Hide your kids, hide your wife, crank up the Owl City and hand me a KFC Double Down. The Class of 2010 is in the hizzous!
That’s right, it’s looking like that draft wasn’t so bad after all, what with a healed and dazzling John Wall; the Doug Collins-less, unleashed Evan Turner; a settled-in DeMarcus Cousins; Boards-N-Blocks favorite Greg Monroe; my NBA BFF Paul George; and now Derrick Favors, who – here we go again – appears he has achieved Breakout Status.
Had a 21-13-3 against Denver, a 12-12-2 but with 5 steals (!) vs. the Pelicans, a monster 20-18-3 against the Spurs and then had a more typical Favors effort with a 17-7-1 in Oakland.
Some say this means he’s out of the buy-low window now. But that means, at least to me, he’s in the sell high. I need to see consistent beastly efforts, or a 20-point, 20-board game (hell Nikola Vucevic does this in his sleep), and until then I’ll keep saying to trade him whenever he gets hot.
Since we are in Boards-N-Blocks territory here, let’s set aside the debate as to whether Favors has “arrived” or “broken out” or is a sell or buy. He’s been blocking more shots of late, and pairing that with double-digit rebounding efforts, and if he can keep nudging that bpg average up to 2.0 that is going to make him a regular on this page.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I was just about to pop in “The Tourist.” Any good?
Dwight Howard – Fake Hoopsters have learned to properly value (and hate) him factoring in his abysmal FT percentage and then drafting or trading accordingly. The Rockets, well, that’s a different story. The last few minutes of close games are a nightmare for Kevin McHale as he tries to juggle the Hack-a-Howard, defensive assignments and rebounding needs. Here in Boards-N-Blocks land, he is a flat-out god. Over the last week he gobbled up a whopping 15.3 rpg and smacked away 4 bpg. That included a 24-board, 5-block performance against the Raptors, a 15-6 against the 76ers and although he didn’t have a lot of big boy stats in Saturday’s game vs. the Nuggets, he did make an astounding 17-24 free throws, or 70.8 percent. Hack this!
Timofey Mozgov – He looks like a dope, plays like a dope, has a first name that looks like it was spelled by a dope (uh, Seth, I’m preeeeetty suuurrreee it’s Timothy) and is made the fool by many a dunker. But if you find yourself in a deep-ish league and need a push in rebounding or blocks on a given week, the seas in the tumultuous frontcourt situation in Denver could part and make way for Moz.
Tyson Chandler – The big man is a man’s man, man. He said he’d be back on the early end of a 4-6 week spectrum. Now he’s not so sure, even though I hear rumors that he’ll play with the crutch. What a mess. Luckily for you, this is less of a debacle for your fantasy team than it is for the Knicks. Dump-o-rama.
Ed Davis/ Amir Johnson – Didn’t it feel like these guys were blocking each other on the Raptors forever? That’s because they were! The good news is Davis is now in Memphis, and Johnson is still stuck in Toronto. No, that’s not the bad news. The bad news is I still can’t separate the two. There’s good reason for that – their recent numbers per 36 minutes would not look that different. Neither of these guys really shouldn’t be on any 12-team roster, yet Amir is 81 percent owned in Yahoo and Davis is only 2 percent. Huh?
DeJuan Blair – Ever since Charles Barkley I’ve been a fan of the rotund player. I was really bummed when Tractor Traylor didn’t pan out, but saw a glimmer of hope with Blair when he was on the Spurs. Well, Pop don’t play no tub-a-lubs, so he let Blair go off to one of the capitals of obesity, Dallas, Texas. So far that seems to be suiting Blair just fine, as he’s carved out a niche similar to Elton Brand on the 76ers a few years back. He doesn’t eat up a ton of minutes but when he’s out there he produces boards, a couple blocks and even steals and points.
Andre Drummond – Last week we pimped Monroe because he was playing better. This week, Drummond took the upper hand, averaging 15.3 boards and 1.3 blocks in the last week.
Al Jefferson – Big Al has become the Big Albatross. If you’re like me and felt trapped into drafting him at the end of the first round we walk through the same daily nightmare.
Robin Lopez – Nevermind the annoying hair; he’s still chugging along as a serviceable center. I’d rather have him right now than wait for Chandler. And if I was making a trade, I’d try and trick the other guy to include him as a throw in.
Terrence Jones – He’s slipped into McHale’s starting five and is racking up double-digit boards (including three in the last four games) and 2.5 bpg in the last week (three games where he was over 3 bpg).
Jason Thompson – Whenever he puts together a string of solid games on the glass it’s like that whole weird situation with Charlie Day and Jennifer Aniston in “Horrible Bosses,” where your superior is showing you a little more somethin’ somethin’ than she should and MUST. RESIST. THE URGE. TO LOOK. So move along, nothing to see here.
Nikola Vucevic – Me personally, I’m a huge fan, so I would never deal him. But if you don’t feel a personal attachment, I would wait until the next 20-board effort and put together a package for an elite player. He’s way better than everyone thought, but not as good as some people think.
Little Big Men of the Week – Jeremy Lin/ Patrick Beverley. Lost in the Lin-PBev Deathmatch that Lin is dominating at this point is the fact that these smaller dudes can board yo. Five boards per in the last week for Beverley, 4.8 rpg for Lin in the same time period. This is slightly relevant for Lin owners or those targeting him in a trade, because it’s nice to know you’re getting some beef with the preposterous onslaught of three’s. It’s actually more relevant to those in deeper leagues where Beverley is still out there – he might lose the deathmatch, but he can still give you a buffet of stats in the minutes he plays.
