DAY 6 - April 22th - Thursday - K. DURANT (52)

KEVIN DURANT


Alternative picks: Russell Westbrook, Luol Deng, Derrick Rose

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I'll tell you a secret... I can see the future LOL
I didn't know this, but after 5 days I'm starting to really believe it :)

Thank you very much for your support, I hope that this can help the rookie players. I was lost when I started playing, and it was other people's help which helped me improving, so I'm just returning back the help. NBA cares ;)

Well, Cap-Jack, you're great man. 33 PRA injuried. And it was the best day 'cause he was 3rd overall.
Duncan & Nowitzky were the only ones with more points, but their teams could advance.
So our pick was, clearly, the best.
If you add that the other player, teams playing for winning picked yesterday, G.Wallace a.k.a. 'Crash', posted 22 PRA, this gives us 11 points edge over majority of the people who picked him.
I trully believe that at this time we have picked the right players everyday!
But there will be days of bad luck, or at least it should happen...

Let's hope it doesn't happen with today's pick:

Don't forget taking a look at timetable & players:
As you could expect after 5 picks, we won't enter the POR-PHO series yet.
So we have 2 teams to pick from:
Chicago Bulls
Oklahoma City Thunder

Let's remember that their pickable players are:
Bulls: Rose, Noah, Deng
Thunder: Durant, Westbrook

We already picked Rose (45), Westbrook (35), Noah (41).

So we have Deng and Durant left, both playing home.
Lets take a look at the timetable:

It's clear that we have to pick Durant.
Now I'll explain one thing that most of the people misses in this game.
Let's imagine that we are in a 3-1 elimination game, where Suns are leading the series over Blazers.
If we can choose in that day between Aldridge and Gerald Wallace, we have to pick Gerald Wallace, not Aldridge, even if he can get out of the game.
Remember that the goal is to get the most PRA, not picking every "good average PRA player" in the game.
In this first round, we have days with 3-4 games. That doen't exist in second round, we will need every single player of the advancing teams in order to get the final win.

So we have to continue picking players from teams we know they won't advance to the next round.
At this time we should re-evaluate the series, so in order:

'decided' series
Bulls
Bucks
Bobcats

'small option' series
Heat
Thunder

'open' series
Suns
Jazz
Spurs

Let's see players left from the first 2 categories:
Deng, Wallace, Wade & Durant (this analysis is helpful for you even if the players are others, since it's a team analysis, just changing players of the same team)

So, in 23th we should pick Wade.
Now we have 2 options:

1.
22th Durant
24th Wallace
25th Deng

2.
22th Deng
24th Durant
26th Wallace

So, we have to choose if we want 26th (option 1) or 25th (option 2) free.
And 26th is the only day that could be an elimination game.
If we look at it, we can see how the game 6 and game 7 of SAS and POR series are on the same days.
So picking a Blazer in that game 5 (Aldridge is the only sure pick, Miller being a 2nd banana) would be a smart move.

We cannot know which move will be the best one. Neither we know how the series will end, or when will these 4 players post their best numbers.
But these reasoning gives us an upside over the simple luck.

And right now that is a lot.
While I don't like picking players most people take, today's we'll have to pick Durant. Also, I don't like risking a huge Durant result while we're out from him.

Don't forget that any 'strange' result will force us to change our picks any given day.

So today is Durant's day.
We've been saving Durant for today.
Ron-Ron be a nice guy and take one rest day. Our guy needs it. We need it. We'd love it! :P

KEVIN DURANT

Alternative picks: Russell Westbrook, Luol Deng, Derrick Rose