To say that yesterday was eventful for NBA daily fantasy players is an understatement. Not only was there frenzied and occasionally bizarre action on the court, but DraftStreet held one of its signature contests of the NBA season, awarding a first place prize of $50,000. Taking top spot in the Bizarro world was the Lakers-Cavaliers game. The Cavaliers were horrible in the first half, ended up benching two of their stars, then rallying to almost win the game. That drama took a backseat to mounting injury and foul woes visited on the Lakers. With Nick Young/LAL and Jordan Farmar/LAL injured, and Chris Kaman/LAL fouled out, the Lakers were down to five of their original eight-man squad. Robert Sacre/LAL caught his sixth foul, only no healthy player was left on the Lakers’ bench. By rule, Sacre was allowed to stay in and the Lakers gave up a technical foul. There were still three plus minutes left when this farce occurred; you can bet the league will be discussing possible rule changes in this situation. Tonight we have our traditional two-game Thursday night schedule and a chance to catch our breath. Here is today’s Fantasy Spin.
Fantasy Boom and Bust
TOP GUNS:
Tim Duncan/SAS. Aided by two overtime periods, he eventually fouled out and would almost certainly sit out today if the Spurs were not undermanned.
LeBron James/MIA. As expected, a great all-around game in a high-scoring battle with the Clippers.
Blake Griffin/LAC. He was pretty good too.
Dwight Howard/HOU, John Wall/WAS, Jeff Green/BOS, Jared Sullinger/BOS, Rudy Gay/SAC
SLEEPERS:
Dante Cunningham/MIN. With Kevin Love/MIN a final hour scratch, someone had to step up and fill the minutes and production. Cunningham was superb and the Wolves made this game interesting.
Jeff Green/BOS. I wrote yesterday that an up-tempo game would be to his liking and that is exactly what happened.
Larry Sanders/MIL. A whole lot of potential, but even more inconsistency.
Jared Sullinger/BOS. While Green was filling the bucket, Sullinger’s stat sheet was omnivorous.
Patrick Mills/SAS, Steve Blake/LAL, DeMarre Carroll/ATL, Courtney Lee/MEM, C.J. Miles/CLE, Danny Green/SAS.
DISAPPOINTMENTS:
Tony Parker/SAS. His back flared up and he didn’t play the second half.
Luol Deng/CLE. Lost at sea and benched along with Kyrie Irving/CLE in the third quarter.
Timofey Mozgov/DEN. Another night when the starting front court played well and Mozgov’s opportunities were limited.
John Henson/MIL. Returned to action but didn’t start the game.
DraftStreet NBA Contests
Despite a final hour flurry of registrations, the NBA BIG SCORE didn’t max out. We had just under 6,900 runners and the top 1,000 got paid. There were so many good value plays that the scoring was abnormally high across DraftStreet leagues. As a result, the top spots in the Big One went to lineups with eight bulls-eyes and well over 300 DraftStreet points. The winner of $50,000 for first was “RussARMNY”, who topped out at 327.25 points. “Russ” had the trio of cheap and effective Celtics – Green, Sullinger and Rondo, stars Blake Griffin/LAC and Dwight Howard/HOU, Mike Conley/MEM replacement Nick Calathes/MEM and two underowned players who made the difference (Ty Lawson/DEN and particularly Courtney Lee/MEM).
My best effort was derailed by poor second halves from Kyrie Irving/CLE and Jarret Jack/CLE and a mediocre game from Robert Sacre/LAL. Even so, my team racked up 258.75 DraftStreet points, just missing the money by a couple of points. All in all, it was a lot of fun sweating the leaderboard and I look forward to the next mega-contests DraftStreet rolls out during this NBA season.
If you don’t have a DraftStreet account, you can sign up HERE. Though it’s a traditionally light Thursday, there is plenty of money to be won.