Drop The Dime

BPR Power Rankings 1/4/2006

2006-01-04T18:07:00.000-06:00

It's a new year, which means new Blogosphere Poll Rankings over at YAYsports! Be sure to check them out when they are posted tomorrow. Here's my ballot. If ya don't like it, post a comment and tell me why.

1. Detroit
2. San Antonio
3. Dallas
4. Memphis
5. Phoenix
6. Miami
7. Cleveland
8. Minnesota
9. Indiana
10. New Jersey
11. Denver
12. LA Clippers
13. Philadelphia
14. Utah
15. Golden State
16. Milwaukee
17. LA Lakers
18. Washington
19. Boston
20. Chicago
21. Sacramento
22. Seattle
23. Orlando
24. New Orleans
25. Houston
26. Charlotte
27. New York
28. Portland
29. Toronto
30. Atlanta

And be sure to check out my NBA Blog over at The Sporting News.

Could Baron Davis Become the Worst Shooter Ever To Win MVP?

2005-12-02T11:52:00.000-06:00

Find out and discuss at my latest TSN column by clicking below:

Fantasy Basketball Injury Report

2005-11-30T11:06:00.000-06:00

It's been a while since I covered injuries. Let's get to it, in rough order of fantasy relevance.

Theo Ratliff, C, Portland

Last Friday, Ratliff missed a game against Orlando with what was called a sore ankle. Joel Przybilla stepped up for 42 minutes, and went for 15 points, 12 rebounds, and 4 blocks.

Ratliff returned on Sunday, and Przybilla played only 23 minutes, going for 5 points, 5 rebounds, 1 block, and 3 turnovers. Needless to say, I started Przybilla for the latter game and not for the first game.

Last night, Ratliff played only 3 minutes. The Oregonian explained why today: "Blazers center Theo Ratliff had a magnetic resonance imaging on his left foot Monday, but the test was negative. Ratliff played three minutes in the first quarter, but reinjured the foot, and did not return."

Hmmm... A mysterious foot injury. It might be plantar fasciitis, it might be something else. Whatever it is, it's bothering Theo a lot if he's getting MRIs on his foot. With reinjury, it sounds like something that could persist.

If Joel Przybilla has found his way to your league's waiver wire because of his atrocious start to the season, now might be a good time to drop an early-season fluke like Smush Parker and stash away the Vanilla Gorilla.

If it isn't this injury that takes Ratliff out for an extended period, it will be another. Last year, it was his shoulder. This year, it's his foot. The guy is made of glass.

Carmelo Anthony, F, Denver Nuggets

Carmelo limped off the court against the Nets on Monday after spraining his ankle a little more than a minute into the game. He's also expected to miss tonight's game against the Hornets. George Karl says he's optimistic the Melo will play on Friday against Phoenix.

Josh Howard, F, Dallas Mavericks

The news isn't as positive for Josh Howard.

I didn't see this injury, but reports said that he turned his ankle nearly all the way around. An MRI revealed a "moderate sprain" of his ankle, which is projected to keep him out for 2-3 weeks.

Marquis Daniels sees a huge increase in value during this time, as does Jason Terry, who seems to have found his stroke.

Andrei Kirilenko, F, Utah Jazz

The good news is that Kirilenko is back from an ankle sprain that kept him out for seven games over a period of two weeks. The bad news is that he was a non-factor, going for 7 points, 2 boards, 3 dimes, 2 blocks, and 3 TOs in a 24-point blowout loss to the Pacers.

His fantasy owners hope that he can keep dropping dimes at a career-best rate while returning to his career shooting averages. He'll shake the rust off soon; start him.

Peja Stojakovic, F, Sacramento Kings

Stojakovic returned from a lingering hand injury to score 5 points in 22 minutes against the Horents last night. Ugh. His hand injury has followed him the whole season, and doesn't seem to be all the way better.

Start him, but recognize this is something that could linger.

Eddy Curry, C, New York Knicks

Curry hopes to be back from a calf injury to play against his ex-teammates on the Bulls tonight. Will his starting job be waiting for him when he does? Channing Frye has filled in more than admirably in Curry's absence.

Curry recently said, "Next year, I'll be unbelievable... I watch Sweetney and can see the things they [Knicks big man coaches Aguirre and Herb Wiliams] taught him. It's crazy." Huh. Nothing like making your new employer forget about the guy they let go, eh?

Eddy's been thinking about next year every year since he came into the league, and the results show it. DO IT THIS YEAR, EDDY. Shaq thinks Eddy will come into his own and become an elite NBA center. Call me unconvinced.

Leandro Barbosa, G, Phoenix Suns

Barbosa is progressing well in his return from a sprained knee and could be back on the floor as early as next week. Keep your fingers crossed. His nightly numbers make him one of the Top 50 fantasy players in the game, according to fantasyanalyzer.com.

Rick Brunson, G, Seattle SuperSonics

Brunson will miss at least six weeks after tearing the plantar fascia in his foot. Yawn.

Jonathan Bender, F, Indiana Pacers

Jonathan Bender may never be able to play again after receving word that the cartilage in both of his knees is completely gone. He hasn't played a whole lot during his 4-year, $28 million contract. Pacers fans can thank Isiah Thomas for failing to do his due diligence. A major yawn from a fantasy perspective.

That's it. Let me know in the comments section if there's anyone I missed.

TSN Blog 11/29/05

2005-11-29T13:49:00.000-06:00

Comment on my latest TSN blog about the Andrei Kirilenko's return to Jazz lineup here:

A Joel Przybilla Sighting! A Marko Jaric Sighting!

2005-11-25T20:12:00.000-06:00

Either Joel Przybilla or Marko Jaric returning to the ranks of fantasy relevance on any given night would be enough to stir joy in the hearts of the many owners (like me) who drafted these two anywhere before the twelfth round on draft day. But both... having huge games... on the same night? It's a gift from God!

Joel Przybilla

The Vanilla Gorilla was a huge favorite of mine heading into the season. He hasn't nearly lived up to his potential this season because his playing time under Nate McMillan has been in the toilet.

But tonight, Przybilla put up 15 points, 12 rebounds, 4 blocks, 2 assists, and no turnovers on 6-8 shooting while playing 42 minutes. Outside of the points, Joel could put up numbers like this every night. He hasn't because of Theo Ratliff, nemesis of Przybilla owners worldwide.

For some reason that wasn't discussed in AP's post-game recap, Theo Ratliff didn't play a single minute in tonight's game. "Coach's Decision" was the reason listed in the box, but it's unlikely that McMillan just decided to not to play the Rattler. As I see it, there are two possibilites.

A) Ratliff is injured... maybe that problematic shoulder from last year is acting up again.

B) Ratliff, along with malcontent Ruben Patterson, has been traded for additional young scrubs to fill out Portland's roster, and the trade has not been announced yet.

The latter possibility is almost too beautiful to consider for any long period of time... Let's wait and see. Maybe Theo just missed the game because of personal reasons, or was feeling a little under the weather.

Marko Jaric

First of all, is it just me, or does Marko have a little bit of a young-Peter-Falk thing going on?

More importantly... At the end of the 3rd quarter of the Bucks-Wolves game when I write this, Jaric has 21 points, 4 assists, 2 threes, and 3 steals on 9-13 shooting.

Wolves coach Dwayne Casey had refused to make a lineup change to jolt a "wallowing" Jaric out of his slump, according to the rumors compiled by Inside HOops, and instead has encouraged Jaric to stop thinking too much. Says Casey: "I told him, just play."

Rejoice! It looks like Casey's sage advice may actually be paying off for one of fantasy's biggest busts so far.

Thanksgiving

2005-11-24T09:58:00.000-06:00

Ah yes. It's finally here. And so are a couple of TNT basketball games.

Please check out my Sporting News blog on what to look forward to in basketball this week by following the link below:

Can Artest Keep His Cool?

The BPRs are in!

2005-11-22T09:51:00.000-06:00

I feel like you've got to keep the defending champs on top unless they really screw something up, but hey... who am I?

The full poll can be found below:

You can see the full results here, the team grid here, or the voting for each member blog here.

A hint for the grids: just click on the green arrow, and you'll see how the voting broke down.

Enjoy.

NBA Blogosphere Poll Rankings (BPR) #2 - 11/21/05

2005-11-21T17:42:00.000-06:00

With two more weeks in the books, my NBA rankings have changed dramatically. The Top 3 remain the same, but wait... is that the... it couldn't be... the Cavaliers *and* the Clippers in the Top 5?

1. San Antonio
2. Detroit
3. Dallas
4. Cleveland
5. LA Clippers
6. Indiana
7. Denver
8. Washington
9. Miami
10. Minnesota
11. Phoenix
12. New Jersey
13. Memphis
14. Golden State
15. LA Lakers
16. Philadelphia
17. Milwaukee
18. Boston
19. Chicago
20. Charlotte
21. Seattle
22. Sacramento
23. Utah
24. New Orleans
25. Houston
26. New York
27. Orlando
28. Portland
29. Toronto
30. Atlanta

Questions? Comments? If your team ranked poorly, it's not my fault--your team probably sucks!

Look for the complete, compiled rankings tomorrow over at yaySPORTS!

Blowing Up

2005-11-17T00:22:00.000-06:00

Here are a few players whose situations are changing. If they're available on your waiver wire, pick them up: they shouldn't be there much longer.

Nick Collison: Dude is the man. Even before he missed his entire rookie season due to a shoulder injury, he had the talent to put up a near double-double every night and shoot an outstanding percentage from the field. Now, after the Sonics' 41 point beatdown at the hands of the Wiz last week caused new coach Bob Weiss to shuffle his starting lineup, Collison is getting the minutes to do so. After putting up 20 and 12 (1 turnover) in his first start of the season, Nick put up 19, 13, and 3 tonight--with no turnovers. Add now.

Mike Sweetney: He's knocking on the door of the starting lineup in Chicago and went for 24 points and 14 rebounds tonight in only 26 minutes. At that rate, he won't even need to start. If he does, he could be a scoring/rebounding monster.

Leandro Barbosa: James Jones and Boris Diaw have been relegated to bench duty, and Barbosa is putting up some serious digits in the starting lineup. Tonight it was 17 points, 6 rebounds, 4 assists, and 2 threes. Last game it was 19 points, 5 rebounds, and 3 assists. Um, find a spot for him if you can. He should add steals, too.

Jarrett Jack or Juan Dixon: Starter Sebastian Telfair sustained what looked like a pretty vicious sprained ankle tonight, and if he misses any time, one of these guys will replace him. Regular readers know I like Dixon's fantasy game; if Jack is the one who steps in instead, he could put up some major-league assist numbers.

Mike James: Don't do what I did, kids: don't drop Mike James. Pick him up. I dropped him for Barbosa, then dropped Barbosa for Collison--and Mike James got picked up in my league in the meantime. He scored a career-high 38 points tonight after scoring a then-career high 36 points two games ago. Consistency is not his strong point, but games like this are hard to ignore. Expect Jose Calderon to play less--a lot less--as long as James keeps balling out like this.

As always, please read my new blog--and leave comments on it!--at http://www.sportingnews.com/nba/.

Check out my new blog on SportingNews.com!

2005-11-15T18:15:00.000-06:00

Hi there,

I just started writing an online NBA blog for The Sporting News. You can find my first article here:

http://www.sportingnews.com/experts/michael-dueser/blog/672784.html

Although there are some name-mispelling issues (it's "Deuser") that might change the file path, you should be able to see all of my new articles on TSN's main NBA page at:

SportingNews.com NBA Main Page

The current plan is for me to write something like this four times per week (Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday), and TSN and I would like to get as many comments on my articles as we possibly can. You don't have to agree with me and you don't have to disagree with me--anything you have to contribute in response would be hugely appreciated.

If you aren't already a registered TSN member, the free registration process is pretty quick and painless.

You can even see how much of a resemblance I bear to Fidel Castro in real life!

Thanks again for your help.

-Michael

Prediction Disasters

2005-11-12T16:48:00.000-06:00

It has come time to admit that several of my early-season sleeper picks have not come to fruition, primarily because of playing time situations. Let's first have a look at picks that have been, well, bad so far:

Raja Bell: I predicted points in the high teens and about 2 threes per game for Bell this year, but after seeing his playing time drop from the 30s to the mid-upper 20s with the emergence of Diaw and Barbosa, it looks unlikely he'll be able to put up these numbers. Leandro Barbosa is the new starter in Phoenix. Whether he'll be worth picking up depends on whether he can break the 30 mpg barrier. Although he seems to be a gifted scorer, I would not count on it.

James Jones: See above. I predicted over 2 threes per game for the young Jones, but the versatile Boris Diaw has now become the starter over Jones.

Josh Childress: I predicted a ridiculous bust-out year for Childress, something along the lines of 16 and 9, with all the trimmings. On a team constructed entirely from 6'9" swingmen just like him, Childress is losing playing time (28.4 mpg, down from last year's average) and shots (5.8 per game). This has him producing an ugly 8.4 points and 3.2 boards per game. He's efficient as all hell, but can't be prolific enough to put up useful fantasy numbers if he's not playing true starters' minutes. J-Chill played 35 minutes the first game of the season and only 19 last game: if something doesn't change, he'll be a drop candidate in the next couple of weeks. He deserves to be playing.

Juan Dixon: I predicted 16-4-4 out of Dixon. Um, yeah. At a little bit over 16 mpg, Dixon--signed to be a starter--isn't playing any more this season in Portland than he did last year in Washington. It must hurt to not get minutes on a team filled with bad high school ballers, but it is what it is. Dixon belongs on no rosters.

The Good News:

Playing team is still in flux all over the league, especially on teams like the Hawks and Blazers (ahem). There's still a chance that these guys will come roaring back to life over the next few months as their coaches realize that they're better than the guys they are starting (Charles Smith, for instance, is currently a starter in Portland). If the guys above are getting dropped to the wire, the shrewd owner (particularly in the case of Childress) can grab them up and stash them until their day comes. When it does, they'll be rewarded handsomely.

Of course, there's also the chance that they will obstinately stick to rotations that make no sense.

In the meantime, guys like Leandro Barbosa and Al Jefferson have probably made their way to the wire, and are likely to make their debuts in their respective starting lineups soon.

When the fantasy gods close a door, they usually open a window. Keep your eyes peeled.

Random Thoughts

2005-11-09T01:09:00.000-06:00

Apparently, the Jameer Nelson experiment in Orlando at the end of last season was too successful for an Orlando Magic team that has become accustomed to losing. New head coach Brian Hill has reinstated Steve Francis to his role as starting point guard/ball hog and early results have been, well…terrible. While the Magic pulled out their first victory of the season on Tuesday with a 76-74 win over a Houston team struggling without T-Mac, “Franchise” was well on his way to blowing it down the stretch, just as he did against Washington on Friday, before Nelson came off the bench to take over the game’s final three minutes. There’s only one franchise player on this team, and his name is Dwight Howard, who took just one shot during the entire fourth quarter. Although some fans might dig the “excitement” that Stevie’s high-flying, shot-chucking, no-passing game brings to the table, scoring less than 80 points per game and blowing late leads is a sure way to keep the fans away in droves. If the Magic want to start scoring points, they need to find a point guard who can distribute the ball to the post and play smart down the stretch. Nelson deserves the opportunity to run the team with Francis shifting over to shooting guard, where his ability to create shots will be more useful and his innate selfishness will be less of a liability.

In yet another indication of how boring it can be to follow basketball north of the border, the most exciting news surrounding the Raptors these days is a point guard controversy… between Mike James and Jose Calderon. The Spanish youngster Calderon is a great distributor (4.5 assist/turnover ratio), but Toronto desperately needs James’ scoring. Yes, Raps fans, that is a very scary thing. I give Sam Mitchell about another month before the axe falls.

Earth to Peja… Earth to Peja… After assuaging early concerns by going off for 33 points on Sunday night, the Slavic sharpshooter put worried looks back on the faces of Kings fans and fantasy owners everywhere by putting up an ugly 9-point performance on 4-13 shooting against the Pistons. The career 46.5% shooter is now shooting a miserable 40.9% in what was supposed to be a huge contract year. Maybe he's been a little too busy posing for shirtless publicity photos and not busy enough working on his jumper.

Needless to say, my team is doing pretty crappy right now, shooting .416 from the field and .691 from the line. I'm not ready to throw in the towel yet, but I'd be lying if I told you I wasn't a little worried. Peja has been sucking, Kirilenko's mask is messing up his shot, and Dwight Howard has not been getting the shots he needs to get to be effective--or converting at a high percentage on the ones he has gotten.

Pray for Mojo.

NBA Blogosphere Poll Rankings - Week #1

2005-11-06T18:38:00.000-06:00

After a minor redesign to make the site a little tighter (pretty much just a banner), I've become a charter member of the Blogosphere Poll Rankings (BPR) hosted over at YAYsports! (the exclamation point is theirs, not mine, although I am excited).

Basically, the pitch goes like this: get some fanatical bloggers from their respective sports together and publish rankings to compete with the bust-ass "official" rankings put out by the major news outlets. Genius, no? From here, it's just a few small steps to worldwide blog domination. At the Drop the Dime, we're happy to be on the ground floor.

Without further ado, here is my inaugural NBA BPR ballot, complete with snarky comments. Check YAYsports! on Tuesday for the final rankings.

1. San Antonio
2. Detroit: Flip Saunders thinks he died and went to heaven
3. Dallas
4. Indiana
5. Miami: Wade & Co. must step up with Shaq gone
6. Denver: Much better than you think (or than their record shows)
7. Phoenix: Nash-to-Marion softens the blow of losing Amare
8. Washington
9. LA Clippers: Finally, a real point guard for a talented starting 5
10. New Jersey: Kidd, Jefferson & Carter will soon be off to the races
11. Boston
12. Chicago
13. Milwaukee: T.J. Ford having Nash-like impact; Magloire helps too
14. Utah
15. Minnesota
16. Houston: Losing McGrady hurts badly
17. Golden State: Baron Davis already injured
18. Seattle
19. LA Lakers
20. Cleveland
21. Philadelphia: AI & C-Webb 'coexisting'; getting outscored by 11
22. Charlotte
23. Memphis
24. Sacramento: Chemistry experiment gone wrong in Sacto
25. New York: Larry Brown breaking em down before he builds em up
26. New Orleans
27. Orlando
28. Atlanta
29. Portland: Why would McMillan leave Seattle for this?
30. Toronto: Do they wonder why basketball hasn't caught on in Canada?

Blowing Up, Point Guard Edition

2005-11-03T10:21:00.000-06:00

Ah yes, it's the return of Blowing Up. Unfortunately, Nels scooped all of my hot prospects over at Give Me The Rock. Not like it's a big secret... Anyway, I'm going to narrow things down to PGs only.

Chris Duhon, PG, Chicago Bulls

It's like whoa. Apparently, he shook of his concussion. He had his first career triple double last night, going for 18 points, 10 rebounds, and 12 assists. I don't really know what to think of this, considering he just wasn't that great last year. If his next game is anything like his last one, make sure he's not still on your waiver wire.

Delonte West, PG, Boston Celtics

With Delonte West, Dan Dickau, Marcus Banks, and lately some guy named Orien Greene all competing for the starting spot in Boston, this season had "point guard controversy" written all over it. West went a long way towards putting that controversy to rest on Wednesday with 14 points, 9 rebounds, 9 assists, 3 steals, and 4 blocks. Daaaaaamn. Looks worth a pickup.

T.J. Ford, PG, Milwaukee Bucks

If you don't know, axe somebody. This guy wasn't exactly under my radar this preseason, but I did think he'd need some time to shake the rust off after missing all of last season to a spinal cord injury that nearly paralyzed him. During his rookie year, he went for 7.1 points, 6.5 assists, and 3.2 rebounds on 38.4% FG shooting, so I was hardly projecting superstardom.

It's early, but it looks like I was wrong. Way wrong. In the first two games, Ford is averaging 18.5 points, 10 assists, and 6.5 rebounds in 38.0 mpg. The 4.0 turnovers and 37% shooting hurt, but with numbers like those, they're a price worth paying. Look out below. He won't keep up this pace, but like Charles Barkley says, "T.J. Ford is a point guard."

Sam Cassell, PG, Los Angeles Clippers

This is an I-told-you-so pick. The Alien went off on Wednesday night, going for 35 points, 11 assists, 5 rebounds, and 4 threes on 53% FG shooting and 100% FT shooting. He turned the ball over once.

I drafted dude in the ninth round of my draft this year. He looks like a pretty good investment. Hope yall took my advice and didn't get scared off by all the noise about Shaun Livingston. Cassell is the starter for good.

NBA Injury Roundup

2005-11-03T09:54:00.000-06:00

I'll try to make this a weekly affair. I know how frustrating it is to go through every roster clicking on the little yellow notebooks...

Nene: You hate to be right in situations like these. Nene did, indeed, tear his ACL in his awkward fall in the first quarter of his opening night game. He's done for the season. Not too many fantasy owners were depending on Nene, but those that were should drop him immediately to the wire since the NBA (and fantasy leagues along with it) has eliminated the IL.

Kirk Hinrich: Kirk sprained his ankle in the Bulls' Wed. night game against the Bobcats and was on crutches after the game. It's being classified as mild-to-moderate, so don't get too worried, but Kirk's production might be limited for a week or so. Hope he doesn't miss any games.

Q. Richardson: Dude is wearing ice-packs during the game on his chronically sore back. Come on man, you're 25. He only played 22 minutes in the game. I've never liked Q Rich's game anyway, but the combination of leaving Steve Nash's side, this lingering back injury, and 22 minutes per game under taskmaster Larry Brown puts his fantasy value in the toilet. If you can find a taker, deal this guy.

Tracy McGrady: Recently said of his knee tendinitis: "It was pretty bad. It really was, to the point I was getting concerned, and didn't know how effective I would be." Early returns say he'll be OK, as he went for a TMac-esque line of 23 points, 5 rebounds, 4 assists, 1 steal 1 block 1 turnover. Keep an eye on his knees, but keep him in your lineup (obviously).

Gerald Wallace: On Monday he strained his left shoulder. Then he came out and went 28-5-4 with 5 steals to start the season. All systems go for a guy who could really be a fantasy standout this year.

Carlos Boozer: Continues not to play because of hamstring issues. Dude's a punk.

Sam Dalembert: See above.

Manu Ginobili: Bruised right quadriceps limited his effectiveness in the opener, holding him to 29 minutes and pretty pedestrian numbers overall. Has this guy gone from being perenially underrated to perenially overrated, fantasy-wise?

Kenyon Martin: His surgically repaired right knee collided with Finley's, and he whined about it little, but his numbers are right where they should be. Should be OK for the time being.

Nene's Knee: Hilario leaves season opener with "sprained" ACL

2005-11-02T00:32:00.000-06:00

During the first quarter of Denver’s opening night game against the Spurs, Nuggets PF Nene Hilario crumpled awkwardly to the court on a routine drive to the basket and had to be helped off by trainers.

After a preliminary examination, team doctors said that Nene had “at least” a sprained anterior cruciate ligament. Doctors are generally a pretty precise bunch, and when they use terms like “at least,” it’s usually because they know something more is wrong. Remember Amare Stoudemire’s “exploratory” knee surgery?

It is too early to say that Nene’s injury is definitely an ACL tear, but based on the video—the injury was unprovoked—and early reports, it seems like a distinct possibility. This would be devastating not only for the Nuggets, but for fantasy owners who drafted Nene assuming (correctly, in all likelihood) that starting center Marcus Camby will miss significant time this season due to injury.

Most importantly, though, it would be a shame for Nene who, upon getting word from the Nuggets on Monday that his contract would not be extended replied: “That’s OK. I’m going to play great this season.” Nene, who was seeking a deal similar to the six-year, $64 million deal that Sam Dalembert signed with Sixers last season, would have to settle for substantially less if he misses the entire season due to injury.

This news should also put a chill on rumors that Nene will be traded to the Chicago Bulls.

Cross your fingers that tomorrow’s reevaluation of Nene’s knee brings good news for one of the NBA’s most exciting and athletic young post players.

Storylines to watch as the 2005-06 begins

2005-11-02T00:29:00.000-06:00

The NBA Dress Code: Stephen Jackson thinks it’s racist. Tim Duncan thinks it’s stupid. Marcus Camby doesn’t really care, but he wants the NBA to pay for his suits. Just when I was about to dismiss Stephen Jackson’s accusations, Phil Jackson came along and gave them all kinds of credence by referring to the hip-hop flavored wardrobes popular among today’s ballers as “prison garb.” Um, Phil: that’s what the kids are wearing these days! It’s actually a huge business! So much for the Zen Master being so cool. Everyone is trying to predict what fans will think of the new rules. Why don’t we just go straight to the source: what do the readers think?

LVP Allen Iverson: Unlike David Stern, I’m not phased by Iverson’s tattoos, T-shirts, or chains. It’s his game that bothers me. This guy caused celebration last year when he shot 42.4% from the field. I guess that does look good when you shoot 38.7% the previous year. He also can’t shoot the three (career 30.7%), and a career free throw percentage under 80% for a star guard is, well…bad. Iverson did drop 8 assists per game last year—and his assist/turnover ratio was still under 2! He turned the ball over 4.6 times per game! Everyone points the finger at Webber for his failure to coexist with Iverson, but Larry Hughes and Jerry Stackhouse also had trouble playing with The Answer. Here’s The Question: wouldn’t you have trouble “coexisting” with a bad passer and a bad shooter with a bad attitude who insisted on shooting the ball 25 times a game?

The emancipation of Melo: After a sophomore season marred by an overall failure to improve on the court and the off-the-court release of an underground DVD that warned viewers to “Stop Snitching,” Carmelo Anthony looks poised to have a breakout season under George Karl in Denver. He showed off improved passing and shooting skills during the preseason and scored seven points in the first four minutes of the Nuggets’ opener in San Antonio. Is 25+ points per game and playoff glory out of reach for the 21-year-old Melo? Don’t snitch!

Rising Suns: When the Suns elected to let Joe Johnson and Quentin Richardson walk, chances are they didn’t expect to lose franchise cornerstone Amare Stoudemire for four months to knee microfracture surgery. Now missing 3/5 of the starting lineup from last year’s Cinderella team, the Suns are relying on previous unknowns Raja Bell and James Jones, a former Reggie Miller protégé, to pick up the slack. Will they be enough to keep the Suns afloat and playoff-eligible until Amare gets healthy?

A Tale of Two Cities: NO 93, SAC 67

2005-11-02T00:12:00.000-06:00

New Orleans/Oklahoma City Hornets

After enduring a gut-wrenching 18-64 season by the hometown basketball team in 2004-05, the city of New Orleans endured one of the worst natural disasters in U.S. history during the offseason. It’s safe to say that it can’t get much worse.

In their first game at their temporary home in Oklahoma City, the Hornets blew out the Kings by 26 points, getting great games from youngster J.R. Smith (19 points, 5 rebounds, 3 assists, 1 turnover) and rookie Chris Paul (13 points, 8 rebounds, 4 assists, 2 steals). Even more encouraging for Byron Scott’s crew was the fact that they dominated without a meaningful contribution from newly-acquired swingman Desmond Mason, who played only 16 minutes and scored only 1 point. Count on Mason to start scoring in bunches once he gets the hang of the offense.

So are we looking at a juggernaut this season in Oklahoma City? Probably not. Are we looking at a winning team? Um, no. So what can we expect? Highlight reel dunks from Smith and Mason, head-turning passes by Chris Paul and Speedy Claxton, a ton of blocks for “The Birdman” Chris Andersen, and tremendous improvement from the top of the roster to the bottom. This might actually be a fun team to watch. After a year like these players and this city have had, that in itself is cause for celebration. Right!?

Sacramento Kings

How do you get blown out by 26 points by the Hornets?

It’s a good question, and one that we won’t be able to answer until the new-look Kings get some more games under their belt.

After making wholesale roster changes in the middle of last season, replacing C-Webb and Doug Christie in the starting lineup with Kenny Thomas and Cuttino Mobley, the Kings shook things up again in the offseason by inserting Shareef Abdur-Rahim and Bonzi Wells in the same two spots.

Suffice it to say, the early returns aren’t promising. Sacto fans who have become accustomed to winning have a wicked collective hangover this morning. The Queens shot a miserable 31.2% from the field and looked very weak on defense against a team whose offense was rated dead last in the league last year.

The good news is that the Kings turned the ball over “only” 18 times on a night when nothing seemed to be working. Coach Rick Adelman has his work cut out for him this year with a roster full of NBA retreads, but he’s one of the best in the business.

Do the 2005-06 Kings have what it takes to return to their perennial pretty-goodness?

Free Etan Thomas

2005-10-29T11:55:00.000-05:00

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

2005-10-28T22:12:00.000-05:00

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

2005-10-27T22:20:00.000-05:00

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

2005-10-24T23:31:00.000-05:00

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

2005-10-24T09:07:00.000-05:00

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

2005-10-17T15:46:00.000-05:00

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

2005-10-15T22:49:00.000-05:00

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

2005-10-12T17:15:00.000-05:00

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

2005-10-10T20:26:00.000-05:00

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

2005-10-10T20:10:00.000-05:00

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

2005-10-08T12:15:00.000-05:00

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.

Blowing Up: Maurice "Mo" Williams, Milwaukee Bucks Starter

2005-03-01T14:43:00.000-06:00

Maurice Williams, PG, Milwaukee Bucks

THEN

Until the trading deadline, many fantasy owners looked on with horror as Mo Williams, a sophomore NBA player out of Alabama drafted by the Jazz in the secound round, split time with Mike James at point for the Milwaukee Bucks.

At the beginning of the season, James was having trouble staying healthy and staying on the court, which resulted in Mo Money playing slightly more minutes than, it turned out, he would when James was healthy.

In the month of November, Williams averaged 9.9 points, 7.4 assists, 3.5 rebounds, 3.0 turnovers, and .8 steals, while shooting .411 FG, .800 FG, and converting .1 threes per game on .4 attempts per game.

Now, I'll agree with you that those numbers are not pretty, and are--almost certainly--numbers you should not be starting.

However, I'm also obligated to tell you that his minutes during that month were, to say the least, all over the place. I'm not the first one to note that the Bucks' playing rotation, outside of huge minutes for Redd and Dez Mason, has been something of a mystery all year.

In that month of November, the Bucks played 12 games. In these 12 games, Mo Williams played over 30 minutes in exactly six of them (these were the games in which, I assume, James was injured). In these six games, he averaged 38.5 minutes and 10.67 assists per game.

Mike James moving on to greener pastures means great things for the fantasy values of both James and the one he left behind, Mo Williams.

Even when James was in town, there was no doubt that Mo was the top dog: Mo has played in 54 games this season, and he's started every single one (not bad for a second-year point guard who averaged just over 13 minutes during his first year in the league). Nevertheless, the powers that be played a deep rotation, with the talented James also on the roster: as of today, Mo is averaging 26.9 minutes per game on the year.

NOW

But take note! In the two games since James' departure, Mo has played 35 and 36 minutes, respectively, and has impressed to the tune of 16.5 points, 8.5 assists, 2.0 steals, and .5 threes per game on .600 FG and 1.000 FT.

Now, before we get too excited, those numbers represent too small a sample size to be even marginally useful. The FG is a mirage, as are the steals. This guy cannot play defense, and should be suitably atrocious in the STL and BLK columns for as long as he's playing basketball.

He also is not a very good long-range shooter, or a particularly good shooter, period. He's making 33.3% of his .8 attempts per game this year.

To top it off, Mo has an affinity for turning the ball over. His ratio (2+) isn't bad, but it isn't great, and his raw turnover numbers are definitely on the high side.

That being said, the numbers that ARE real are the FT (he doesn't enjoy missing them) and the assists.

If you missed out on Brevin Knight earlier in the year, Maurice Williams should be a good (and less injury prone) consolation prize, without the steals.

Here are the broad strokes, projection-wise: .430 FG, .850 FT, 12 PTS, 4.5 REB, 8.5 AST, 1.0 STL, .5 3PM, 3.0 TO. That might be wishful thinking, but you can hold me to it...

MO MONEY MO MONEY MO MONEY

During a time of year when waiver pickings are slim, Williams could be a gem, and there is no playing time competition in sight. James is gone. T.J. Ford, one-time Bucks point guard of the future, won't play this year, and probably won't ever play again. Reece Gaines (a rookie of out Louisville, acquired in the James trade) and Erick Strickland (8 years of NBA experience, no fireworks) are hanging around on the bench, that's where they'll stay. I don't think Gaines will ever be that good, but if he turns out to be, it won't be until next year.

My guess is that Mo Money continues to play not only 30+ minutes for the remainder of the year, but closer to 35+, which makes him a tasty assists add, indeed. Now let's see how often he can get to the line...

Kings Trade Webber to 76ers for Kenny Thomas, Spare Tire

2005-02-23T23:40:00.000-06:00

The dejected C-Webb

News of the following trade broke late Wednesday night:

SACRAMENTO receives:

Brian Skinner
Kenny Thomas
Corliss Williamson

PHILADELPHIA receives:

Chris Webber
Matt Barnes
Michael Bradley

Apparently, the Kings felt it necessary to undo the windfall that was the acquisition of Cuttino Mobley (and Michael Bradley).

In effect, now, the Kings have traded Doug Christie and Chris Webber for Cuttino Mobley, Brian Skinner, Corliss Williamson. and Kenny Thomas. Seems like kind of a mish-mash, doesn't it? Surely there must be some design here...

THEY SET ME UP

Obviously, the deal is financially motivated. Webber had three years left on a contract that was paying him over $18 MILLION per year, on average. The Petries of Sacramento were either stupid enough or desperate enough to sign Webber to a 7 year, $127 million deal... in 2001. Those were the salad days for Webber, as he was putting up 25 points a game on 50% shooting, with 10 boards and close to 5 assists to go along with 1.5 steals and 1.5 blocks.

But but but... Webber played only 70 games in 2000, and 54 in 2001. The handwriting was on the wall that Webber had already begun his decline phase. Well here he is, halfway into this contract, performing pretty well on one knee, and looking like an absolutely awful bet to keep playing anywhere near this well (if at all) by the final two years of this contract.

Still, I don't see how this improves the Kings in the short-term, or in the long term. I'd like to know more about the contracts of the guys acquired--hopefully they expire soon--because none of the new acquisitions is a particularly good match in Sacramento. Yes, Williamson has been here before, and been successful... as a backup to Webber. Let's see how he does now, older, as a backup to Kenny Thomas.

Chris Webber is getting disrespected here. It has to sting a little bit for a man who ressurected the franchise in Sacramento. He's getting traded for absolute trash. If Chris Webber can maintain a similar level of production and reasonable health over the remainder of his contract, I say he's a lock for the Hall of Fame. That's like, really, really good.

Neither Kenny Thomas, nor Corliss Williamson, nor Brian Skinner (especially not Brian Skinner) is fit to sniff Webber's jock. And yet there he is, getting traded for them. Take the talented, young Matt Barnes and Michael Bradley also, please, so that you my take our All Star for your table scraps.

THE NEW LOOK KINGS

Bottom line: The Kings didn't get younger; they didn't get better; they didn't get more athletic; they didn't get more versatile. They went and acquired two lifetime sixth men and spot starters, and another guy who probably doesn't deserve a spot in the Association anymore. I hope for their sake that they are saving a whole, whole bunch of money, and that the contracts of their new acquisitions expire soon. These are the guys that were and have been instrumental in making Philadelphia suck!

Say hello to your Sacramento Kings:

PG Bibby
SG Mobley
SF Stojakovic
PF Kenny Thomas/Corliss Williamson
C Brad Miller

What can I say? I don't like the move. This seriously hurts the Kings' chances of competing deep into the playoffs this year. What could make this sting even worse down the road, even if both of Webber's knees explode tomorrow, is that both Bradley and Barnes are talented, and could emerge as the second and third most valuable players involved in this deal, given time to grow and time to play.

THE NEW LOOK SIXERS

Say hello to your Philadelphia 76ers

PG Allen Iverson
SG Andre Iguodala
SF Kyle Korver
PF Chris Webber
C Sam Dalembert/Marc Jackson

Now that, ladies and gentlemen, is a well-constructed lineup, that now has oustanding rebounding, defense, and scoring in the post to go along with a backcourt that features great perimeter defense and the ability to either hit the sweet, sweet 3 (Korver) or slash to the lane and score or dish (the Two AIs).

It will be interesting to see the extent to which Philadelphia's offense gets diverted to the post.

For Webber to get his dimes, he needs to have the ball in his hands standing near the top of the key, and it's hard to see Iverson giving up that responsiblity (he should). On the other hand, if they do let Webber do his thang, he has some great targets to find standing on the wing or on devastating backdoor cuts (Iguodala and Iverson: they're fast).

It'll also be interesting to see how Webber's scoring is affected. It could go up, because Philly does not have anywhere near the offensive weaponry that Sacramento did. Korver's a good scorer, but probably not a good #2 scorer. Iverson likes his shots, to be sure, but I think Webber will continue to get his at a clip similar to what he's been doing.

This trade could be good, fantasy wise, for every player in the Philly starting lineup. If C-Webb's knee holds up, he'll provide great stability for this playoff-hungry team.

Perhaps the biggest fantasy benefactor of the trade is Sacramento's Brad Miller. When Webber has been on the shelf this year, he's been spectacular. He doesn't turn the ball over and he drops the dimes... a lot. Webber was taking his touches and his dimes. I don't think 16 10 5 1.5 1.5 is outlandish to expect from Miller for the remainder of the season. He may even improve on that. He's quite good. His minutes will be up and his role will be increased.

This is the very definition of a blockbuster trade. We'll have to wait a little bit before we can really analyze the fallout.

Gasol Redux: Foot Fracture

2005-02-23T00:33:00.000-06:00

Look who showed up at the party:

***

Feb 22 The timetable for Grizzlies forward Pau Gasol is uncertain, but the team knows he will not return to action this week, according to the Memphis Commercial-Appeal. The injury had been classified as a sprained foot, then a sore foot, and last week X-rays revealed a thin fracture. Memphis head coach Mike Fratello was quoted as saying, "If he misses a total of six, seven or eight weeks and comes back healthy and give us a lot for the stretch run, then that's very important."

Views: The problem with coach Fratello's statement is it doesn't help fantasy owners who were planning on relying on Gasol's expected production this season. With Gasol and Stromile Swift out indefinitely, this clearly makes the Grizzlies grasp on the seventh seed in the Western conference, as fragile as, well, an ankle or foot in the Memphis locker room. Fantasy owners should continue to leave Gasol inactive until further notice.

***

There's Fanball for you. Apparently, Fanball missed out on the "plantar fasciitis" classification, which was the most recent.

I told you on January 25 that something was very wrong with Pau Gasol's foot, and it was more than the Grizzlies were letting on (or, as it turns out, knew).

Foot problems are a big topic of discussion on this blog; if you've read them, you'll know that foot fracture is one of the differential diagnoses for plantar fasciitis. Yeah, on this one, it looks like the docs missed that little, um, fracture in the middle of Pau's foot.

They probably have reason to be sheepish, as he's probably been "rehabbing" his broken foot as though he had plantar fasciitis. Something tells me that if the X-ray had been recogized as positive the first time out, Pau would have spent a lot more time in an immobile boot.

Pau's been on the IL now for more than a month. I'd be shocked if he were back before another month has come and gone. Actually, I'd be surprised, knowing what I do now, if he weren't out longer.

I don't think you can realistically expect Gasol to come back at any point this regular season and be quite the player he was before the injury. It's going to take some time. Maybe I'm wrong, though. Gasol owners, cross your fingers.

SPIN

If only the spin were that easy. I told you to pick up Stromile Swift when Gasol first went out, and he's been good. Problem is, Stromile just went out with a major foot injury being described right now as a severe sprain.

For what it's worth, Stromile says the pain is so bad that "he can't even think about playing basketball" right now. Ouch. See, Stromile, that's the problem. Thinking... it shouldn't hurt. We have to remember here that Stromile Swift's alma mater, LSU, famous for its student athletes, is the same place that produced Shaquille "Big Aristotle" O'Neal, who is a serious idiot and has never seemed to care.

Keep an eye on Battier's (can they go any higher?!) and Lorenzen Wright's minutes. With no one to share minutes with in the frontcourt, he could be a great points and rebounds guy and a definite double-double candidate.

Blowing Up: Joel Przybilla

2005-02-17T10:50:00.000-06:00

Joel Przybilla, C, Portland Trail Blazers

If you don't know, you better ask somebody.

If you need blocks and rebounds--and maybe even if you don't--Joel Przybilla needs to be on your roster right now.

He's been so good recently in these two categories that it might be worth your while to pick him up, even if you don't intend to play him, just so one of your leaguemates can't pick him up, play him, and erode your numbers in these categories.

Pryzbilla's numbers over the past five games are, in a word, dominant. In two words, they're uber-dominant.

During the month of February, Godzylla (props to Shep at Give Me The Rock for the nickname and the original dime on Przybilla when he first started showing signs of life a week or two ago) has averaged 11.1 REB and 3.2 BLK in 9 games.

Over the same time span, Ben Wallace (who I drafted in the second round) has averaged 10.0 REB and 2.1 BLK. If I was certain that Przybilla would average over 30 minutes a game for the rest of the season, I'd be tempted to trade Big Ben right about now for other needs.

There are a couple of major differences between Wallace and Godzylla.

First, Joel actually knows how to finish around the hoop. Ben is shooting .450 from the field this season, improving on his atrocies .421 FG last year. Ouch. Przybilla is shooting .641 FG this season. Nice.

Second, Benson steals the ball, a lot, to the tune of 1.8 per game this year. This is a skill that's exceedingly rare at the C, and one that shouldn't be overlooked. Przybilla couldn't steal the ball if you threw it at his hands.

I'm not saying Joel is as good as Ben. I am saying that the difference isn't as big as you think it is.

PLAYING TIME FORECAST

Przybilla's minutes have been up recently for a few reasons.

First, and most obviously, he's good, he's a hard worker, and he has a good attitude. All three will eventually impress someone in the league, even if you are a corny ass white dude, and they'll impress even more on a team where the latter two are in very short supply.

Second, Theo Ratliff is all banged up. He's got shoulder bursitis (making it very difficult to block shots), and he apparently has a calf injury. Last night he only played 24 minutes to Przybilla's 40 (tied with Damon Stoudamire for most on the squad).

Third, Przybilla is better than Ratliff. He might not have quite the blocks ceiling that Ratliff does--but he's close--and unlike the Rattler, Przybilla can actually a) grab rebounds like a big man should and b) throw the ball in the net when he's standing next the basket, like a big man should.

Fourth, Zach Randolph's injury woes continue. He's missed the past two games with the same problematic knee that caused him to miss six games at the end of January. Adding it up, that's 8 games in the space of one month, which, for the sake of comparison, is the same number of games that Chris Webber has missed this year with his chronic knee trouble. Hmmmm... To top it off, Randolph hasn't actually started a game since January 12.

Add these things up and you'll realize that things are changing up in Portland in repsonse to talent and necessity. Przybilla stands a great chance to keep playing big minutes, even when Randolph gets back. He looks like the kind of guy who can control the paint for many years to come (he's only 25), and he's a great fit with what they're trying to do right now in the Rose City.

If you have the means, I highly recommend picking him up.

Eddy Curry: One Skinny Motherfucker

2005-02-15T23:42:00.000-06:00

Seriously, has anyone really noticed this? The first picture shows Big Eddy during his rookie year in Chi-Town. Yikes. Rumor has it that his toes didn't actually make it off the ground that entire year.

The second is a picture of Eddy from this year.

See, that thing around his face on the right is called a "jaw". Before, you'll notice, he didn't have one.

How much more does a brother have to do to get props for his motivation?

Curry's post scoring has remained prolific and efficient in the minutes he's played this year, he blocks a shot per game, and in January he shot .778 from the line. GM John Paxson stonewalled Curry's trade demand in the offseason and insisted that Curry needed to understand that the answer to his problems was to improve, regardless of where he was.

Curry's done that this year in Chicago.

He deserves to be rewarded with more minutes, and he (like the rest of the Bulls) deserves to be playing more consistent minutes. The question on Eddy's mind every night when he goes to bed has got to be: "When is this dude [Scott Skiles] going to stop fucking with me?"

On the year, he's shooting .535 FG on a team that's desperate for consistent scoring.

Tonight, with Chandler out with injury, Curry played a whopping 44 minutes and scored 25 points on 8-12 FG and 9-15 FT. He added a steal and a block. Here's the kicker: he also grabbed 12 rebounds.

He's playing a puny 29.1 minutes this year, which is actually down from last year's 29.5.

That's not fair. Paxson and Skiles need to hold up their end of the bargain and show Curry more time on the court.

Blowing Up: Melvin Ely

2005-02-10T20:02:00.000-06:00

Melvin Ely, FC, Charlotte Bobcats

Trust me, he's blowing up.

Read the full story at http://fantasy-nba.blogspot.com

Alas poor Jaric!

2005-02-08T10:17:00.000-06:00

Marko Jaric, PG, LA Clippers

Marko Jaric is again being bothered by pain in his right foot.

This is the same foot in which he suffered a stress fracture in late December. He proceeded to miss 17 games.

Ironically, Jaric told the O.C. Register that the foot started bothering him again only after he had a knee-on-knee collision with a Philadelphia defender in the Clippers' game on Sunday night. Hm, that's strange. He told the LA Times that he would have taken himself out of the game if the Clippers weren't already so shorthanded (see: Corey Maggette, Shaun Livingston, and Kerry Kittles).

Perhaps this is what caused Marko to chug so much cock against the Sixers, putting up zero points (yes that's right), 5 rebounds, 7 asssists, and 3 turnovers, while contributing nothing on the defensive end. Took him 30 minutes to do that.

About the injury, Jaric said tellingly, "My foot started hurting me, again. It's so frustrating."

Marko, imagine how your fantasy owners must feel!

What's interesting about this injury, you may ask?

Well I'll tell you what's interesting. If you read my article a couple of weeks ago about Pau Gasol's plantar fasciitis, you would have read that plantar fasciitis feels to the person who is injured a lot like stress fractures of the heel. The two are often misdiagnosed for one another.

Before you start thinking I'm a nut who has plantar fasciitis on the brain, please refer to this article, dated 11/19/2003, from the Official Website of the Los Angeles Clippers. In it you'll find that a November 2003 MRI revealed a partial tear of the plantar fascia of his left foot.

He came back that season only to go back to the IL in March of 2004 (same season) after an MRI revealed that what was initially thought to be a "deep bone bruise" (it's never a deep bone bruise... a "bruise" is what you call it when you are too scared to do an MRI) was, in point of fact, a stress fracture of the second metatarsal of the left foot.

Hmmmm...

No, it's not the same foot as it is this time around.

But if you're like me, you're more worried now that he has long-term injury concerns in both feet.

Furthermore, if you buy into my argument (and the arguments of many whose medical credentials are far more impressive than having worked for two summers in a doctor's office) that some people have poorly structured feet that distribute pressure along the foot in ways more likely to cause chronic foot injuries, you should be very concerned about Jaric's foot.

Make that feet.

We still don't know what's really going on here. Expect another MRI on this foot very soon.

In related news, Shaun Livington's dislocated right kneecap feels fine, he's practicing with the team, and he's expected to return before the All-Star Break. He'd be cutting into Jaric's minutes even if Marko were completely healthy.

Now might be a good time to eschew conventional wisdom and sell low on Jaric.

Daily Dime #2: Return of the Kings

2005-02-06T02:32:00.000-06:00

DET 85, NJN 107

I think Vince Carter likes it in Jersey.

Tonight he went off for 41 PTS, 11 REB, and 5 AST, to go along with 2 threes, 2 BLK, and 2 STL. Only three turns. 14-27 (.519) FG and 11-13 (.846) FT. If only I'd acquired him when he wasn't trying... Too late now. It's off the races for the rest of the season in the Meadowlands if his knee and Achilles and motivation hold out.

After games like his last two, Chauncey Billups was bound to give some back. Tonight he did, in a big way, going 3-10 from the field and 0-4 from three en route to 9 PTS, 2 REB, 5 AST... and here's the kicker: 6 turnovers. Yikes.

Very clean performance from Tayshaun Prince. 17 PTS, 5 REB, 3 AST, 1 TO, 1 three on 6-13 FG and 4-4 FT. But you know what the best part is? 4 BLK.

Detroit really got played like bitches in this game.

Darko even got some run at the end of this one and the no-longer-so-early returns confirm early diagnoses of his uselessness. In five minutes he missed one shot, grabbed one board, and committed one foul.

IND 84, ATL 79

Another nasty game for the boys in Indy and Atlanta.

DJ Jermaine scored 38 points and grabbed 8 rebounds, dropped two dimes and turned the ball over thrice. He went 15-23 from the field and 8-9 from the line. Would asking for at least one block or one steal be asking too much?

Tinsley sat this one out with a bruised left foot.

Stephen Jackson, back from his most recent suspension, really shat the bed.

I'll swallow my pride enough to acknowledge that both Al Harrington and Antoine Walker had very valuable fantasy nights, but I won't tell you exactly what they did, for fear you'll start thinking they're good, and then go do something stupid, like acquire one or both of them.

MIL 94, WAS 112

Mark my words: if Mike James keeps playing anywhere in the neighborhood of the 37 minutes he played tonight, he'll be a great add. 22 PTS, 4 REB, 5 AST, 8-17 1-2 9-10. Nice.

Kukoc is dusting off those knees for another run at fantasy usefulness.

It looks like the Juan Dixon train has come to an inexplicable end in Washington. He played only 17 minutes tonight and did not impress. Steve Blake played 18. Jarvis Hayes played 32 and looked pretty umimpressive himself. Trust me: Juan Dixon is better than Jarvis Hayes, and he's much better than Steve Blake.

Etan Thomas had a bit of a breakout game with 23 points and 8 boards on hot FG shooting. He played 30 minutes. The force is strong with this one, particularly in rebounding and potentially in blocks. Keep an eye on him.

ORL 92, CLE 101

Grant Hill continues to do his thang thang despite a sore wrist, going for 17 PTS 6 AST 4 REB 2 STL 3 TO. The only thing that's suffering is his FT, and most teams can afford that hit.

Franchise: 9 AST/7 TO. He is not a point guard. Move him over to SG and I guarantee his turnovers will go down, his shooting percentages will go up, and his teammates will be happier.

LeBronius did 30 PTS, 9 AST and 6 REB to go along with 2 STL and only 1 TO. 9-21 FG and 12-13 FT. He's a manchild. Um, he shouldn't be on your wire, but just in case... he looks like a good add right now.

Drew Gooden had a nice night of 16-10-4.

Zydrunas forgot how to shoot tonight and he didn't feel like blocking shots.

But he still looks like that guy from FARGO.

Zydrunas Ilgauskas & Peter Stormare

CHI 97, MIA 108

Just when you thought the Bulls were starting to look good again, Scott Skiles decides to start dicking with his lineup. Skiles, known for being a screamer, and never the most patient teacher, feels like he needs to get "some more energy" into the lineup.

So he inserts Othella Harrington into the starting lineup and proceeds to play him a grand total of 4 minutes. Genius. Pure genius.

Basketball players are people, too. Having defined roles helps them succeed. Scotty doesn't seem to get this.

Kirk Hinrich's shooting has been icy-cold for a while now, and I feel I'm being punished for gloating about him so much. He played 31 minutes before fouling out and went for 15 points, 5 rebounds, 4 assists, 2 steals, 1 three, and 1 turnover on (wait for it) 6-19 shooting from the field. If this is one of his bad nights, I can handle it. Look for him to go on a hot streak--like a seriously hot streak--sometime in the next two weeks, once Scotty has gotten the bunch out of his panties and Kirk knows the guys he'll be playing with on a nightly basis.

Curry played only 20 minutes but went 7-13 1-1 for 15 points. He also threw in 3 rebounds and 1 assist with no defense and no turnovers. I love Curry's offensive potential, but I can see why Scotty's a little upset: it's almost like Eddy is jumping out of the way of rebounds. And his block numbers, which had started to swell briefly to a point where Eddy was startable... well, they're no longer swollen. He's playing 23.0 minutes over his last five and going for 13 PTS and a little over 3 REBS in that time. Plenty turnovers. Not good.

Shaquille blew up ridiculous, going off for 26 PTS, 10 REB, 6 AST, 5 BLK, 1 STL, 3 TO. BUT FOR GOD'S SAKE MAN would it kill you to do something about the free throws? He took 17 of them and he made 6. Damn, damn, damn. 8 year olds shooting granny style have better luck at the line than Shaq. Maybe he should try it. The average adult male would fare better while standing blindfolded at the line. It's just not acceptable, but those other numbers are so, so tasty that we can't stay mad at the Diesel for too long.

D Wade is the man. We all know this now. 25 PTS, 6 REB, 2 STL on 7-18 FG and 11-13 FT. Wade's uselessness from beyond the arc, his propensity to turn the ball over, and his unremarkable FT are the only things keeping him from being a truly elite fantasy guard. He's a great own and a great add, but look for him to improve these things before taking him in the first or second next year...

NYK 106, PHX 114

The Sun Show keeps rolling.

Not a game goes by where Nash's lines don't make me want to vomit. He's incredibly good. It's a career year in an already awesome career, and it's not going to change any time soon.

Nice (but just about average) nights for Shawn Marion and Amare Stoudemire in this one.

Joe Johnson and Q Rich both sucked tonight. Q Rich really really sucked. It looks like Jim Jackson might be taking some of Q's minutes. Maybe it's that killer Knick perimeter D that kept them so quiet.

Kurt Thomas had 4 points and 21 boards. Daaaaaamn.

Stephon went 33-4-6 with a steal, a block, and two threes. Great shooting, too. He's a keeper. But he's no Steve Nash.

NOR 92, UTA 108

Dickau is still blowing up, but not quite as ridiculous as games past. 14 points, 5 rebs, 4 dimes, 2 threes. Shooting didn't look so great, though, and he turned it over 4 times.

I'm already sick of Kirilenko's return to the lineup. He just too good and too not owned by me. I shan't discuss it.

GSW 91, DEN 107

Golden State looked tonight like the basketball wasteland that it is. Speedy brightened things only a little.

For what it's worth, Montgomery was never able to use his athletic players properly when he was at Stanford. We're talking about a guy who functions best with twelve white dudes playing half-court sets in suburban gymnasiums. This is a man who started Tony Giovacchini over Julius Barnes. What was the logic behind giving him a team full of NBA players?

K-Mart looking good. Carmelo looking overrated, again.

It looks like Karl's moving towards a pretty even minutes split between Camby and Nene. Good for Nene owners, bad for Camby owners.

CHA 99, SEA 113

Ray-Ray did it. So did Luke Ridnour, putting together an obscenely clean night. He played 40 minutes and Antonio Daniels played only 24. Keep an eye on this PT battle. Radmanovic made five threes and scored 23 points. This means that next time he goes scoreless, right?

SAC 108, POR 114

Webber, Stojakovic, and Mobley were all back in the lineup tonight after missing a few games each with nagging injuries.

Webber decided to celebrate for all three of them by dropping the old triple deuce, to the tune of 20 points, 13 rebounds, and 10 assists. He also grabbed 4 steals and had the audacity to also drop a three pointer all up in that ass. Was he limping up and down the floor? My sources say yes. But that doesn't show up in the box.

Mike Bibby had a ridiculous night, scoring 35 points, grabbing five boards, dropping five dimes and 4 threes, all while finding the time to register one steal and one block against only 2 TOs.

So one would think that D. Miles and Zach Randolph would have regained their starting spots by now, but this is not the case. Randolph came off the bench to records 28 points and 12 rebounds in 33 minutes. D. Miles had 3 blocks and 1 steal in 22 minutes. He needs to start kissing Maurice's Cheeks if that's what it takes to get back in his good graces and playing more minutes. Do it for all of your fantasy owners, Darius. Ain't no shame in it.

Joel Przybilla continues to hint at his vast fantasy potential, grabbing 12 boards to go along with 8 points, 2 assists, and 1 block in 29 minutes. Either Godzylla or the Rattler is going to have to go back to the bench to make room for Randolph... The fact that Przybilla played 5 more minutes than Theo did gives me hope that Joel's tenacity on the boards will keep him in the starting rotation.

Fantasy Basketball & Baseball Blog Notes

2005-02-05T12:17:00.000-06:00

Just wanted to say a few words about the blogs I've linked in the sidebar.

easyMarksman

For those of who haven't checked it out yet, easyMarksman is a great blog with regular updates and a proprietary player rater.

Check out Biggs' recent article on players who are moving up rapidly in the Player Rater.

Give Me The Rock

This site is a compendium of fantasy basketball information. Nobody links to more sites or more useful sites than this one.

In addition to being way, way stoked about his blog's success, Shep, the author of this page, is the Osiris of this fantasy basketball shit, and is also the editor of the DMOZ project's fantasy basketball directory. Give Me The Link!

Available in RSS.

Fantasy NBA Blog

OK, OK, a clever name it isn't... but I'm sure it indexes well in the old search engines.

Seriously, though, the content here is superb and extremely, extremely regular. If you've ever read my Daily Dime (actually there's only been one; I'm hoping to make it more of a weekly affair), you'll love their Daily Report, which actually is daily. A college lifestyle produces the kind of free time and lack of other options that can, when properly mixed, conspire to make a great weblog. Consider this one a hit.

Straight Flushing

Brian Doyle, in addition to being my homie and my ace, really knows his shit when it comes to all things baseball, and his analytical style in Straight Flushing will make you a fantasy baseball supergenius when the time comes to draft.

Injury City: Chris Webber

2005-02-05T00:49:00.000-06:00

Chris Webber, PF, Sacramento Kings

As much as I hate to relate this news, Chris Webber's knee is officially fucked.

He's been a huge part of my team's success this year. I picked him in the third round and have been deliriously happy so far with his production in virtually every category.

Just after being named the NBA's Player of the Month, it looks Webber's chronic knee problems have finally caught up to him. Tonight, he missed his fourth game in a row with a sore left knee. Before those four games, he played one. The game before that, he sat out with a "sore left ankle." Yikes. That is smokescreening of the highest order.

What makes this truly unfortunate is that Chris had started to put it all together this year after almost two years of poor health. His FG was back to normal, his FT was way up, and his STL, PTS, REB, and AST were off the charts.

Name the guys in the NBA who average 20, 10, 5, and 1.5 (steals). I'll beat you to it. Garnett is the only other one who does this. LeBron is the only other one who comes close.

Buy some Rolaids and settle in for a whole season of second-guessing, because Webber is day-to-day for the rest of the year. THE REST OF THE YEAR.

If you can deal Webber for fellow King Brad Miller, now would be a great time to pull the trigger.

Otherwise, stand pat. If and when he plays, there aren't many other players who can duplicate his all-around game. Right now, I'm not comfortable dealing him for peanuts. The problem is that most of the owners in your league probably aren't, either.

Do what you can. The Dime Dropper can't do nothing about this miserable situation.

Primoz Brezec: Starter, Scorer Because of Okafor Injury

2005-02-05T00:23:00.000-06:00

Primoz Brezec, C, Charlotte Bobcats

Emeka Okafor was placed on the IL on Tues. 2/1/05 because of a sprained left ankle.

In the meantime, Primoz Brezec will have to pick up the slack. Many will remember that he filled up the PTS and REB columns with tight numbers at the beginning of the season before his minutes started to decrease.

Recently, I compared Brezec to Mark Jackson, and suggested that the only difference between Brezec and Jackson was that the Sixers had other options at C. Consider the other option incapacitated for the time being.

Tonight, with Okafor on the shelf, Brezec was good for 17 and 17 with 2 assists and only one turnover on .438 FG. No trimmings.

If you're desperate for the good old double double categories, Brezec is a great add while Okafor is out.

Look for Primoz "I smoke not only marijuana but primos, which is cocaine mixed in with marijuana [see: limo driver at prom, c. 1999]" Brezec to continue to contribute while homeboy's ankle is on the mend.

When Emeka comes back, it's all over. Act now or forever hold your peace.

Cliff Robinson: Rolls The Best Weed Cuz He's Got It Going On

2005-02-02T13:45:00.000-06:00

Cliff Robinson, FC, Golden State Warriors

For the unitiated, those right there are the eyes of a marijuana smoker. They're easy enough to spot if you know what to look for.

Uncle Cliffy has been convicted in the past of marijuana possession and possession of paraphernalia, so this shouldn't come as a huge surprise.

The question is: does the weed contribute to or detract from that sweet all-around game?

The answer is: for the next five games, it won't do either, because he has been suspended for five games for violating the NBA's substance abuse policy (not that I blame him).

Word on the street was that he was sitting out recently because he was injured, but it seems now that that could have been (ahem) a smokescreen while the league investigated and handed down sanctions.

Pick up Nene while Cliff's out.

Comers and Goers: The Jackson Two

2005-02-01T09:22:00.000-06:00

This is a semi-weekly look at players who are gaining playing time and players who are losing it.

Comers

Stephen Jackson, GF, Indiana Pacers

Since returning from his suspension against Boston on January 26th, Stephen Jackson has resumed his role as scorer and long-range bomber for the Indiana Pacers. He's now played four games, and his numbers look pretty nice:

GP	FG	FT	3PM	PTS	REB	AST	STL	BLK	TO
4	.383	.688	2.3	16.5	5.8	2.5	2.3	0.5	2.8

What do we like about this? We really like the 2.3 threes, and we like the 2.3 steals even more. We like the fact that he's averaging 38.3 minutes in this time.

What don't we like?

Basically, we don't like anything else about it. The percentages right now are both terrible: that's .383 on 15 shots, and that hurts, badly. Although we can expect the FT to rise back to about .800 as S-Jax gets his stroke tight, it wouldn't be reasonable to expect a quantum leap forward from the .383 in FG.

Stephen wasn't a very good shooter when he was playing the role of third scorer for the Pace Show and taking 13.9 shots a game. Overall this season he's at .406. Now he's the second scorer on a team that is desperate for scoring with Artest out.

That means more shots for Stephen, and with a .406 cumulative FG so far on the season, that means you can expect that percentage to drop below the dreaded .400 plateau in the very near future as he starts hoisting up shots that would have been "unadvisable" with Artest still in the lineup. Now, those shots are necessary.

16.5 points are nice, and are a slight improvement on his pre-suspension average of 15.7, but he'll need to score more than that to make a significant contribution in the PTS category in most leagues.

On the flip side, it wouldn't be unreasonable to expect Jackson to maintain his increased production in steals, as he'll also be called upon to fill, to a certain extent, Artest's defensive shoes.

Samuel Dalembert, C, Philadelphia 76ers

After spending 36 minutes on the floor last night in a relatively undistinguished performance last night, Dalembert's minutes per game average over the last five is up to 29.2. His stat line doesn't look that pretty...yet. Make sure he's on your team when it starts to.

This guy has Coach O'Brien's number. Look for big minutes to continue.

Marko Jaric, PG, LA Clippers

Jaric is officially back.

Actually, he's been off the IL since Jan. 24, but last night was his first start, finally supplanting Rick Brunson, who sucks, and who had taken Marko's spot while he was out.

He responded huge, with 15 PTS, 5 REB, 7 AST, 6 STL, 2 3PM... And zero turnovers.

This is the kind of line that makes me want to shit, seeing that Jaric is owned by the guy in second in my league.

Jaric is the kind of player who could single-handedly decide some leagues, believe it or not. He is so pointy in threes and steals, and, to a lesser extent, in assists, that he really has a chance to significantly affect final standings in these categories.

He's a big hit in FG, and his blocks and FT aren't that great, but he has the potential to be a positive contributor in every other category.

Add him. Play him. Now.

Brevin Knight, PG, Charlotte Bobcats

Brevin's back after missing five games (and the vast majority of another) with a sprained ankle.

Jason Hart, we hardly knew ye. In the six games during which Brevin was injured, Hart averaged 13.8 PTS, 8.67 AST, 5.17 REB, 2.0 TO and .67 STL. That's good for a 4.33 A/T ratio (exactly his average).

The steals aren't where I thought they might be, but for the sake of comparison, Brevin's season averages are 7.5 PTS, 9.2 AST, 2.2 REB, 2.1 TO, and 1.7 STL.

It looks to me like Brevin and Hart are very similar players. Knight steals more (although not as much more as the numbers above suggest). Hart boards more.

For now they'll split minutes. Expect Brevin to regain his starting spot when the ankle is 100%.

Darius Miles, GF, Portland Trail Blazers

Goers

The following players should not be dropped, but should probably not be starting right now...

Corey Maggette, GF, LA Clippers

Hedo Turkoglu, GF, Orlando Magic

Cliff Robinson, FC, Golden State Warriors

Speedy Claxton, PG, Golden State Warriors

Troy Murphy, F, Golden State Warriors

Jamaal Tinsley, PG, Indiana Pacers

The following players have been placed by me on general drop advisory. If you see someone blowing up on the waiver wire, you should strongly consider dropping these players in order to pick him up...

Mark Jackson, C, Philadelphia 76ers

Chances are, Mark's not wearing that pretty smile on his face right this minute.

Not unlike Primoz Brezec, Mark Jackson began the season as a good-score, good-percentage center who would board enough to keep himself in the lineup as an offensive threat.

Unlike Charlotte, Philadelphia has other options.

Problem is, Jackson has absolutely no D. He doesn't man up, he doesn't steal, he doesn't block... and he's a center.

His minutes in January decreased from 28.9 (in December) to 21.7. His scoring and rebounding dropped from 15.1 and 6.4, respectively, to 9.1 and 4.3. Over the past five games, Mark is averaging numbers that look like this:

Min	FG	FT	3PM	PTS	REB	AST	STL	BLK	TO
17.6	.306	.636	0.0	5.8	4.2	0.8	0.0	0.0	1.2

Ouch. Those numbers are ugly. Even his momma thinks those numbers are ugly.

Now would probably be a good time to get off the bus.

Drop them like they're hot...

Rodney Buford, GF, New Jersey Nets

Rotney wasn't filling exactly filling out the stat sheet when he took over for the injured Richard Jefferson. Now he's got torn ligaments in his left ankle. He should be out 4-6 weeks. Consider him an absolute must-drop.

In other news, it really is raining shit on the New Jersey Nets right now. Check local listings for wrist-slitting parties in your area...

Allan Houston, SG, New York Knicks

Houston went back on the IL on 1/28 with "patellofemoral arthritis" in his left knee. As nearly as I can tell, that means something like "knee-leg arthritis." Sounds like the whole thing is fucked, and arthritis isn't really the kind of thing that ever improves.

Houston says he epxects to miss "more than the five game minimum," but he doesn't think it will be season ending injury.

Dude's knee is finished. You didn't hear it from me, but I think Houston's done. I wouldn't expect him to play more than 20 more NBA games... period. Think retirement, Allan. Think it soon.

Jamal Crawford owners are stoked.

Willie Green, G, Philadelphia 76ers

Following a three game stint in which he started in place of an injured Allen Iverson and averaged 19.67 points (albeit on terrible shooting... that's the way they like it in Philly), Willie Green is back to the bench.

And by the bench, I mean the deep bench.

Last night, Iverson was back in the lineup, scoring 27 points on 8-24 shooting in 44 minutes on the floor. When a guy like that is in the lineup ahead of you, there isn't a whole lot left over.

Green racked up another DNP-CD. Expect Slick Willie to make a habit of not playing starting right about...now.

You shouldn't have added him in the first place, but just in case you did, now's the time to get over him.

Basketball Monster Player Rater

2005-01-29T15:14:00.000-06:00

A shout out to Give Me The Rock for linking to the coolest, free-est player rater out there.

Basketball Monster allows you to enter your league settings and your roster and crunches customized rankings based on your input.

Now can you stop wondering if that guy in your league really does have a self-calculated player rater that is perfectly tailored to measure your league...

This is it.

Blowing Up: Dan Dickau

2005-01-29T10:03:00.000-06:00

Dan Dickau, PG, New Orleans Hornets

At the beginning of this week, I told you that Dan Dickau in a starter's role was Kirk Hinrich lite, and that he looked like a great short-term add.

He's getting heavier by the day.

Last night, in an OT victory against Philadelphia, Dickau dropped a career-high 16 assists to go along with 19 points on 7-15 1-6 4-5 shooting. He grabbed five boards and three steals and he turned the ball over three times. For those of you keeping score, that's a 5.33 single-game A/T ratio.

What kinds of numbers would your squad have recorded this week if you had added Dick on Sunday?

They look like this:

GP	FG	FT	3PM	PTS	REB	AST	STL	BLK	TO
4	.500	.786	2.5	21.3	4.5	9.0	1.5	0.0	2.0

Over this period, his A/T ratio is 4.5 and he's averaging over 40 minutes.

His time as a starter may still be limited, but it just got extended.

Baron Davis is back to the IL for at least two weeks to rest his bruised Achilles. It's also been referred to officially as a bruised right ankle. Either way, it's not good.

It seems official now that dude's body is all messed up. It's easy to forget that his career was in jeopardy after he blew out his knee at UCLA. Those who saw him play before that injury insist that he had lost explosiveness by the time he arrived in the league.

Neverthless, Baron built a reputation as an ironman when he entered the league. Over his first three seasons, Davis played in all 82 games each year.

Over the next two seasons, he averaged 58.5 games. So far this year, the Hornets have played in 41 games. Baron has participated in 17 of them. His sub-40% FG when he's healthy is bad enough; playing in fewer than 40% of your team's games is unforgivable for a guy who was gone in the first three rounds of almost every draft. His back is always in spasms. He has knee history. And now his Achilles is a problem.

To complicate the situation and further reduce his value, trade rumors continue to swirl around Davis, although this latest round of problems might do something to cool those. Davis would love to leave, but he's difficult to move.

For the next two weeks, Dickau is the only true point guard on the roster. Look for his strong production to continue, if not at this ridiculous rate. It will be interesting to see what happens if and when Baron comes back or gets traded. It looks to me like the Hornets have found their elusive "point guard of the future." Trust me: it's not Baron Davis.

Jalen Rose = Starter

2005-01-28T18:29:00.000-06:00

Raptors-Hornets 1/28/05

Just a heads up. Jalen Rose is starting tonight over Eric Williams. Welcome back.

The early returns are good. Very early returns. In 11 minutes, Rose has 6 points on 2-3 FG, 1-2 3Pt, 1-3 FT, with 5 REB and 2 AST. No turnovers. The first quarter just ended. Let's see how the game shapes up, but a pace of 24 PTS, 4 3PM, 20 REB, 8 AST, 0 TO sounds good.

Nice job, Sam Mitchell. Sure, J-Rose has his limitations, but he just may be an improvement over Eric Williams. What's next, Donyell Marshall starting over Rafael Araujo? Let's not get too ridiculous here... Sam knows his guys.

The Daily Dime #1

2005-01-27T02:51:00.000-06:00

Here at Drop It Like It's Hot, we believe in taking a good, hard look at those boxscores every night, schedule permitting. We know that it doesn't always permit, so we want to do the work for you, and take you on a quick walk through each day's most intriguing performances. Schedules being what they are, we'll appreciate your restraint in not pointing out that these updates will not always, in fact, be daily.

MEM 111, CLE 114

Stromile Swift followed up his 38 minute, 18 point, 9 rebound performance with 10 points, 5 boards, and 2 blocks in only 23 minutes. This doesn't bode well... Gasol still wasn't on the court.

Zydrunas llgauskas went for 22 points, 9 boards, 5 blocks, 1 steal, 1 turnover on 7-14 from the field and 8-11 from the line. Sometimes it looks like Z's slumping, but actually he's just maddeningly inconsistent.

Drew Gooden: 27 PTS, 11 REB, 2 AST, 1 BLK, 11-18 FG 5-9 FT. Nice.

LAC 105, LAL 89

Trust me, you weren't too excited about any of the Lakers' performances in this one.

Jaric's second game back, plays 24 minutes and drops 11 dimes...

Chris Kaman is the real deal. 14 points, 16 boards, 5 blocks, 1 steal, 2 assists. Never mind the 5 TO.

MIA 111, TOR 96

Chris Bosh is the real deal. 27 points, 7 boards, 2 assists, 2 steals, 1 block. You could have had him for a song. Now it's time to pay up. Sigh.

Rafer Alston with nice rebound game, 29 point, 8 assists, 3 threes, 5 TO. This is not an illusion.

Shaquille: 33 and 18 helps, but he went 7-20 from the line. Ouch. One block.

SEA 100, UTA 109

Uh oh. Remember Andrei Kirilenko? He's back. 20 minutes, 5 blocks, 2 steals, 12 points. That's all you need to know.

Raul Lopez... Could be very, very good if he plays 35+... 20 points, 11 assists, 3 steals. He and Eisley are the only PGs left...

Radmanovic: Follows up 8-three performance with 0-8 performance. Roll with the punches.

Ridnour/Daniels: A devastating combo. Ridnour 17 points, 4 assists, 3 steals... Daniels 25 points on 10 shots, 3 assists, one turn.

WAS 117, PHI 107

Dalembert: 32 minutes, 11 boards, 1-6 shooting, no blocks. Remain calm.

Willie Green: Great AI impression, even Gil Arenas had to admit. 32 points, 2 threes, nice %s, 6 rebs, 4 assists, 4 turns.

Arenas: 33 points, 9 assists, 4 threes, 3 steals, 5 turnovers. What is it with you and the turnovers, Gil?

Juan Dixon: 14 point 4th quarter en route to 22 points, 5 assists, 3 steals, 2 threes, no turns.

IND 86, BOS 100

Ugly.

Jermaine O'Neal: 24 points, 6 reb, 4 blk, 2 stl, 4 TO. Fort hose of you who haven't noticed yet, Jermaine is no longer a good FG shooter.

Pierce. 23-8-4 with 2 steals and 3 threes.

Al Jefferson... 7 minutes. Foot's bothering him.

DET 87, DEN 70

Carmelo being Carmelo... 28 minutes, 5 points on 13 shots. No defense. 2 tunovers.

Camby... Back in the mix and doing it right. No minutes for Nene.

Detroit... Man they put up some ugly boxes. Pick of the litter is Ben Wallace: 14 points, 12 rebounds, 3 assists, 2 steals, 2 blocks, 1 turn.

Even Tskitishvili got some run at the end of this one.

MIN 104, ATL 87

Mismatches galore. Keep every single Hawk off of your roster at all costs.

Cassell returns! 11 games! Played 15 minutes and dropped 8 dimes.

Sprewell scores 32 on ridiculous shooting; Szczerbiak 18 on a great night. Each played 31 minutes.

PHO 121, MIL 115

I think Nash has got the kinks worked out. 21 points, 2 threes, 17 assists, 3 steals. Awesome.

Jim Jackson: 20 minutes. That ain't much.

Michael Redd. Nothing from downtown but 27 points on 24 shots, no D.

HOU 82, NO 77

Forget about both Bob Sura and David Wesley, sooner the better.

Nailon... The flaws are showing but the scoring remains.

Chris Andersen: only 24 minutes; extra players from JJ deal may not be good for his PT.

Dan Dickau: What did I tell you about Dan Dickau? 23 points, 10 assits, 1 steal, 3 threes, 9-16 FG 2-2 FT.

DAL 95, POR 88

Nice games from the usual suspects in Dallas. Stackhouse looking like a strong add.

Van Exel starting to look like a nice drop. 5 points on 2-9 shooting.

Damon Stoudamire: he does great things if you can stomach the FG. 22-7-6 with 2 steals and 4 threes.

D. Miles: 29 minutes, 15 points, 6 boards, 2 TO, 2 steals, one block. Watch the minutes continue to rise...

NJ 113, GS 99

With Speedy out of the lineup with a thigh contusion, Derek Fisher got exposed. 2-14 shooting.

Troy Murphy, 21 & 10. Clean.

Brian Scalabrine! Going for 29 points and 10 rebounds on 12-17 FG, I watched the big man play for USC. He has that shot. Maybe not that shot, but kudos to Veal on a nice night. Does this mean he'll play 40 minutes every night now?

Stromeezy

2005-01-26T14:26:00.000-06:00

Pau Gasol & Stromile Swift

Stepping in for Pau Gasol is Stromile Swift, averaging 21.3 minutes per game up to the point of the injury.

Stromile is a fantasy beast waiting to happen, and his numbers as a starter are always borderline incredible. I've been wondering for years why Memphis insists on playing Lorenzen Wright (a good offensive center) for more minutes, or even comparable minutes to Stromile Swift. The Grizz don't want to play him 30, but they've refused to trade him many times.

In the first game of Gasol's absence, Swift put up 18 points on 8-16 shooting, with 9 boards, 2 steals, 3 blocks, and 1 turnover... in 38 minutes. This is the kind of line Swift could put up every night. Last year he averaged .7 steals and 1.5 blocks in 19.8 minutes. Run some projections on that, and add to it the fact that when he's starting, he plays better than when he's coming off the bench, minutes being equal: he's a potential defensive monster with decent percentages to match. His rebounding is the least impressive part of his game, but in 35+ minutes, they'll be an overall plus for your squad.

Add now if you have the spot.

PAU'S PAWS: Gasol to IL with Plantar Fasciitis

2005-01-25T21:47:00.000-06:00

Something may be very wrong with Pau Gasol's foot.

On Tuesday 1/25, Gasol was placed on the IL, meaning that he will miss a minimum of five games.

AP has the precision to call the injury an "injured left foot." Other outlets describe the injury as a "sore foot." And yet, Mike Fratello thinks that Gasol could miss "at least two weeks" with the injury. Interesting...

It seems, upon closer inspection, that Gasol has plantar fasciitis in his left foot. Big ups to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

There are a few disturbing things about this injury.

First of all, it's chronic. This is the kind of thing that a player struggles with throughout entire seasons, and most are able to overcome of it with a lot of good, old-fashioned lip-biting. It's not specific to basketball; many will remember that Albert Pujols struggled with this injury for the entire 2004 season. The numbers suggest that it didn't hurt him that badly, but he's still complaining about it going into spring training.

And Gasol, unlike Pujols, has never (perhaps unfairly, seeing his relative health this far), had a reputation as a particularly tough guy. Because of his "finesse"-based offensive game (and probably his Spanish heritage), Gasol has picked up the nickname "Picasso." You see what I'm getting at here. That being said, basketball players also have to pound the hardwood, night-in and night-out; Pujols basically got to stand on first base and trot around the bases, and he's still talking about how excruciating the pain was, and regretting that he didn't have surgery earlier.

Last year, perhaps you'll recall, Wally Szczerbiak missed 53 games with the plantar fasciitis.

Rashard Lewis was diagnosed with it in the offseason, and was extremely worried about it. But he came out like a house on fire this season, and has only recently been slowed by knee tendinitis.

When Kobe Bryant went on the IL 11 days ago with a sprained ankle, he also revealed that he had also been playing the entire season with a sore foot due to--what else?--plantar fasciitis. Kobe's got something to prove this year, insists he can play through it, and says that despite playing 43.1 minutes per game, it's actually gotten better as the season has gone on. That's good for Kobe.

It isn't good that Gasol is going to miss "at least two weeks" with this injury. It's even more unfortunate for Gasol because it is the first time he has gone on the IL in his career.

Let's put it like this. If Marcus Camby came down with a case of plantar fasciitis, he'd probably be in a wheelchair right now.

What makes it more disturbing is that Pau missed four games at the end of last season with an injury described, in similarly vague terms, as a "foot injury." The linked article, published on NBA.com last April, as the Grizz headed into the third game of their playoff series with San Antonio, describes Gasol as "hobbling into the postseason."

It's interesting to note that Gasol's 103 game streak of scoring in double figures ended on January 19 against Phoenix. He struggled to 5 points on 2-6 shooting.

Two nights later at, at Denver, Gasol made it a habit, playing only 26 minutes and scoring only 8 on 4-12 shooting.

On Jan 22, the scoring was back up to 23, but the minutes stayed low, at 27, and he grabbed only 3 boards.

Over his last five, Gasol is averaging 5.6 boards and 1.0 blocks on 44.8 shooting. Those aren't Gasol numbers. When dude can't jump, dude can't dunk, dude can't block, dude can't board. The whole game suffers.

What's even more disturbing (can you even handle any more disturbance?) is that Pau's younger brother Marc is also suffering right now from a mysterious foot injury.

Marc Gasol

The younger Gasol, a promising young post player for the very-dominant FC Barcelona of the Euroleague, went out in December and was expected to stay out for close to two-and-a-half months. Young Marc was diganosed with the injury after having begun the AFB season on the IL with a small fracture in his foot (fracture is one of the differential diagnoses for plantar fasciitis). He just opted not to have surgery on the foot, and is now seeing a specialist in Croatia. It sounds like a slam-dunk case of plantar fasciitis.

Be glad that you aren't a Gasol owner right now, because there's a lot of uncertainty and a lot of smokescreening around this out-of-nowhere injury right now.

Plantar Fasciitis

The plantar fascia is a thin layer of tough tissue supporting the arch of the foot. Presumably, the plantar fascia is "tougher" in some than it is in others, pain thresholds being equal. It is worn down by repetitive stress, and when its torn many times over, plantar fasciitis results:

Symptoms usually resolve more quickly when the time between the onset of symptoms and the beginning of treatment is as short as possible. If treatment is delayed, the complete resolution of symptoms may take 6-18 months or more.

I doubt Gasol will be out six months; I don't think he'll be out for three months.

But if I owned him, I'd be worried, and I'd be worried about reduced production even when he does come back. The severity and duration of this injury are influenced by the anatomical structure of the foot and leg: people with very flat feet or very high arches are especially prone, as are those with tight calf muscles, which inhibit the flexing of the ankle. Because plantar fasciitis changes the way you walk, associated foot (see: Kobe), knee (see: Rashard Lewis), hip and back problems (see: Kobe) often develop as a consequence.

Although the pain of plantar fasciitis occurs in the heel ("heel spurs" is usually a colloquialism for plantar fasciitis, and plantar fasciitis is often misdiagnosed for the much-less-serious "heel spurs"), it is not caused by the heel striking the ground.

Scott's Online Book does a better job of explanation than I can:

When walking and at the moment the heel of the trailing leg begins to lift off the ground, the plantar fascia endures tension that is approximately two times body weight. This moment of maximum tension is increased and "sharpened" (it increases suddenly) if there is lack of flexibility in the calf muscles. A percentage increase in body weight causes the same percentage increase in tension in the fascia.

What Scott's saying is that it isn't good news that Pau has visibly been in the weightroom since entering the league as a stringbean: it increases this injury's chances of coming and staying.

Rest, and lots of it, is the best medicine for this injury, but surgery is required in some cases. Typical recovery time is closer to two months than two weeks.

The Spin

Foot injuries are a bitch, because they recur, and are usually structural in nature.

On a personal, anecdotal level, I knew Curtis Borchardt in college, and watched him endure two major foot surgeries in two years because of repeated fractures. He was already coming off of one foot injury when he walked in the door at Stanford. After he left early for the NBA, he missed his entire rookie season because of a new stress fracture.

Another player known to have had repeated foot problems because the structure of his foot predisposed him to reinjure it is Cleveland's Zydrunas Ilgauskas. For his third surgery, Big Z opted for a more radical procedure called "osteotomy," in which the bones of the foot are actually broken, cut, and recontoured to distribute pressure more evenly along the entire foot.

Let's hope that there's no structural problem with Pau's foot. It would be unwise, however, to discount that possibility. Make and review trade offers accordingly.

If you believe that chronic physical ailments and bone structures travel in bloodlines, you should be extra worried about Pau's future this season.

The Dime Dropper

Buying On Spec

2005-01-23T18:44:00.000-06:00

The following is a list of players who might be on waivers in your league and who should definitely be on your radar heading into this week. I'm not saying you should add them, but if you've got an open spot, you should strongly consider it.

Jalen Rose, G/GF, Toronto Raptors

If you were getting benched in favor of Eric Williams, you'd be pissed, too. It really does seem to me like the Michigan product has gotten hated on at every stop in his career, and has had to claw and scratch his way to every bit of playing time and respect he's gotten... Well, he's having to do it again this year and in the past couple of weeks since the trade of Vince, his game has really taken off. Right now it isn't much more than scoring, but he's started to add some of the trimmings that make his fantasy game look so appealing when he's playing minutes and playing his hardest.

Tonight, he went 22-4-4 with one steal and one turnover, four threes, on 8-15 shooting from the field and 2-2 from the line. Could your squad use that kind of production?

Over his past five (not including today's performance), in a miniscule (but increasing) 29.2 minutes per game, Rose is going off for 21.8 points on .494 shooting (15.8 attempts), .8 threes, and .931 FT shooting on 5.8 attempts. The defensive numbers are not pretty and neither are the boards or assists, but at least the latter two should be on their way.

Look for Rose and fellow disgruntled Raptor Donyell Marshall to be dealt soon to the New York Knicks, who--I'll bet you--will be introducing Isiah Thomas as their new coach within the next several weeks. This should complete, at least for this generation, the exodus of Canadian basketball talent to the New York/New Jersey metroplex. It looks like the Knicks' offer of Kurt Thomas and Anfernee Hardaway isn't quite good enough... Trevor Ariza, anyone?

Dan Dickau, PG, New Orleans Hornets

My leaguemates scoffed when I selected Kirk Hinrich in the fourth round of our draft this year. Now who's laughing? Dan Dickau, acquired in December from the Mavericks in exchange for Darrell Armstrong, is a young point guard who is very much in the mold of Hinrich. He shoots a poor percentage from the field, but he shoots well from three and from the line, and he's great at dishing and stealing the ball. He's got that sweet, sweet, West Coast point guard game (see: Luke Ridnour, Gary Payton, Brevin Knight) and he's looking to impress while filling in for the oft-injured and soon-to-be-traded Baron Davis.

Since the trade to NO, he's played 28.2 minutes per game and produced 12.8 points, 2.8 boards, 1.2 threes, 3.6 assists, and .9 steals against 2.1 turnovers. Over his past five, he's up to 35.0 minutes per game, in which he's producing 18.4 points, 3.2 boards, 4.8 dimes, 1.2 steals, and 2.2 threes on .420 FG and .852 FT. Tasty.

That's Kirk Hinrich lite... and not even that lite. If you're looking for a short-term add for point guard numbers, Dickau's a great add right now. Once Baron gets the crick out of his back, Dickau should return to the fringes of fantasy, but if he ever gets the starting job for a sustained period of time, he definitely belongs on your roster. It's a shame that the Hornets are looking to acquire a "first string point guard" like Jason Williams of the Grizz in exchange for Baron Davis. Why not firm up the frontcourt and let Dickau do his dirty binness at the point? I'd also feel bad for Earl Watson, who definitely deserves the opportunity to start in Memphis once J Dub gets out of Dodge.

Chris Kaman, C, Los Angeles Clippers

I would go on at length about Kaman's potential to keep blowing up at the C even after Chris Wilcox comes back from injury, but when I accidentally deleted a previous version of this post, the folks at Fanball scooped me and made him their Pickup of the Week. He's good. Check it out.

Jason Hart, PG, Charlotte Bobcats

He's the second, more efficient coming of Brevin Knight. He is Antonio Daniels to Knight's Luke Ridnour. I ate up the 14, 7, and 11 he put up for me today on .500 shooting and no turnovers. He might be at the end of his run, but keep your eye on Brevin's balky ankle once he comes back.

Juan Dixon, G, Wiz

Hope you picked him up when you read the post devoted to his demotion back to the bench. If you did, you were handsomely rewarded on Jan 21 with 26 points, 4 threes, .688 shooting, 5 assists, 2 steals, and one measly turnover. I was stoked. He sat out last night's game with the flu, but look for him to come back and keep putting up fresh lines while Hughes is out. Jarvis Hayes is no reason for concern here.

Darius Miles, GF, Portland Trail Blazers

There's a lanky, vicious, multi-talented shotblocker coming off the IL this week, and his name is not Andrei Kirilenko. Before going on the IL with a knee contusion (I still doubt that he's completely recovered, but he's the healthiest of the Blazer frontcourt's walking wounded), D Miles, the pride of East St. Louis, was starting to blow up. If Shareef and/or Zach Randolph are out a while longer, the Miles Child should continue to get around 40 minutes, and the production he can put up in that time is scary. Think something like .500 FG, .500 FT, 16 PTS, 8 Rebounds, 1.5 steals, and 2.5 blocks... Players who can do that at any position are rare, but if you can find those numbers at SG and SF, you're one step ahead of the game. Keep an eye out.

Lee Nailon, F, New Orleans Hornets

Scoring, broken down in its purest form. People forget that Lee Nailon led Division IA in scoring as a TCU Horned Frog. over his four year college career, dude averaged 23.9 points on .532 FG shooting. He has that shot.

What he may not have is a well-rounded fantasy game, but recent returns indicate that he's starting to figure things out while playing major minutes for the miserable Hornets (you'll notice that three Hornets and one ex-Hornet appear in this piece).

Jim Jackson, GF, Phoenix Suns

Jimmy Jack wanted to get traded to a contender, so he didn't even bother reporting to New Orleans. It's hard to blame him and his 34 year old ass. Well, is this good enough? He steps into an outstanding situation in Phoenix, playing sixth man alongside the best distributors he's played with since the days of the Three J's, when he played with Jason Kidd and Jamal Mashburn in Dallas.

His minutes will take a huge hit from the 40 he'd been playing the last two years in Houston, but he should still get enough run to keep his numbers looking pretty useful. It should give one pause to note that never in his career, before he played in Houston, was he allowed to jack up anything approaching 5.1 threes a game, which greatly enhanced his fantasy value. However, seeing the huge increase in production from three this season for both Joe Johnson and Quentin Richardson, it wouldn't be surprising to see him doing something very similar in a reserve role in Phoenix. Watch to see how the minutes shake out before you get too excited, but if the owner in your league dropped him when he opted not to show up in NO, now would be a great time to pick him up for the stretch run.

Jerry Stackhouse, GF, Wiz

Fine, I'll stop hating on Stack's game for a minute to tell you that, over the past month, he's averaged 17.6 points, 3.4 boards, 2.8 assists, .6 steals, and 1.0 threes on 2.4 turnovers. You might be able to use those numbers.

As tasty as the numbers appear to be, I am also contractually obligated to tell you that that nice-looking production rates him 121 by average over the same time span.

Nene Hilario, FC, Denver Nuggets

You'll all remember how Nene was the talk of the town while Camby and Martin were out a couple of weeks ago. Then they came back. Then Nene got suspended for four games for fighting with Michael Olowokandi. If he was still on your roster after all that, you're a much more patient owner than I am.

But there are a couple of recent pieces of news that current and prospective Nene owners should be interested in. First, Nene served the last game of his four game suspension today (Jan 23) against he Mavericks. Second, in a freak accident that no one could have seen coming, Marcus Camby left the game in the first quarter with a sprained ankle. X-rays were negative, but Marcusis the kind of guy who can turn negative X-rays into two-month hiatuses. Watch him go into back spasms now because he's favoring his bad ankle...

NOT YET...

Chris Andersen, C, New Orleans Hornets

Last year, playing for the Nugs (it's appropriate), Andersen blocked an average of 1.6 shots per game in 14.5 minutes per game. Make that thirty and the math is easy: Andersen looked like someone who had the potential to be a 3.0+ blocks monster if he ever got the opportunity to play.

He's getting there this season on a very bad and increasingly thin New Orleans squad. This year he's up to 20.1 minutes a game, but he's only averaging 1.2 blocks. The good thing is that Andersen looks like he did some serious gym work in the offseason, as his FG is up to .519 (from .443) and his FT is up to .756 (from a devastating .589). In the past five games, Chris is averaging a whopping 25.4 minutes, .568 shooting, .833 from the line, to go along with 11.4 points, 10.2 rebounds, 1.6 blocks, and .6 turnovers. If he can keep that up, you could do a lot worse at your second C spot, and if the minutes stay up and the blocks come back, as they should, look out...

DON'T BITE ON...

Carlos Arroyo, PG, Detroit Pistons

It's one thing to back up Chauncey Billups; it's another to back up Lindsey Hunter. It was supposed to be a breakthrough season for Carlos after leading Puerto Rico to an impressive performance in the Olympics. Somewhere along the line, he really must have pissed Jerry Sloan off, and now it looks like his rep has taken enough of a hit to set his career back a few years. Carlos could have been a major player on a Jazz team thin at point guard and thin overall... Now he'll be a third stringer on the World Champion Detroit Pistons. Combine that with the fact that he's a strictly offensive point guard who doesn't hit threes, and it's easy to imagine that he won't be a Larry Brown favorite, either. Don't buy the hype.

-The Dime Dropper

Transactional Chocolate Vol. 1

2005-01-23T06:48:00.000-06:00

*******************************************************************************
Monday, January 10, 2005

Orlando Magic
Acquired guard Doug Christie from the Sacramento Kings for guard
Cuttino Mobley and center Michael Bradley.
*******************************************************************************

THE BOMBSHELL

When I heard about this trade, I had to do a double take.

I don't know about the rest of you, but my first reaction was this: Magic GM John Weisbrod should be drawn and quartered for throwing away his young talent like this. Couldn't he get any more for Cuttino Mobley, a sharpshooting perimeter player with good hands on defense, surrounded by positive buz, who was just entering the prime of his career? Was 34-year-old Doug Christie really the best offer they could get? Did they have to add a promising young big man to the deal in order to make it happen? Did they even talk to anyone else?

In effect, I thought, didn't this mean that the Magic had traded Michael Bradley, Tyronn Lue and Tracy McGrady for Steve Francis, Doug Christie, and Kelvin Cato? Was I missing something?

My first reaction was that this deal was good for neither team.

After much chatter this offseason about trading either Webber or Stojakovic to improve clubhouse chemistry in Sacramento, I was shocked to see that the Kings would move one of the league's "good guys," a Pepperdine alum who liked Sacramento, liked his teammates, was liked by his teammates, and who had a long history of distributing the rock, stroking the three, playing league-best man-up D, and being an overall efficiency monster.

I wondered what the Kings stood to gain by adding an undersized SG, a low-percentage FG shooter at SG whose primary value was in shooting the spot up three and taking advantage of easy defensive assignments to get into passing lanes. With Bibby and Stojakovic--both outstanding outside shooters with limited abilities--on the perimeter, I didn't see what the Kings stood to gain by acquiring Cuttino, a primarily offensive player who plays a brand of basketball similar to Bibby and Stojakovic without being nearly as good at it.

That being the case, and knowing that Mobley was surely owned by someone one of league, my first practical reaction was to check my league's waiver wire to see if Doug Christie was available, expecting him to step into big-time starter's minutes as a defensive specialist in Orlando. Sure, he was showing symptoms of abrupt decline... but surely, I thought, 30+ minutes a night and a primary role would be enough to squeeze some more life out of those knees?

THE FIRE

The trade started to make a little more sense when I read some of Weisbrod's commentary surrounding the trade. Apparently, the Magic had no intention of giving Doug Christie 30+ minutes a night, and that this was a move based ideas like "team chemistry" and "team concept" more than it was on pure talent. It's a bold move, to be sure, and arguably a foolish one, but at least it's a kind of logic that I can understand.

What I had forgotten about was the six year, $39 million deal that the Magic had given to one Hedo Turkoglu in the offseason, right after they pulled the trigger on the T-Mac trade. It would make sense to sign Hedo to this deal before the T-Mac deal, but it still baffles the mind to pay $6.5 million per to a guy who had never played more than 26 average minutes in a season and who, once, barely eked out a scoring average of 10, who you intend to sit on your bench. Presumably, the Mag intended to give the Mad Turk some run, but the acquisition of two must play guards in Francis and Mobley, to go along with a supposedly rejuvenated Grant Hill, made this an impossibility.

It seems to be an unfortunate rule of thumb in front offices everywhere (except maybe in Memphis, where Jerry West does whatever the hell he thinks is right at any given time, you can kiss his ass about his "mistakes" if you want) to stand by your well-paid mistakes, to talk them up, to play them silly, and to let overall team performance suffer in the meantime, in the hopes that the inexplicably bad performance of the product on the court will distract from the poor decision-making that produced it. Ricky Davis, Antoine Walker, Allan Houston, Adonal Foyle... the list goes on and on.

Appearances led us to believe that Weisbrod was not buying into that philosophy.

Yes, before the trade, the Magic were giving their $6.5 million man about 25 minutes per night, to which he was responding with about 12 points a game on 41% and nothing--I mean nothing--else. This is the kind of deal that, in layman's terms, makes a GM look like an asshole, not necessarily to the fans, but to the guy the writes the checks, including his own.

Did Weisbrod now believe that Hedo was a bust, a [bad] spot-up shooter with no vertical and no D, an unfortunate bad signing who probably wasn't worth $6.5 million in a tough-to-predict offseason free agent market? Was he not destined for major burn?

Weisbrod had ample reason to maintain the status quo, after all. Despite the naysaying, the Magic were 18-14 at the time of the trade, and were within three wins of their total from last season. Dwight Howard was developing nicely, Hedo was hitting his fill-in treys, Grand Hill was running, at full stride, for several games on end, and Francis and Mobley seemed to be enjoying--one another, of course--but career resurgences, as well. Mobley wasn't playing nearly the 40 minutes to which he had been accustomed, but hey, the results appeared to be there.

But for some reason, Weisbrod wanted to shake things up.

Was there a fly in the ointment here?

Cuttino Mobley--a major piece of the trade in which the Magic lost the [throat clear] best player in the NBA--would have to be relegated to the role of "bench player" in order to make time for Turkoglu. Not only could this have looked weak for Weisbrod, he would have to convince Coach Johnny Davis to actually do it--and it is more than believable that Davis preferred to play Mobley. Steve Francis liked Mobley; damn he enjoyed playing with that man... A lot. Some of you may get a kick out of the degree of man-love spouted by an angry Francis after hearing of the trade:

"I can't put it into words," he said. "Playing with a guy, living with a guy, just knowing that every day when I wake up that's something I can count on, that I'm going to be in practice or in a game with Cuttino.

Him not being here is going to be tough for me. I don't know what I'm going to wake up for." -AP

Jesus. He doesn't know what he's going to wake up for? Seems like he's taking the loss of his "backcourt" partner a little to hard, wouldn't you say?

To which Weisbrod:

"We're trying to get Steve into a totally new way of playing basketball, a five-man outlook, and obviously that becomes difficult when you have someone there that you are so accustomed to and familiar with," Weisbrod said. "Sometimes Cuttino and his familiarity could be a crutch for Steve. It's hard to lose that, but I think (Francis) will be better for it."

OK, John, stop winking at me. I think... I get... the point.

Weisbrod wanted Mobley out of the mix for a number of reasons, none of which related to him not being good enough to play on this team. Unsurprisingly, Weisbrod suspected this wouldn't go over well with either coach or player. "There were storm clouds on the horizon," Weisbrod said. "Cuttino's minutes were going to go down and not up and I'm not sure he would have been happy with playing 20 to 24 minutes a night."

So not only was there reason to believe that Hedo wasn't getting the burn his contract demanded, management believed that Mobley was, in effect, a bad influence on Francis on the court (and maybe off the court?). So they got rid of Mobley. Because Francis passed the ball to him too much, apparently, instead of inside, to those beastly low post offensive madmen known as Kelvin Cato and Dwight Howard.

At the time of the trade, nobody seemed particularly happy. Even the notorious Christies shed a tear for Sacramento.

With Hill in the lineup, it becomes a natural move. Make Hedo a big 2 to go along with the newly fleet Hill, and everything's gravy. You've got Doug Christie to come in off the bench and play the tightest of D against front line starters who are getting tired. Right?

THE FALLOUT

Happenings since the trade really have made it look like a success for both sides.

In The Cut

Cuttino has averaged 17.5, 4, and 4 to go along with 2.5 threes and 1.8 steals in Sacramento, and he's doing it at almost 44%. Playing his old 40 minutes again, both Cuttino and the Kings seem to be loving it. Offensive has always been their bag, baby, and Cuttino--accurate perimeter jump shooter, "pesky defender"--does look a lot like his fellow perimeter Kings. But so what? If you can keep up with that company, you're in good shape. Sacramento is an offense factory, and there's no reason why the whole starting five--Webber, Brad Miller, Mike Bibby, Peja Stojakovic and Cuttino Mobley--can't sustain or even improve their levels of productivity. Mobley's fantasy owners, feel free to rejoice: your man is going to get his minutes, once again, and it will be alongside much, much better passers and shooters than he had when he was playing 40 in Houston. By the way, it turns out Mobley's no spring chicken. He's 29, which isn't old--Doug Christie, he's a little old--but probably puts Mobley in his decline phase. Get those minutes while you can still run em, Cut.

HE SURE DO

Hedo Turkoglu is loving life right now.

News of the trade broke on January 10. Hedo played his usual 25 minutes that night, backing up Cuttino Mobley. He went 0-9 from the field for 6 points, missed both his three attempts, one of his two free throws, grabbed 5 boards, threw in a dime and a couple of fouls, but basically, but basically, he stunk the place up.

The very next night, sans he played 43 minutes alongside Grant Hill, dropped 26 points on 8-16 from the field, 2-5 from three, made all eight of his fros, and threw in 6 boards, 4 assists, 2 steals, and two TOs, and the Mag beat the Wolves 87-80.

That's hot.

Since then, it's been off to the races for Hidayet, He's now played six games since the trade, and he's averaging 38.3 minutes a game. Hope he's dropped the smoking habit he picked up with Vlade and the Kings back in the day. It looks like he has. Over his past five games, Hedo's going for 20.8 points, 5.2 boards, 2.8 assists, .8 steals, only 1.8 turnovers, and 1.8 threes, all on .421 from the field--not good, but not crushing, compared to Mobley--and a whopping 91.2 from teh line on 6.8 attempts per game. Think that could help your FT?

Hedo's a keeper. He'll score from here on out, with a bunch of threes, a bad FG percentage, a great FT percentage, low turnovers, and no D.

DC

This is Doug's only nickname, which is unsurprising, considering he's just about the whitest-bread guy you'll find who has that many tattoos. Apparently his relationship with his wife bugs a lot of people out, and even I have to admit, it seems a little outrageous. She's been called a nutcase by more than one. Jackie Christie's mother lives with them. Jackie insists that their love is "boundless and free." You get the idea...

The point is, DC's on a leash, and the leash looked like it was going to follow him to Orlando, both on and off the court.

Since coming to ORL, his production has fallen off dramatically. His minutes have been cut from 32.1 to 24.0, and the rest of his stats--playable, before, are now killing you in every category except for steals, which is really the only place he's making his money in his new bench role.

Unbreakable

Stop the presses!!!! Apparently, Grant Hill has a cyst in his wrist. This was revealed after the MRI supposedly came back "negative." Hmmm... This injury has also been referred to as a "bruised right wrist." Concealment happens around injuries all the time, and this seems no exception. It usually means they're hiding something worse. For what it's worth, Grant doesn't sound worried; he should be able play "as long as it's not this ankle right here." Yikes. Tap some wood, son.

I'm not joking and I'm not rooting against Grant Hill, but Doug Christie could very well be stepping into some serious minutes, seriously soon, and for a long time to come. Something about Grant Hill's joints does not inspire confidence in me. He might be a good speculative add to replace Hill's all-around game... you'll lose some scoring, but you'll gain some threes and steals.

In the end, it seems that everyone wins... Except for Grant Hill. That guy is cursed.

The Dime Dropper

Basketball Reference

2005-01-23T04:21:00.003-06:00

This is just an informational post.

For in-year, updated statistics, we have the usual suspects at Yahoo! and ESPN.

Some of us like to take an occasional stroll through the game's history, and when taking these strolls, it's helpful to have a resource that gives you all statistical information on every player, and every coach... ever. I get all this information at:

BASKETBALL REFERENCE

It's a great counterpart to its better-known older brother, baseballreference.com, but it serves the same great purpose. Feel free to check it out. I, for instance, am going to use it right now to figure out if Scott Skiles is the amazing coach this season with the Bulls would seem to indicate he is, and look through his careers W-L as a coach.

You could also use this site to look up his career statistics as a player, and see how insulting you think it is that Jason Kidd said of Skiles [whom he hates]: "He always wanted to be me, but he has no idea what it's like to be me." Skiles did have a pretty tidy "pure point guard" career of his own, you know.

The Two Sams

2005-01-23T03:29:00.000-06:00

About a month ago, I pulled off a trade in my league in which I acquired Sam Cassell and Sam Dalembert in exchange for Manu Ginobili and Damon Stoudamire. My league squawked, saying that I had gotten the better end of the deal, and my entreaties for them to observe the rankings and be reasonable were largely ignored. Nevertheless, the trade was executed, and I was excited at the prospect of acquiring two fantasy players who I would have picked before the sixth round for two players I selected in the sixth and twelfth rounds, respectively.

Cassell's early returns were good, and he looked like he was emerging from his early slump to get back to doing his 18 points, 7 assists, .480 FG .880 FT thang. I was also pleased to have added Dalembert, who looked, pre-season, like a good bet to start putting up Ben Wallace type numbers... except with scoring and FG percentages that were respectable. That sounded like a pretty intriguing player with great upside.

The ensuing time has done much to make me look like a fool.

Sam Cassell just finished sitting out his ninth game in a row due to a "tweaked hamstring" that all we know about is, "may be much more severe than originally thought." He still hasn't come back. Enough to give a manager the willies.

In the meantime, of course, the entire Blazers frontcourt went out with an assortment of injuries, and they decided to go with the tiny backcourt of Nick Van Exel and Damon Stoudamire, with both playing huge minutes. This was after they had already announced that they were bringing Stoudamire back into the starting role that he had lost when I traded him. Arrrghhh... The rest is history, as Damon proceeded to blow up and be incredibly valuable, once again proving his annual haters and naysayers wrong.

Meanwhile, Ginobili continued to do the little things that had made him highly ranked, and his rank remained very nice. Not crushing, but nice. That was until last night's 48 point performance. Ouch.

Then, of course, there's Dalembert, who hadn't done one damn thing on my squad since I acquired him. Sure, he was on my bench, but it's painful watching those pathetic numbers stack up every night when there are so many intriguing waiver wire prospects on the board. This guy looked when I acquired him like he was about to start plaing some serious minutes in a starting role. Right after I traded for him, Mark Jackson started playing huge minutes. Yikes. And Sam continued to unimpress for so incredibly long that I dropped him this afternoon, and picked up Jason Hart, to take him for a spin tomorrow night in what may be his last night of starting before Brevin gets back.

It's just one night, I told myself... What's Dalembert going to do? Right now he's trash and no one is going to pick him up. He'll be safe, waiting for you on the wire in a couple of days... That was until tonight, when Dalembert finally picked his time to BLOW UP RIDICULOUS right in my face, scoring 24 points and grabbing 16 rebounds on .846 1.000 shooting, adding 4 blocks, and doing it all at the small price of two turnovers. Can you fucking believe it?

Maybe he won't do it again for two months, but I would give almost anything right now to own Sam Dalembert instead of Jason Hart. I can't even use my [2] waiver priority to pick him back up, because I'm the one who dropped him. Unbelievable. Let's just hope that no one notices he's gone until Monday at midnight. I'm not holding my breath.

Jason Hart, anyone?

Juan Gone?

2005-01-21T12:26:00.000-06:00

As I told you in my last post, Juan Dixon looked like a great bet to put up nice fantasy numbers as a replacement for Larry Hughes.

In his first game after Hughes' injury, Dixon started, played 43 minutes, and gave a really nice performance with 19 points, 6 rebounds, 6 assists, 4 steals, and a three to cap it off. The nasty parts of his line were the parts you'd expect: 8-20 from the field (1-5 from three), 2-3 from the line, and 4 turnovers. All in all, this is a guy you wanted to start and would want to start for the duration of the injury.

But this production apparently isn't good enough for Wiz head coach Eddie Jordan, who told the press today that Jarvis Hayes will replace Juan Dixon in the starting lineup, because "there was no one to replace the spark that Juan usually gives when coming off the bench."

I hope that this leaves you scratching your head, as it does me. Apparently, Jordan went to the Flip Saunders school of coaching, which teaches that you should punish players for having good attitudes about coming off the bench, and reward those who have bad attitudes about coming off the bench (see: the recent benching of Wally Szczerbiak, playing incredibly well in starting role, in favor of the "mercurial" Latrell Sprewell... who I promptly added to my squad).

"It's nothing against Juan," said Jordan, "Juan's a great energy guy off the bench." That's outstanding. I think that's really intelligent, Eddie. Well done. Meanwhile, note that Jarvis Hayes has played shitty all season long because he has a thumb injury that won't "recover fully until he gets some rest in the offseason." Congrats, guys. Way to go. Get that production into the lineup.

In all seriousness, though, Jarvis Hayes probably won't offer you much this year. Not only is his thumb busted, he's just not that valuable a fantasy player. He does have the potential to score in bunches, and to rebound a little bit, but he won't give you any defensive numbers whatsoever, and as far as dropping dimes goes... forget about it.

He did have one ridiculous game this season, and it was recent (January 17):

32 10 20 50.0 5 7 71.4 2 2 100.0 0 4 4 0 1 2 0 0 27

That's: 32 minutes, 27 points on 50% shooting, 5 threes, 4 rebounds, 0 assists, 2 steals, 1 turnover. Not bad, not bad.

If he duplicates that line in the coming weeks, I'll be shocked. I would expect him to average about 13 points, 1.5 threes, 5.5 boards, 2.3 assists, 1.1 steals and 1.7 turnovers during his stretch as a starter, at a clip of about 40% from the field (if he's lucky), and 83% from the line.

It has its charms, I guess, but it's not Juan Dixon. It isn't that John Blaze shit.

It's a difficult situation because I don't want to drop Juan Dixon, nor do I want to pick up Jarvis Hayes. It could be a good idea to just cut bait with the both of them, and take Jason Hart for a spin, who is filling in for Brevin Knight, out with (surprise!) an ankle injury.

I'd recommend waiting and seeing on both Hayes and Dixon to see if Jordan changes his mind... Cross your fingers.

Larry Hughes Postmortem

2005-01-18T16:50:00.000-06:00

By now you've heard that breakout fantasy superstar (and former Saint Louis University Billiken) Larry Hughes is on the shelf for four-to-six weeks with a broken thumb.

This is a crushing loss for those squads who were relying on him, mostly because Larry was starting to look completely different from the inefficient fantasy mess that he had always been. His leaps forwards this year were numerous, and were starting to look like they'd be lasting.

Let's have a quick look at his progress by focusing on the three categories where he's made the greatest strides...

FG

We're talking about a guy whose career FG stands at .414, and that's with the added bump that this year gave him. Last year, Hughes managed .397 on 16.5 shots a game. He managed 18.8 points on those 16.5 shots. For those who don't know, that's crushing for your team FG.

Sure, you need scoring, but you don't need scoring that middling for that kind of price.

This was nothing new for Larry, as he had learned long ago, in Golden State (where else?) how lucrative it can be to be an incredibly inefficient "scorer". Perhaps he was pushed to be a star before he was ready, but the results speak for themselves. In 1999, playing for GSW, Larry hoisted up 21.4 shots per game--and made 8.3 of them. That comes out to .389. Ouch. He finished with 22.7 points on those 21.4 shots per game. He also wasn't afraid to stroke the 3-ball that year, doing it 2.3 times a game at a 24.3% clip. Double ouch.

In 2000, his percentage slipped to 38.3. By 2001, the Warriors had had it, reduced Larry's role in the offense, and he managed .424 on only 11.1 shots per game. His days as a budding superstar appeared to be numbered.

Luckily for Larry, he moved to an even more desperate organization when he joined the Wiz. Still in a limited role, he raised his FG in 2002 to a whopping .467 on 11.1 shots per game.

It was at about this point that the Wiz decided to move him back into a primary role and encourage him to shoot the ball more. Same player, same result. Taking more [bad] shots again, Larry stroked it at .397 last year on on 16.5 shots.

All of the poor shooting in Larry's past made this year's 43.5% on 17.3 shots seem like a miracle... or a fluke.

AST

For a shooting guard, Larry had had good seasons dropping the dime before. 4.5 in 2000 was his previous career best, sandwiched by impressive seasons in 1999 and 2001, when he went 4.1 and 4.3, respectively. This season, however, he was averaging a career best 5.3 with Gilbert Arenas and Antawn Jamison as his targets, easily beating his previous best. But what makes it even more ridiculous is that he was doing it at a career-best 2.30 A/T ratio. Larry Hughes?! Dropping it at 2+? This is the kind of ridiculous improvement in efficiency that bumps a player's overall value into the stratosphere, and gives your team a lethal combination of low TO and high AST. His previous best was 1.87, in 2001, which was itself much, much better than his next-best season. During that season, you'll note that Larry averaged a robust 12.3 points and 3.4 rebounds. Not quite as good as this season...

REB

Another career best here. 6.1 beats 5.9, in 1999, when he shot .387.

And of course, there's the...

STL

Larry's always been a thief. If you've owned him before--ever--it should have been the steals you were going for. The other stuff wasn't ever that impressive, given the other places he hurt you. But who could have seen this year coming? 2.8 easily led the Association and bested his previous career best of 1.9, which he'd done twice, back in 1999 & 2000.

But 2.8!? To go with 20 points, 6 boards, and 5 dimes? For a guy who was a good bet to shoot near 80% from the line, FG be damned? Combine all this with the 1 three per game that he was dropping this year, after having added it to his arsenal for the first time last year, and you'll realize that the Larry Hughes of 2005 had top-ten--in the long-term--written all over him.

Consider this a huge, gigantic bump in the road.

I admit that for a while I was trying to get him on the cheap from the guy who owned him in my league... but at some point, you have to respect the game and start offering some top-round talent. For whatever reason--his bad rep, his long history of selfish play, poor attitude, and underachievement--I wasn't willing to offer it.

Now I'm feeling relieved that I didn't.

Still, right now might be a good time to free up your IL spot, pony up a couple of mid-to-late round picks who are enjoying a good stretch, settle in for a month or so, and attempt to pick up a guy who is guaranteed to gain your squad a ton of points all across the board once he comes back.

Keep in mind, folks: he's only 25. He was bound to get better. He looks like a good bet to finally make good on the promise that made him Philadelphia's 8th overall pick after his rookie season in college.

Not nearly as much research has been done in basketball as in baseball on the ages during which one can expect player to produce his "peak" and "career" seasons. In baseball, age 27 is responsible for more career seasons than any other. In basketball, though, the knees wear out a little bit quicker and the game gets tighter a little bit sooner... I'd be willing to gamble that 25, in basketball, is that magic age. It would be a shame to think that we're missing out on a huge chunk of a great talent's best chance at an MVP-type season.

In the meantime, Juan Dixon is a great pick-up as a Larry-Lite type replacement. More on him later. Just don't expect him to duplicate Larry's amazing, career-defining season.

Welcome To The Next Level

2005-01-18T00:47:00.000-06:00

Welcome, content-starved fantasy NBA basketball enthusiasts! Your long search has come to an end!

Now that you're here, let's talk about your team for a minute...

THE PAST

You've participated in fantasy leagues before, and you're probably pretty good at them... But there's always that guy who seems to know a little bit more than you do a week before you even hear the news. And he's the guy who walks away with the league title.

You've probably noticed that there isn't nearly enough fantasy basketball content available to keep your team ahead of the curve.

The Internet is loaded with fantasy baseball content. You can probably find no less than five large media outlets that offer you daily player updates on injuries and values for every player in the MLB universe--for a fee, of course. Add to that the number of obscure professional and personal websites offering free insight and humor related to fantasy baseball, and you've got information overload before you even hit your draft.

But Basketball seems to be different story...

THE PRESENT

Even ESPN, the Microsoft of the sports media world, gives fantasy basketball the cold shoulder. Out of the Box, originally a daily tour of the boxscores for baseball, has become a watered-down, weekly, shell of its former self for the basketball season. Pay ESPN's Insider fee and you're privy to articles that will tell you what you already knew--that your fourth round pick has been a disappointment--but don't tell you what to do about it.

They offer you a Player Rater (Version 2.0!!), but still haven't addressed its obvious limitations. For instance, did you know that both the ESPN Player Rater and the Yahoo Player Rater do not take into account quantity of shots taken when they compute relative values for FG% and FT%? It's true... That means that a .545 FG from Kelvin Cato (on about 5 shots per game) looks better to a Player Rater than Carlos Boozer's .526 (on about 12.5 shots per game). This is the kind of flaw that has Kelvin Cato checking in at a cool #71 by average, while Boozer limps into the top 100 at #92.

If you're willing to trade me Boozer for Cato, we need to get in a league together real soon...

What's wrong with this picture? Shouldn't you be able to trust your Player Raters? Are they not infallible?

Are you the guy who's wondering why your team is floundering when you've got a roster that includes Kobe Bryant, Steve Francis, Yao Ming, RJ and Carmelo Anthony?

Welcome, friend, you've come to the right place.

Player Raters tell us some valuable things--Shawn Marion really is that good, folks--but they give an incomplete and distorted picture of what it's going to take to win your league.

And if you have a Yahoo! fantasy team and are trying to win based on ESPN content, good luck: ESPN's player rater doesn't factor in turnovers--your league standings do. Trust me.

Because ESPN leagues don't care about turnovers, their columnists don't either, and this really distorts the players they recommend for your team, and the ones they write off as busts. The people at ESPN are the kinds of people who continue to devastate fantasy teams every year by recommending people like Baron Davis, Shaquille O'Neal, and... god forbid that you took this guy before the tenth round... the dreaded, dreaded Carmelo Anthony.

So what are you left with when the cool, clean objectivity of the Player Rater fails you?

THE FUTURE

You need quality insight and analysis that looks--literally--"Outside the Box" to find out which players contribute to a winning squad and which players cripple it, to give timely playing time and injury updates, and to make accurate calls about the keepers and pretenders that matter in your league. And you need it more than once a week, or whenever ESPN can get around to it.

You need insight that's intelligent, and that isn't afraid to challenge convention, and you need to get it from someone you can trust. What does ESPN offer you?

Well, when it's basketball season, you can forget about the both headlines and headliners (goodbye Rob Neyer, so long Peter Gammons; hello... Greg Anthony?) when it's time to read the rare updates that they throw to us like so many table scraps. Just when you thought it couldn't get any nerdier, look, now, as Eric Karabell is replaced by red-faced eighth grader Kevin Rounce as guest columnist.

What you need is not a troupe of geeks and adolescents who, while dismissing for weeks the contributions of guys like Marko Jaric and Damon Jones, will tell you that it might be time to give Rick Brunson a shot, to ride the Ricky Davis train, or to drop Wally Szczerbiak for Eddie Griffin (whoops). You can trust me: I will never, ever tell you to ride the Ricky Davis train.

What you need is not the "old school" opinions of people who have played real basketball, like Walt "Clyde" Frazier, who will tell you how that even though Iverson makes about 39% of his shots on a given year, he's valuable because he's able to "create his own shot." That's great, I guess, but winning a fantasy title is a lot like winning an NBA championship--if you're going to let a guy who makes 39% of his shots take 25 of them a game, you probably shouldn't be in charge.

No, friends, what you need is right here. I'm the Dime Dropper. I'm here to drop them dimes...

Here, you'll find advice on which players to pick up, which players to drop, and which players to keep an eye on, and which player to avoid. Here, you'll find out who the establishment overrates and who it underrates. You'll find out who to buy low and who to sell high. You will learn to respect the turnover. You'll get this insight with an occasionally acerbic wit.

And in the end, you'll win your league.

Welcome.

The Dime Dropper