Rudy Gay got a second opinion from Dr. Freeze who told him he was going to need surgery that would lay him low for up to six months. Speaking of Dr. Freeze, a non-baseball-related visit from Dr. James Andrews is like those weird episodes where Batman randomly helped out the Scooby-Doo gang. Familiar, but ultimately out-of-place. This new news changes nothing and changes everything all at once. If you own Gay, you can let go. Drop him outside of keeper leagues and look elsewhere. Better this news come to you now rather than tomorrow or Friday or next week. Heck, maybe by this news coming out now, your team will see next week. That said, unless you’re in a shallower league, both Tony Allen and Sam Young were likely snapped up long ago. If not, get to snapping, otherwise, consider swing guys like Delfino, Patterson, Mbah a Moute, Batum, Dudley, or Hamilton.
Here’s what else I saw in a fantasy basketball night filled with barnburners (That’s me being 2/3 sarcastic).
Derrick Rose – 30/4/10, including a career-high six treys – all earned in just three quarters. This is Derrick’s world, we’re all just living in it. Two years ago, he had six double-doubles at this point in the season, last year he had three. This year, dude’s got 20. That’s seeing D. Rose through world-tinted glasses.
Jeff Teague – Scored 20 points along with four threes to lead the Garbage Time Hawks in scoring. Think of it as a single-serving Lent in which Teague gave up underperforming.
Josh Smith – Smith (14/2/0, with two steals and a block in 27 minutes last night) was my second-round pick in one of my roto leagues, and all-in-all, he’s been worth about a second-round draft. So the fact that I benched a 16/9/3 player and was right to do so illustrates how a) erratic the Hawks have been, b) stoppable Smoove can be against solid defenses, c) scary Chicago’s defense is, and d) all of the above. That wasn’t a multiple choice question, I just wanted to reiterate those first three.
Jamal Crawford – Shot 1-for-4 last night in 24 minutes. That’s one shot every six minutes. What the hell else was he doing in between bricks? In his last 14 games, Crawford has shot worse than .400 percent from the floor 11 times (.390 over that span). Way to make yourself attractive in a contract season, Crawdaddy.
Jordan Crawford – Staying with the extremely rare theme of J. Crawfords that have worn Hawks jerseys at some point this season, Jordan led the Wiz in scoring with a dozen points. He shot 3-for-15 from the field and turned the ball over six times. It was like owning Rondo without any good stats.
Gerald Wallace – 28/8/3, with four steals in what was arguably Multiplicity’s best game of the season. After a slow start with the Blazers he’s averaging 19.8/7.3/6/3 stl in his last four games.
Nicolas Batum – Since ramping up his minutes to about 35 mpg four games ago, Batum has averaged 19.3/5.5/3.3/2.5 3ptm. For those of you in medium-sized leagues who just lost Rudy Gay for the remaining three weeks, you’re gonna want to re-read the first sentence of this blurb. Take your time. We won’t move too far on up ahead. It was a really slow fantasy basketball night.
Channing Frye – Career-high 32 points for Frye. Also, the Yahoo! box score said this game ended after the 7th Quarter. Never seen that before. Probably because six quarters do not equal one whole.
Lamar Odom – 29/16/5, on 13-for-22 shooting. Like a prodded bull set loose in a rodeo.
Kobe Bryant – Needed one assist for a triple-double. Matter fact, he went the final 11:27 without passing the ball and shooting 5-of-13 in three overtime quarters. Nothing says Kobe like that last sentence.
Ron Artest – “When you’re taking Ron Artest in your chest – that’s quite a load.” -Kevin McHale, grosser words were never spoken.
