was our big loss here, costing 39 of us a W this week. Yes, all the tank fighters won on the same storylines shared above for Survivor. 

But our 20 brave UTA pickers get a shoutout for capitalizing on a TIGHT victory over POR. It took not scoring in the final 2:32 of regulation, letting POR tie it up, and winning in OT to get it, but that's a powerful W to get from a pick on a tanking team, well done!

Our win rate was 77.2% this week, with our picked teams going 12-8. That's about middle of the pack so far, but we take decent weeks around here.

We've dropped to a 48-way tie for first with 6 wins and no losses. Reminder that the NFL's All 32 Pool lasted through 11 weeks and 18 total picks with perfect records. We don't start double picks until Week 19, so we'll see if anyone can last until then staying unbeaten.

Yours in Roundball Rock,
The GM