Friends in fast breaks,

With Wemby clocking the first 5x5 since 2019 (and only the 15th ever to do it), let's check in on the rookies, shall we? I'll lean on the NBA Rookie Ladder as the top 10 to check in on.

Victory Wembanyama continues to do wild things every week, and seems to be picking up steam as the season goes. Rarely does a game go by without some absurd 45 second clip of him pulling off some excellent block followed by a crazy offensive highlight. Was the preseason hype annoying? Yes. Does he already look like he could be a gamewrecker on both ends of the floor, YES. Give him league average teammates, and things are going to get wild.

Chet Holmgren has looked stellar this season, with an incredible floor-stretching game and incredible defensive impact. Which is all the more ridiculous when you say he has no shot at ROY because Wemby just does it better. Chet's team is leaps and bounds ahead of Wemby's, and the experience he gets from both the regular season success and playoff environment is going to give him a leg up in that department on Wemby for a year or two. And he's already hitting clutch shots with ice in his veins, Chet looks stellar.

Brandon Miller got a LOT of hate for going #2 this year. And for saying he thought Paul George was the GOAT. That was far more questionable. But as he's gotten more games under his belt, the size, scoring, and athleticism that was promised has been showing up loud and clear. He looks completely worthy of where he got picked.

Brandin Poziemski is WAY ahead of schedule for contributing to GSW. He's worked his way into the starting lineup, and his basketball IQ is exactly what thrives when playing with GSW's system and vets.

Jaime Jaquez Jr came out of the gates screaming, but has come back to earth since his groin injury. Meme on MIA's "culture" all you want, but it's pretty clear that they took a solid and ready-to-contribute upper classman with the right attitude and put him to work.

Cam Whitmore took a terrible tumble in the draft. He was slotted as a top 8-ish pick, then for rumored but still unclear reasons, tumbled to 20th. He was panned for being a black hole when the ball comes his way, and it's definitely true, averaging under 1 assist per 36 minutes. But when you're also capable of posting 25 points per 36 minutes efficiently as a 19 year old... maybe passing the ball is the less efficient outcome?

Dereck Lively II landed in the perfect situation in DAL, with Luka and Irving to distribute, the kid has been able to play directly to his strengths of lob threat and defensive menace. His broken nose sidelined him for a good bit in the last month, but the fit is impeccable to allow him to thrive and gain a ton of playoff experience this year.

Scoot Henderson has been a poster child for the difficulties of becoming an NBA point guard. It's supposed to be an incredibly difficult position to learn, and he's definitely shown the struggles (inbetween some minor injuries). But he's shown exactly the flashes you want to see. Give him some time to get more consistent and he should be able to deliver exactly what POR needs.

Ausar Thompson has the double trouble of an (underperforming) bad team in DET coupled with just the most questionable coaching decisions. He's managed to get back into solid rotational minutes recently, and his (and his brother's) unstoppable motor, top percentile athleticism, and IQ are still delivering incredible impact. It wouldn't surprise me for them to be consistent All NBA Defenders for years and. years.

Keyonte George is a blind spot for me, but he's been getting starter minutes recently in UTA and posting solid stats in the last month, hopefully delivering solid contributions and carving out his future role.

Reminder: Pick numbers have increased in a bunch of pools. Things are about to get harder as we hit the home stretch!

RESULTS SUMMARY

Points One-And-Done

J. Brunson is back on top this week with 34 points. He's been averaging 31.5 PPG since January!

Our other top scorers were G. Antetokounmpo (33 pts), SGA (30), L. James (30), and J. Brown (30). That few players crossing 30 means it was a rougher week for us, overall.

P. Banchero, who has been our top pick for two weeks, repeated last week's weak performance and posted 15 points. We gave him two chances as our top guy, and he is NOT handling our limelight well.

We scored 21.1 points per pick, our worst of the SZN. And it wasn't because of an uptick in DNPs, guys just were not scoring in big numbers this week.

For DNPs, 8 pickable players from our roster didn't play, leading to 33 DNP picks. This caused 6 Double DNPs, resulting in zero points. 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.

Overall Standings Check In - @aphanson7 is still in first with 927 points, but the gap has closed somewhat recently. Prizes cut off at 20th, which sits at 876 points right now. But with the scoring explosion, this is anyone's game!

Interval 3 Check In - @bucky207 starts Interval 3 in the lead with 62 points. Interval 3 runs through the end of the regular SZN, let's see who finishes strongest.

Squads Check In - Team SZN is still in first with 2,530 points. We can't win though, so DFS Sweatshop is currently in the REAL lead with 2,524 points.

Survivor #1

There were 11 incorrect picks this week, resulting in 8 eliminations. We had a 81.4% win rate. We lost 2.3% of the Pool in the process. We now stand at 14.9% remaining. Double picks begin this week, so here comes the pain!

ATL was our worst loss this week, accounting for 8 of our missed picks.

Overall Standings Check In - There are still 51 players alive, 15 with no mistakes and 36 with one mistake. Beware the double picks!

Squads Check In - Basket-Balling with Nigel has the lead with 40 wins.

All 30 One-And-Done

A solid week, with a win rate of 7.2% this week. We went 10-9 on our teams picked, with our biggest loss being ATL with 26 picks. Remember that double picks are here!

Overall Standings Check In - There's a 4-way tie for the lead with 16 wins. Reminder that the NFL's All 32 Pool lasted through 11 weeks and 18 total picks with perfect records. 

Squads Check In - Basket-Balling with Nigel is in the lead with 43 wins. 

Survivor #2

There were 60 incorrect picks this week, leading to 35 eliminations. We lost 14.5% of the Pool after a rough 79.6% win rate. We're still on double picks for now, but pick totals will keep climbing the longer we go.

Overall Standings Check In - There are 112 players alive, 41 with no mistakes and 71 with one mistake. 

Squads Check In - Basket-Balling with Nigel is in the lead with 19 correct so far.

Weekly Pick'em

We held steady with a 65.0% win rate this week. That averages out to 8.4 correct picks out of 13 games.

Our biggest miss was TOR @ ATL, where only 11.8% of us got it right for TOR. And despite the small 13 game slate, we didn't manage to go perfect - That still eludes us!

We had a 3-way tie for first this week with 12/13 - Congrats to @brianando, @redhawk, and @holycontejas. They'll split the weekly prize.

Overall Standings Check In - There's a pile-up at the top, with @Brianando, @FLem, @RDH24, and @Barblovesbb tied at 69 wins so far (nice). Still lots of time to rack up wins.

Squads Check In - Basket-Balling with Nigel has a 2 win lead with 192 wins.  

Yours in Roundball Rock,
The GM