One more night. I know I’ve got a long summer filled with postseason rankings ahead of me. Not to mention keepers, sleepers, rookies, lockout news, more lockout news, Ron Artest-is-bored-and-crazy news, Greg Oden-is-progressing-and-looking-forward-to-a-lockout-shortened season news, Hey-is-that-Luke-Ridnour?-Why-is-he-even-in-this-state-much-less-at-my-laundromat-news, preseason rankings, and the inevitable process of writing about fantasy basketball if there is no real basketball. I’m just a fantasy calf in need of an NBA teet to suckle! So there’s your teet, now here’s the sour: just one more night. It’s going to be a long, possibly cruel summer, bananarama. I almost took last night off. I need a rest, figured I’d let a lesser blogger take a turn to end the season. Then I thought, “No!” I thought, “Hell, no!” You don’t see the Raptors sitting out do you? The Nuggets aren’t throwing Kosta Koufas in the starting lineup, are they? It’s not like Jeff Green is suddenly Bostn’s most important player, right? /Adam glances at a dozen team pages for tonight’s games, blinks, toussels hair in confusion, fixes himself a drink, let’s the bubbles tickle his nose, regrets fixing himself a Slow Gin Fizz, wonders wy he chose to make himself a drink that hasn’t been popular in 50 years, downs it quickly and chases it with a Screwdriver to cleanse the pallet, feels woozy, tries to recall what forced him to drink in the first place, recalls, does some more blinkin’. \ Um … okay. Lot of weird lineups coming up tonight. Below, I’m looking at widely available players (think less than 40 percent owned) who are playing tonight and organizing them by category. This is your last chance for glory. Hallelujah.
Here are the fantasy basketball adds for tonight’s final regular season game:
FG%
Ryan Hollins – Fighting Charlie Villanueva is like arm-wrestling a toddler, you absolutely should win that, so much so that the cost of losing is enough not to risk even trying it.
Chris Wilcox – Chris Wilcox could have told Hollins he didn’t want no part of Browless Newhouse.
Kwame Brown – Brown has scored in double-digits in his last four and should probably continue on that trend against Atlanta, who, as far as I can tell, are taking it easy until the start of next season.
FT%
Sasha Vujacic – He’s playing a Chicago squad likely running out it’s normal rotation tonight. Go ahead and pray for Sasha to kamikaze his way into the lane just to see what happens. Heck, maybe he can employ Sharapova’s grunt everytime he does it.
Drew Gooden – My buddy Jason constantly repeats the story of a Bulls game he was at several years ago when Gooden still played for Chicago, back when Gooden was still growing that ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ beard. Most Bulls fans that liked the Bulls hated Gooden. He was sloppy, took bad shots, missed worse shots, played little defense and, oh yeah, had that effin’ beard. Anyway, sitting in front of Jason were two fat twentysomethings. Fat. Faaat. That’s not me being mean, that’s me telling you that they didn’t have ncce personalities. Had they been super fat, but kind or witty or something, I would have described them as kind or witty twentysomethings. But they weren’t kind. They weren’t witty. They were super huge Drew Gooden fans – so much so that every time he touched the ball or came into the game, they would cheer as if their decibal level would determine how many people would be handed out the cure for cancer. They were cheering as loud for Drew Gooden shooting the ball as the rest of us would cheer if Andres Nocioni hit Gooden in the head with it. And that is why I described those girls as fat. Jason’s biggest regret of 2008, besides buying the Killers’ third album, is not asking why the hell those girls were so into Drew Gooden.
Gerald Henderson – Don’t be Wary of the Henderson.
3PTM
Ryan Anderson – He’s sinking 2.2 3ptm this week and faces the Pacers’ perimeter-allergic defense. Shootin’ threes is his biz. Anderson calls it his Threes Company.
Wesley Johnson – The Minnesota 3-Wolf has been averaging 2.2 3ptm right along with Anderson. 3-Wolf? No, Three-Wolf. Oh … Oh!
Sasha Vujacic – That’s twice in two categories. Now I’m beginning to see what Sharapova sees when she sees Vujacic eating See’s candies right before playing the C’s.
PTS
Jerryd Bayless – Averaging 22.0 ppg over his last five. Time to scoot your other boys on the side, grab a firestarter and turn Bayless into D. Baymore.
Gerald Henderson – 17.2 ppg last week. Hark! The Gerald Wrangler’s King.
Sasha Vujacic – Yup. 16.8 ppg in his last five. That’s three in a row for Vaj-a-chick. The final days of an NBA regular season give me brain freeze.
RBD
Ed Davis – Averaging 9.4 rebas, with a .554 FG% and 14.2 ppg last week to boot. Or “beaut” if you think it’s as pretty as I do. Or to “Butte” if you’re reading this in Montana.
DeAndre Jordan – Kaman is likely out tonight, which only nourishes Jordan’s output. You know what else nourishes Jordan? Nothing. It’s covered by the Arabian effin’ Desert!
Sasha Vujacic – Just kidding. Kendrick Perkins. He’s averaging 8.8 boards and 55.2 scowls per game lately.
AST
Jordan Farmar – If you need to be told to pick up Farmar it means that you haven’t been paying attention and are probably reading this in September. Howdy! How was the Royal Wedding and that “Thor” movie?
Jarrett Jack – … Because I didn’t want to have to talk about Drew Gooden or Jerryd Bayless again. That last sentence doesn’t count.
J.J. Barea – J-theme! Barea is averaging over six assists a game in his last four. It should have been you, Beaubois!
STL
Corey Brewer – Okay, who had April 13 in the “When Will Corey Brewer First Get Mentioned In Razzball” pool?
Larry Owens – Look, anyone can recommend Jared Dudley, how many fantasy basketball sites have mentioned Larry Owens? Them’s deep cuts, youngin’. You’re desperate for steals, you’d have to be desperate to roster Owens. It’s win-win, Giamatti.
Jeff Teague – Like Owens, Teague is also averaging 1.8 steals in the last week or so. For the record – and I’m not kidding here – Vujacic is averaging 1.6 steals in his last five. Jrue story.
BLK
Chris Andersen – He blocked four shots in his last game, but had missed several before that. I bet he lands somewhere between zero and four blocks tonight. And yes, I do get a kick thinking someone out there just dropped Kevin Love, Deron Williams and Paul Pierce for Larry Owens, Jeff Teague and Chris Andersen.
Ekpe Udoh – Twelve blocks in his last four games. Good news! You neither have to figure out his bpg average, nor correctly pronounce his name to pick him up. Just go. You! Go! Udoh!
DeAndre Jordan – Him again! Yes, him again, because you clearly didn’t take me seriously up at the rebounding section of this post. Next time I’ll just go ahead and suggest Erick Dampier or Brendan Haywood and leave you for dead on the final day of fantasy hoops!
It’s been a great season, y’all. I’ll see you next week for the (real) playoffs.
