Old men should also ‘go Wes.’ Or young women. Or old women. Just kidding. Old women don’t want anything to do with fantasy sports. But the point is that anyone who does do fantasy basketball should have already grabbed Wes Matthews after his game-winning 30-point, .579-shooting night. If you haven’t, go ahead and do so. We’ll all wait. I’ve got a burning Pop-Tart in the toaster oven. That’s not a euphemism. What would that even be euphemism for, sicko? I’m not telling you to pick up Matthews because I expect him to drain 30 with five treys in 44 minutes every night that Brandon Roy is out. I don’t. He won’t. But I do expect him to play nearly 36 minutes a game for the foreseeable future, because in the foreseeable future Roy won’t be healthy and smart money says sooner than later, he’s going to be shut down. His knees are bone-on-bone, man. Ask Barry Bonds how that worked out for him. The key noun in all this is ‘minutes.’ Matthews is gonna get ’em over Fernandez. The darkness on the edge of this noun is that Matthews hasn’t been reliable with those minutes thus far this year and Tuesday was as much of a tease as it was a promise. His per36 averages were 16/4/2 with a .419 FG% and a sub-.200 percentage from the arc. He’s been off for 11 games and proved it all night just once so far this season. It’s because of the first 11 nights that I’m telling you to be cautiously optimistic in your waiver pick, but it’s because the night belonged to Matthews that I’m telling you to definitely grab him.
Sorry for all the weird Springsteen references. I was watching the breathtaking new ‘The Promise: Darkness On the Edge of Town Story‘ box set on the main TV with the bedroom TV blaring hoops, my computer updating scores, my brain oozing out one ear and being scooped back into the other. If I have one love it’s beef jerky. If I have a second love, it’s Bruce Springsteen. I’ll keep the references to a minimum for the remainder of the post. Or not. We’ll see. But just understand why they’re there in the first place.
Here are a few other something’s in the night from around the league:
Rudy Fernandez – Shot 1-for-7, 0-for-6 from behind the arc. On the bright side, this Threejerk shot 1.000 outside of three-point attempts! Speaking of losing his shot, there’s no chance he starts over Wesley Matthews now. Go ahead and move on if you were sittin’ on a fence.
Andre Iguodala – Missed last night’s game with heel issues. If this were a commercial for pantyhose, Iguodala would just alter both heels in the elevator and show up to the business meeting in flats instead! Girls are so clever. Expect Iggy to be unhelpful to your team for a few games. He’ll either miss a few or miss one and play poorly in a few. Tomahto, potahto.
Thaddeus Young – He’s shooting .606 from the field while averaging 14.7 points in the last three games. It’s nice, but his production has been enabled by Iguodala’s absence or poor play. He’ll return to his Nocioni timeshare in a few days, which really is the most awful of all timeshares because you just know there’s a ton of spoiled asado left in the fridge from Nocioni’s family potlucks.
Sonny Weems – Dropped 16 points in 30 starter’s minutes. He had two threes and a rebound and assist here and there, but really … meh. Linas Kleiza went 15/5 and I have a feeling these two are gonna be shifted around within the system more than awful teachers with tenure. Either grab them both or rid yourself of the anguish.
Andrea Bargnani – Two boards in 28:25. He wasn’t in foul trouble (he’d have to come in contact with an opponent for that to happen) and wasn’t injured. He just blows. Even with the Canadian exchange rate, a rebound every 14:13 seconds is just friggin’ bizarre-gnani.
J.J. Hickson – He was benched in this one because nothin’ is forgotten or forgiven with Byron Scott and he’s tired of Hickson’s 4.6 rpg average in 26 minutes over his last five games. There must be a magic abacus or a Narnia closet or something that allows only a certain number of total league rebounds and because Kevin Love has decided to grab the lion’s share of them this season, guys like Hickson, Bargnani and Brook Lopez are going to be boarding like they’re five feet tall.
Daniel Gibson – 18/4/8/2 stl/3 3pt. I grabbed Boobie everywhere I could, which hopefully won’t get me in as much trouble as the last time I was caught doing that.
Kirk Hinrich – Dub-dubbed, and I’m not talking about reggae. If you grabbed him yesterday, go pin a rose on your nose and stick him in your lineup for tonight’s game as Wall is about 50/50 to play. If you didn’t grab Hinrich, don’t bother now. Wall will be back in the next game if he’s not starting tonight.
Darren Collison – Sat out with a sprained ankle and looked as if he couldn’t remember his teammate’s names while he was sitting on the bench. Seriously, Collison looked as if he was sitting outside his boss’ office waiting to get fired. You know you’re in a slump when you’re nervous about losing your Pacer position to T.J. Ford. That’s actually more of a doubling-over, than a slump.
Tyler Hansbrough – He also sat out with a sprained ankle, but he made brownies for everyone, so he’s all good. See, Darren Collison? That’s how you nurse an injury!
Josh Smith – He was lights out tonight, caused trouble in the heartland. He took over the league lead in blocks, rejecting seven suckers in Indiana. What’s he mean for fantasy? He’s not only averaging 3.4 bpg, but he’s shooting .467 from beyond the arc. I’m sticking his portrait in between ALF and Scottie Pippen among the pictures of heroes on my wall.
Shannon Brown – Sank four threes on his way to 21 points in 21 minutes. Earlier this week I wanted him to string together a few games in order to recommend him. Well, he’s averaging 17.3 points and 2.7 threes in his last three games. Consider this a soft recommendation, much like the new Cee-Lo album.
Drew Gooden – 22/13 and has both rebounded and scored in double-digits in three of his last four games. Yeah, two of those games were against Golden State and New York and yeah, neither Pau nor Lamar paid much attention to him last night, but Milwaukee plays Philly, OKC, Cleveland, and Detroit next. These are not horrifying defenses.
Landry Fields – He combined with SF Danilo Gallinari to grab 27 rebounds, while frontcourtsmen Wilson Chandler, Amar’e Stoudemire, Ronny Turiaf and Timofey Mozgov combined for, um, let me see here … I just had it. It was a really good number too. You’re really gonna get a kick out of it … ah ha! Eleven. They shared 11 rebounds among the four of them. The Knicks are terrible.
Gary Forbes – 19/9 in 23 minutes. He’s a bit of a wild card, this kid. I can’t say that I love the prospect of picking him up, but he’s played 23+ minutes in each of his last two games and Forbes being a breakout star for the Nuggets makes about as much sense as anything else going on with that team lately.
J.R. Smith – Played 1:03 and fouled a guy. Ironically, it was the one guy who thinks its still a good idea to own J.R. Smith.
Derrick Rose – Went 4-for-5 from beyond the arc for only the second time in his career. Either that means he’s reached his yearly quota already or that his 1.2 3ptm average so far this season ain’t a fluke. I warned you that this Derrick was going to dig deep and strike it rich for owners. Didn’t I? Didn’t I?
Kyle Korver – 10/6/4 with three steals and two threes in 26 minutes. This was surprising, not only because Korver was announced as available to play only a few hours before tip-off, but because he’s had three steals, rebounds and assists one other time in the last four seasons. Because of that, leave Korver on the wire.
Kyle Lowry – Sticking with the Kyle theme (bee-tee-dubya, does Kyle strike anyone else as an odd name for an adult to have? It’s like Josh or Billy. I’m not really sure how you’d change it if your name was Kyle. Ky sounds like the name of an Asian prostitute and Elyk is just nonsense.) He ended with a blahtastic 7/4/7 line, which is nice for jets but less-than-nice for Rockets. For what it’s worth, Lowry had five points taken away from him because of ref-reviewed shot-clock violations.
