Marvin Williams strung together a trio of decent games this week (15/8 while shooting .586 from the field) and now Joe Johnson is recovering from having ‘loose bodies’ in his elbow. It’s not as bad as Robert Mapplethorpe’s collection of elbows in loose bodies, but still. Consider this week to be Marvilliams’ last shot at redemption. If he fails, not even ‘Celebrity Apprentice’ will throw attention his way. His five best games this season have all come against poor defenses (Memphis twice, New York, Cleveland and Toronto) whereas his five worst games have come against Boston, Utah, Philly (Iguodala, more specifically) and D.C. twice). So perhaps this week of powderpuff opponents was a mirage and next week’s games against Miami and Orlando will expose that no matter what Hawk is injured or what team Atlanta plays, Marvin just ain’t no good. But with Johnson out, he’ll get more touches, might even see a bump in minutes and there will be no more excuses. Stash and/or monitor.
Anyway, here are the rest of this weekend’s adds and drops to ponder:
Add
Ersan Ilyasova – Snare Yo Saliva averaged nearly 40 minutes this week and produced a 14/9/3 line with it. This is a hesitant add, with a lot of caveats. The biggest caveats being that you can’t count on 40-ish minutes from him. The Bucks are too stacked to be able to support that and his .429 FG% this week was atrocious. But 14/9/3 is useful in a lot of leagues, especially when you add .900+ FT% and two spg.
George Hill – 16/3/2.5 to go along with 2.5 spg in an off-week for Tony Parker. Who do you think gave Eva the head’s up?
Ed Davis – 11/6 and two blocks in his 24-minute season debut Wednesday. There’s already a glut of bigs in Toronto, but that glut is in a rut. It’s a good ol’ fashioned Raptor rutglut. Classic Raptors!
Josh McRoberts – A lot of deep leagues grabbed Chris Andersen this week in hopes that he’d average eight boards and two blocks a game. He hasn’t, but he is averaging nine obnoxious tattoos per appendage. So there’s that. I’d prefer the roundball stylings of Josh McBob, however. He’s established himself as a bit of the Pacers’ version of Birdman, assuming looking like Liev Schreiber is considered as colorful as wearing your hair like a roadie at a Sex Pistols show. He averaged a surprising 2.3 bpg and 2.7 apg this week along with 6.7/4.3 points and rebounds per game.
Brandon Bass – I wouldn’t rush to the waiver wire on this guy just yet, but he played the second-highest minutes of his season on Wednesday and the Orlando starting lineup is heading into the weekend a bit of a mess (Dwight and Jameer both have the flu, Rashard’s knee is bruised). If you have the room to speculate on a slight uptick in minutes, grab him now. If not, watch him.
Jerryd Bayless – 11/4/3 with 1.3 three treys a game as a Raptor in 4.5 extra minutes per game. And since the Raptors don’t have a whole lot else going for them, who’s to say his mpg don’t continue to increase? Jay Triano? Okay, besides him?
Drop
Eric Bledsoe – I know, I know. It’s hard. Baron Davis went down and you picked up Bledsoe assuming he’d do for your team what Darren Collison did for the Hornets last season. Instead, Bledsoe did for your team about what Collison has done for the Pacers this season.
Ron Artest – Only his steals and FT% are up from last season and neither are up substantially. The opposite is true for the rest of his output. You shouldn’t have owned Artest in the first place. But he’s owned in over 65 percent of leagues, so I’m-a just keep this broken record spinning. It sounds a lot like ‘Da Don’t Ron Ron.’
Nicolas Batum – He’s playing like he’s afraid something deeply, deeply terrifying will happen to him at any moment. Like, his kneecap will slide down to his shin or he’ll spend the rest of his life playing without any cartilage separating his knee joint or he’ll have to retire mid-season because of heart murmurs. The kid’s totally irrational.
Taj Gibson – He’s grabbed eight boards and blocked two shots in his last three games. This Gibson’s out of tune.
J.J. Hickson – I already went over him this week. If I’m repeating myself it’s because I care.
