Free Etan Thomas

Anyone who thinks that the NBA is just a bunch of thugs wearing "prison garb"--like, say, David Stern and Phil Jackson--should read Etan Thomas' speech at the anti-war convention in DC on September 24. As a matter of fact, anyone should, regardless of what they think of the NBA.

This might be old news to most people out there, but I just read it today. Props to Etan for telling it like it is.

Ahhhh... A freshly drafted team

Tonight, I drafted a fantasy basketball team in my flagship league, the big one, the league that I've done every year since my sophomore year of college (which, sadly, is getting further and further away).

I'm thrilled with the results. There are nine categories (FG%, FT%, 3PM, PTS, REB, AST, STL, BLK, TO). Check out the squad:

PG    Jason Terry
SG    Cuttino Mobley
G     Josh Howard
SF    Andrei Kirilenko
F     Peja Stojakovic
PF    Dwight Howard
C     Joel Przybilla
Util  Marko Jaric
BN    Sam Cassell
BN    Raja Bell
BN    Shane Battier
BN    Zaza Pachulia
BN    Mike James

This is a twelve team league. I feel like I got quality picks in every single round.

I feel like my team is not that great in points, assists, or turnovers...but not too bad, either. Forgive me for gloating.

What do you guys think? Am I missing some glaring weakness in my squad? Or is it as dominant as I think it is?

Hornets Trade Jamaal Magloire to Milwaukee for Desmond Mason

On Wednesday, the Oklahoma City Hornets traded C Jamaal Magloire to the Milwaukee Bucks for G/F Desmond Mason, a 2006 first-round pick, and cash.

Magloire (#19) and Mason (#17) were drafted two picks apart in the 2000 NBA draft.

The trade creates roster imbalances for both teams, and raises huge questions about playing time just before the NBA regular season begins on Halloween. Let's take a look at the implications for both sides.

Bucks Receive Magloire

In the NBA, it's always hard to argue with the acquisition of a legitimate center who has the ability to average a double-double right away. However, in the case of the 2005-06 Bucks, there may be good reason to argue.

In the words of Bucks GM Larry Harris: "In Jamaal Magloire, we were able to add a young, All-Star-caliber big man to our front court rotation." Um... Wasn't that what the Bucks were doing when they drafted Andrew Bogut with the #1 overall pick in the 2005 Draft?

Bogut's minutes will in all likelihood be severely impacted by the acquisition of Magloire. Although he was already slated to come off the bench behind Dan Gadzuric, this moves the Australian big man further down the depth chart, and may force him to play some minutes at PF, where his legit 7-0 frame might prove unwieldy. Bogut's fantasy value to start this year becomes virtually nil. Magloire may prove to be a good tutor for Bogut, but if I were the Bucks, I wouldn't want Bogut to turn out like Magloire.

Jamaal does score and rebound, but he turns the ball over at a fairly high rate, distributes the ball poorly, and contributes very little on defense. Expect Magloire to chip in around 12 points, 9 rebounds, and 1 block per game. These numbers aren't bad (although somebody on your fantasy squad has to get blocks): it's the 2.5 turnovers per game that really drag down Magloire's value in a standard roto league.

The departure of Desmond Mason is, however, good news for free agent acquisition Bobby Simmons. He probably won't play 37 minutes like he did last year, but 15, 5, and 2.5, fewer than 2 turnovers, and 45%/85% shooting makes him a good mid-to-late round fantasy target again this year. Congratulations to Simmons, who was slated to come off the bench but deserved to start over Mason.

Hornets Receive Mason



It's an unexpected homecoming of sorts for Desmond Mason, an Oklahoma State graduate and 2001 NBA slam dunk champion now moving on to his third team.

I'm a fan of Mason's offensive game. He does not turn the ball over too much, is a 45% career shooter, has a developing midrange game, and pushed his FT% over 80 last year. In 2004-05, Mason averaged 36 minutes per game and put up 17 points, 4 rebounds and 2.7 assists against 2.1 turnovers. He was a stiff on the defensive end, though, ripping only .7 balls per game to go iwth .2 blocks.

The problem is that Mason will be hard-pressed to duplicate any of these numbers on a New Orleans team that, believe it or not, now has too many talented swingmen. Young J.R. Smith is tabbed for a starting role at SG. Before the acquisition of Mason, Rasual Butler and Bostjan Nachbar were battling for SF, with Nachbar emerging as the late dark horse. Mason will now step into the starting role, with Butler and Nachbar backing him up.

None of the three will play much more than 30 minutes per game and none will play defense. Even J.R. Smith's PT might be slightly depressed by Mason's arrival, unless another trade is in the offing.

Byron Scott has his coaching cut out for him. The Hornets already created a glut at PG by drafting Chris Paul to fill a slot that was already admirably filled by Speedy Claxton and Dan Dickau... did they need to do it again at SF?

The most intriguing effect of this trade might be an increase in playing time for David West, who started at PF tonight in the Hornets' first post-trade preseason game and scored 13 points and grabbed 5 boards in 31 minutes.

Either he or Chris Andersen, who sat out tonight with an ankle injury, is going to have to start and play 30 minutes per. If it's West, he could develop into a pretty decent points and boards option. If it's Andersen, the Birdman could become a major source of blocks.

The real key to this deal for the Hornets is the inclusion of a first-round pick in the 2006 NBA Draft. If they're lucky, maybe they'll be able to draft a legit 7 footer who can average a double-double.

10.24.2005 - Boxscore World Tour

Strange boxscores tonight. Let's take a quick look...

POR 105, TOR 98

Even the city of Winnipeg can't make these teams good.

Portland is in trouble this year. Juan Dixon hasn't panned out, Martell Webster is a high school rookie, and Charles Smith--yes, that Charles Smith, a 30 year-old veteran who averaged a career-high 19+ minutes last year--might start. Telfair is two years out of high school and talented, but he doesn't take care of the ball.

Worst of all, Zach Randolph is fat, in McMillan's doghouse, his knee is already sore and at less than 80 percent in his first season following knee microfracture surgery.

Even former Jailblazer Ruben Patterson is already calling for changes to be made.

PDX fans should settle in for a very long season. It's a scary thing when D-Miles is shaping up to be your team's cornerstone. There will be fantasy value somewhere on this squad, but it's too early to say when.

Toronto started Loren Woods and Joey Graham. I didn't see it coming either, but Charlie Villanueva had another solid game (19, 5 and 3 on 8-12 shooting) and might actually be a decent pro as early as this year.

MIA 84, ATL 83

No surprises here.

We know Josh Smith can dunk, but can he shoot? Tonight's 1-10 performance is not encouraging. He's going to have to block a lot of shots to make that look good... Zaza Pachulia continues to put up numbers... The 2005-06 Atlanta Hawks are really a grand experiment in starting four small forwards. Let's see what happens... Salim Stoudamire is not ready to contribute, particularly in a lineup like this--avoid.

I hate Antoine Walker. Can anyone tell me why the Heat felt they needed to go out and sign him AND Gary Payton, two of the most selfish and outspoken basketball players in the league? Dwyane Wade is the shit. But with 4.2 turnovers and only .2 3PM per game last year, is he worth a first round pick?

ORL 65, MEM 65

Not exactly an offensive highlight reel here.

We know Dwight Howard is getting ready for an outrageous year; we know that Steve Francis continues to be vastly overrated as a fantasy commodity... Does anyone know what the deal is with Jameer Nelson? If he starts and plays minutes, he'll be Top 75. If not, he'll be waiver material. So far this preseason, he's started only 1 of 4 games and played 23.3 minutes per. That ain't enough. Are they really going to start DeShawn Stevenson?

LAC 112, GS 82

The Clip Show's B squad blows away the Warriors' scrubs.

LA started Walter McCarty (he's still in the league?), Yuta Tabuse, Daniel Ewing, Anthony Goldwire, and Cuttino Mobley. Cuttino will be a pimp this year. Draft accordingly.

GS started Zarko Cabarkapa (who could be quite a scorer if he ever started... he won't), Mike Dunleavy (this is NOT the year... he should be a backup), Andris Biedrins, Derek Fisher, and J-Rich.

Biedrins, a 19 year old Latvian rookie, knows how to hit them boards--15.2 per 48 minutes this preseason. Give him a couple of years, then draft him. Until then, expect a lot of this:

Sam Cassell to start in Los Angeles

Some call Sam Cassell an alien; Charles Barkley calls him Gollum--I call him a starting point guard, and a damn good one when he's healthy.

After missing 52 games of his rookie season due to various knee and shoulder injuries, Clippers "point guard of the future" Shaun Livingston is going to miss the first month of the season with lower back irritation. It's becoming increasingly clear that no matter how smooth he might be, Livingston's body cannot stand up to the rigors of an NBA season.

This opens the door for Cassell to cement a job as starting point guard which, to be honest, he probably would have done even if Livingston had been healthy. The simple truth is that Cassell is not only better than Livingston: he's much better. After his last season in Minnesota, which was marred by injury and discontent, it is easy to forget how good Cassell really is, and has recently been.

Cassell had his career year only two seasons ago. In 2003, he played 81 games for the Wolves and averaged 19.8 points, 7.3 assists, 1.3 steals, and 2.7 turnovers while shooting 48.8% from the field and 87.3% from the line. For a guard--any guard--those shooting percentages are incredible, and when they go with over 7 assists, they're downright mouth-watering.

Cassell is getting older--he'll be 36 in November--but he still has some gas in the tank. In 30+ minutes, expect him to perform around his career averages of about 16 points, 6 assists, and 1.2 steals on 45% FG and 85% FT. Granted, Cassell doesn't hit many threes (about .7 per game), and he tends to look for his own shot first. But if you can't use numbers like those, you're going to be fielding a much better fantasy squad than I am.

Do yourself a favor and DON'T read Brandon Funston's idiotic PG rankings that put Shaun Livingston at #24 and leave Cassell off the list entirely. If he's still hanging around your draft by the time you approach the 10th round, Cassell will be an incredible pick. Get ready to field generous offers from teams with three PGs shooting 40%.

Camby Near Death

In a shocking development, Nuggets C Marcus Camby has been sidelined by injury.

Camby, who recently suggested, despite his $9.3 million salary this year, that the NBA issue players a stipend to help them pay for the suits required by this season's new street clothes dress code, injured his foot when he stepped on a teammate's foot in practice on Friday. Although he said then that it wasn't serious, he sat out on Saturday.

I've read that it's just a little "soreness"; I've read that it's a sprained ankle; I've read that it's an aggravation of plantar fasciitis. For Camby, none of these would be good. This is a man who needs to be in optimal health to get out of bed in the morning. This is the J.D. Drew of basketball.

Camby's nine full NBA seasons represent about 738 games. He has played in 490 of them. That's 66%. Do the math here: if Camby plays as much this season as he has historically played, he should see in action in about 54 games. I know, I know, he was a fantasy stud last year. So was J.D. Drew. And look what happened to him. Bid accordingly.

I admit I'm biased: after having missed out on just about every good C available in the Sportsline Bloggers League I joined with Nels over at Give Me The Rock, I was forced to take Nene, who is nursing a hamstring injury of his own. Pray for me, and hope that history repeats itself this year.

The Sun Also Rises

It turns out I was right about Amare Stoudemire's "exploratory surgery" being a little more serious than the Suns were letting on. As has been widely reported by the press and bemoaned by fantasy owners worldwide, Amare had microfracture surgery on Tuesday and is expected out for four months.

That means that Phoenix has now lost three of its five starters from last year's running and gunning playoff team, and with these three, 61 points of collective scoring. That's a lot of production to replace.

Luckily, though, all is not lost. Steve Nash is still running the point in Phoenix, and he has a reputation for turning fantasy straw into gold. This year should be no different.

Which former fantasy scrubs will he turn into relevant fantasy contributors in 2005-06?


Raja Bell, G

The 29-year-old Florida International product is now entering his sixth year in the league and seems poised for a breakout season.

While he will never be mistaken for a well-rounded fantasy player, Bell will contribute a great deal in points and threes in 2005-06. Despite playing less than 30 minutes per game last year for a Utah team without a real point guard, he averaged 12.3 points (that's 20.7 per 48 minutes) and shot over 40% from three point range.

Last night, in Phoenix's exhibition opener against Seattle, Bell played 37 minutes and scored 26 points on 11-16 shooting and 4-7 from beyond the arc. He also managed to grab 7 boards and turned the ball over only once.

With Nash kicking it out to him for wide open shots on the perimeter all season long, expect Raja to contribute points in the high teens--that might actually be conservative--and hit at least 2 threes per game. If he averages anything like the 8 threes per game that Q Rich attempted each night last season, he could be a fantasy revelation as a scorer and three-point specialist.

He doesn't do much else though, so temper your expectations.


James Jones, SF

Jones, 25, a 6-8 swingman out of Miami, is more of an unknown quantity.

When the Pacers were decimated by suspensions and injuries in November last year, Jones entered the lineup and got major burn for about two weeks. During this time, he had a couple of very impressive games, scoring 22 with 10 boards on Nov. 23 and a career-high 27 less than a week later on Nov. 28.

We do know two things about Jones: he can shoot the trey and he hits his free throws. The former alone is enough to score in bunches when you're on the floor with Steve Nash. Jones connected on 39.8% of his 2.2 nightly attempts from downtown last year (not bad for a guy who only played 17.8 minutes per night), and shot 85.5 percent from the line.

Like Bell, Jones could also average more than 2 threes per night, and this could make him a very valuable specialist. How much he scores beyond this will depend on what's left over after Nash, Marion, and Bell get their shots.

Be wary of his FG percentage, though, as he's a member of that rare breed that shoots worse from the floor overall than he does from beyond the arc (39.6% last year). Q Rich did this, too but he also was among the league leaders in steals: fantasy owners might not be so forgiving with the more one-dimensional Jones.

2005 Fantasy Basketball Sleepers

Everyone knows about Josh Howard, Dwight Howard, and Chris Bosh. Here are a few “real” sleepers poised to make huge gains heading into the 2005 NBA Regular Season.

Josh Childress, G/F, Atlanta Hawks



Josh Childress is the second coming of Shawn Marion. Check out these rookie year stat comparisons:

     Marion   Childress
FG    .471     .470    
FT    .847     .851       
3PM   0.1      0.2    
PTS   10.2     10.1   
REB   6.5      6.0   
AST   1.4      1.9   
ST    0.8      0.9  
BLK   1.0      0.4
TO    1.0      1.3

The similarities are astounding: both are long and athletic, have funky looking jump shots that fall for high percentages, and were poorly hyped but highly drafted after coming out early from West Coast colleges.

In the last two months of last season, J-Chill stepped up his game and played a whopping 38.1 minutes per contest, averaging 14.5 points, 7.7 rebounds, 2.4 assists, 1.2 steals, .4 blocks and only 1.6 TO, while shooting a 48.6% FG and 85.0% FT. Wow. That placed him #47 on the player rater for that time span, just ahead of Zydrunas Ilgauskas and only four spots behind a turnover-prone Dwyane Wade.

In his sophomore year, Marion’s numbers jumped to 17.3 points, 10.7 rebounds, .3 treys, 2.0 assists, 1.7 steals, 1.4 blocks and 1.8 TO, with a 48% FG and 81% FT. Expect similar numbers for Childress this season, with fewer blocks, slightly fewer rebounds, and more threes.

Juan Dixon, G, Portland Trailblazers

Juan Gone steps into a starting role this year on a Trailblazers squad in desperate need of leadership and stability. Is he up to the challenge? In four games as a starter in Washington last year, Dixon averaged these numbers:

FG   FT    3PM   PT    REB   AST   ST    BLK   TO
448  900   1.3  16.5   4.0   3.8   3.25  0.5   2.8

The stat that really pops out here is the 3.25 steals. Although Dixon will not come close to duplicating this, he could average nearly 2 steals per game if given 35+ minutes per night. The FG will be closer to .410, but the FT will remain around .900.

A guard who averages 16-4-4 with 1.5 threes and 1.5 steals while averaging 90% from the line—Dixon probably will come close—is welcome on my fantasy roster any time. He could crack the Top 50 if he keeps his turnovers under control and his minutes up.

Caron Butler, F, Washington Wizards

Arthroscopic knee surgery in 2003 slowed Butler’s development after an impressive rookie season with the Heat. Still only 25, Butler now stands poised to join the ranks of fantasy’s elite as Larry Hughes’ likely replacement in Washington.

He never turns the ball over and he's a steals machine. He will shoot around 45% from the field and over 80% from the line, and will probably score in the neighborhood of 18 ppg. During last season's final month, he was ranked #12 overall—just behind Andrei Kirilenko and just ahead of Ray Allen.

After finishing at #55 overall last year, Butler should settle comfortably into the Top 50, with an upside in the Top 30.

Oh snap

The preseason starts tonight with CLE-WAS and SAS-MIA matchups. Let's all enjoy the first fresh boxscores of the new year.

Stoudemire under the knife

It's official.

Amare Stoudemire will undergo exploratory arthrosopic surgery on his knee tomorrow, Tuesday, October 11, after getting medical opinions from three different specialists.

What seems clear is that the Suns wanted one of these doctors to tell them that surgery was not necessary--they were disappointed. Here's the kicker: if nothing is detected, Amare will be out three to four weeks. Ahhhhhhhhh!!!

The real problem is that something probably will be detected. The Suns and the doctors believe something is wrong; otherwise they would not be doing the surgery.

No word on what the recovery time will be if something is wrong, and further surgery is required, but it could be nearly half the season. Owners should feel very uncomfortable taking Amare in the first round.

You know what the worst part is? I have a draft tomorrow.

Amare Stoudemire: Knee injury likely to cause surgery

Amare Stoudemire

In a story that caught most fantasy owners completely off guard, it was reported late on Friday that Amare Stoudemire has a knee injury that may cause him to have arthrosopic surgery before the season begins. The knee had been "troublesome" all summer, but yesterday it got worse.

Reportedly, Amare hobbled through the morning practice on Friday, and then skipped the later session to meet with Dr. Tom Carter, the team's head physician and a renowned orthopedic surgeon who specializes in knee problems. This sounds to me a lot like a pitcher going to have a visit with Dr. James Andrews, and that is not good.

Steve Nash hinted at the possible extent of the injury on Friday night, saying, "In an ideal world, if Amare is only out for a month, it might be good for us to get some of these guys to understand the system and play together and get some minutes and rest Amare's legs."

There's a silver lining in everything, I guess, but for fantasy owners, the news that only a month is the ideal situation is bad news, indeed.

During his rookie season, teammate Shawn Marion had surgery to clean out cartilage in his knee and missed 31 games. That's the downside here, and such a recovery time would cut seriously into Amare's productivity this season. Amare makes his money with his explosive dunking ability, and even upon his return, a lingering knee problem doesn't bode well for his game (remember Vince Carter's "jumper's knee"?).

Amare is the consensus first overall center in fantasy drafts this year, and many draft boards have him going as high as #3 overall, behind only LBJ and KG. We will have to keep an eye on this situation, but needless to say, this should probably move Amare down a little bit on all boards.