There must be some nudie pics of Pacers owner Herb Simon floating around GM David Morway’s home somewhere. I’m also convinced nudie pics of Morway are floating around in Jim O’Brien’s house. How else do you explain the clusterfudge of poor decisions being made in IndianapoLoss this season and every one of the last four? O’Brien hasn’t had a winning record with the Pacers since November 7, 2007 – the third game of his first season with the Pacers. Since then, he’s amassed a .424 win percentage, given mediocre outside shooter Danny Granger free range to shoot whenever he’d like despite his liking to shoot it from 30 feet away and with 19 seconds left on the shot clock, left the asthmatic Roy Hibbert to seek his own council in Bill Walton because the Indy coaching staff certainly had nothing to teach him (looking at you 6’10”, 2.6 career rpg Walter McCarty), has done less to coax out Darren Collison‘s skills in seven months than Chris Paul was able to in between injury rehab stints last year and now he wants to play small ball? Nudie pics. The shoeboxes in the closets of the Pacers brass must be rife with nudie pics. This spells bad news for Hibbert owners, as his minutes are about to take a J.J. Hickson-like turn for the worse. Owners of the five starters in this experiment should rejoice. Granger had a career-high 17 rebounds in his first start at PF last week. Don’t get used to that, but it stands to reason that he’ll be forced to take higher percentage shots closer to the basket if it’s his job suddenly to protect the paint. Audible sigh. Don’t drop Hibbert. My guess is the Pacers won’t play small ball for long. Hopefully the experiment will cease right after they show O’Brien the door.
Here are some far less frustrating developments yesterday in fantasy basketball:
DeShawn Stevenson – 19.5/3/3 in his last two games as his mpg increased from about 17 to 33. Deep leaguers – ho!
Caron Butler – By now you’ve heard, Butler’s out for the season. And Phil Jackson is a boy-toy. And the thought of Jackson having sex made me swallow back a little of my own vomit.
Al Harrington – Likely to return tonight, although he’s not likely to return to form for at least a few more games. Leave him on the bench until he shows he’s not rusty.
Shawne Williams – 9/5/1 in 21 minutes in a game in which the starters were on fire. Monitor him closely, as he could benefit from the Gallinari fallout. Bee tee dubya, “The Gallinari Fallout” would make a heckuva Dan Brown novel title.
Anderson Varejao – Hopes to play tonight despite a broken cheekbone. He’ll play with a mask, which disproves my Anderson Varejao can’t look any sillier theory.
Taj Gibson – 16/14 dub-dub despite admitting the concussion was having some after-effects. Quick! Someone concuss J.J. Hickson!
Tony Allen – Started, played 33 minutes, dropped 19 points along with three steals and two blocks on the Thunder. Allen should punch dudes in the face every night! On another note, does anyone know this elusive card game players across the NBA are playing, betting thousands of dollars on and then losing their shizz when they don’t get paid?
Jeff Green – Shooting .359 and averaging 10/4/2 in the last two weeks. He’s got one double-double this year. this time last season, he had five. Jrue story.
James Harden – Jim’s gone nuclear. He’s scored in double-digits in each of his last dozen games and has a six-game three-point streak in which he’s averaging two a game. He’s only owned in half of all fantasy leagues, but he’s worth a pick-up in all of ’em.
Rudy Fernandez – Averaging 6.7/2/1.3 in his last three games. Turns out he can fail. The Clash were full of shit, man.
Nicolas Batum – Averaging 34 mpg in his last six and playing with more consistency. Does 13.7/5.3/1.7 and a steal and trey per game sounds good to you, ’cause it sounds good to November Adam, I’ll tell you that much.
Joel Przybilla – Returned tonight after a seven game absence. Leave him on the shelf until Camby snaps in two.
Marcus Camby – Stretch Marcus grabbed 20 boards for the second time in three games. Stretch, Marcus! Stretch!
Mike Bibby – Grabbed a season-high 10 rebounds last night. Then went to Al Horford‘s locker and bragged about outrebounding him. Then got a swirlie in the team bathroom because Horford can’t take a joke.
Jamal Crawford – Drained 31 points on the Kings last night and has scored at least 24 in each of this last three. He’s had five games of 24+ points or more and all of them have come in the last month. That’s how I get you to keep comin’ back: fun facts like that.
Andris Biedrins – Should return tonight after missing the last nine. If this excites you, your team is not very good.
Beno Udrih – The Kings let Udrih play, despite a wonky knee. He played 26 minutes and ended with a 3/3/2 line. If we’ve learned one thing from this, it’s not to play Udrih on your team as hastily as Sacramento did on theirs. If there’s a second thing to learn from this, it’s that once you use Beno, things get stinky.
Rodney Stuckey – Speaking of using PGs before they’re healthy, Stuckey went 0-for-3 in 13 minutes and hasn’t eaten much more than soup in the last week. So parading him out for the 25-point trouncing L.A. gave Detroit makes total sense.
Greg Monroe – Led the team in minutes played last night and ended with a 14/11 /2 stl line, mostly in garbage time. Or, as the rest of the league calls it, the second-half.
