By the end of this season, Terrence Williams‘ suitcase is going to have more stickers on it than my Trapper Keeper during the Garbage Pail Kids era. T’Will went from the Nets to the D-League and back only to get shipped off to Houston in a blockbuster trade to be finalized later today. I say blockbuster, not because of the quality of players involved but because, like the bankrupt movie rental chain, the product involved was removed to make room for something less crappy. Like a Yankee Candle Depot or, oh I dunno, Carmelo Anthony. The Nets, in return for Williams got two first-round picks and Sasha Vujacic. The picks will likely be used to sweeten the ‘Melo pot, while the Vujacic acquisition probably only happened to increase the opportunities for Russian owner Mikhail Prokhorov to oogle Maria Sharapova. [Sidenote: When did the New Jersey Nets became a hot WAG destination? Kardashian, the Sharapova Supernova and the occasional Beyonce? That makes Dyan Cannon’s presence in L.A. look like … well, Dyan Cannon!] Anywho, Vujacic’s value will almost certainly remain as inert on the Nets as it was on the Lakers. Jermaine Taylor and Joe Smith are also changing teams, but they weren’t making noise on their old teams and they won’t make noise on their new ones. No, the real news here is Williams, Anthony, and Shane Battier. The Rockets need some, er, um, fuel from the field. Whether Adleman starts Williams or has him come off the bench, it won’t make much of a difference. He’ll get 30-ish minutes a game. And really, this hits the reset button on his season. Two months ago, I projected Williams would average .436/.721/0.5/12/5/3.5/1/0/2 and this seems about right yet again, with upside until both Yao and Brooks return from injury. Battier, on the other hand will see a dip in minutes and therefore production. He’s been averaging 30 mpg, I bet he plays 23-26 from here on out.
Anyway, here’s what else I saw in fantasy basketball yesterday:
Derrick Favors – Earned his second career double-double (10/13) and played 27 minutes for just the third time this year. These are a few of my favors-ite things! Yup. I sure did just type “favors-ite.” Deal with it.
Troy Murphy – Still inactive and with today’s trade, you have to kinda assume the Fall of Troy isn’t soon behind. If you’re willing to assume that, you should be willing to assume the waiver wire pickup mode, which consists of stretching your clicking finger, and e-mailing a smug look to the guy who dropped Murphy a month ago as soon as you nab him off the wire.
Anthony Morrow – Popped his hamstring, or heard a pop near his hamstring. I was under the impression those things couldn’t pop. Which either means Morrow doesn’t understand what onomatopoeia is or he didn’t hear his hamstring. Either way, he played only 33 seconds of last night’s game.
Jerryd Bayless – 17/3/9, did most of his damage in the first half. During halftime, Shaun Livingston Googled the guy distributing the ball for Toronto, discovered a few fun facts about him (Bayless is a derivative of the Scottish surname Bayliss!) then adjusted their defense.
Jose Calderon – Coach Jay Triano said it’s unlikely Joe Kettle will play tonight. Bayless bonus! You get one more game of uninterruptyd Jerryd.
Ed Davis – 6/6 and a block in 25 minutes. He’s played eight games and scored exactly six points in half of them. He’s also grabbed between 4-7 boards in five of those games. Minutes played don’t seem to matter much. I think Reggie Evans threatened to squeeze the kid’s nuts if he exceeds 6/7 while he’s out with an injury.
Stephen Jackson – 7/4/4 before fouling out. It was his first six-foul game of the season, which surprised me. Also surprising? He only fouled out once last season. Jrue story.
Tyrus Thomas – Missed the last two games with a sore quad, but returned to score 14/7 with a pair of blocks in 21 minutes. His quad is fine and prepared to let fantasy owners down two out of every three games going forward. I didn’t make that up. T-Time’s quad told me that. Then it told me that ‘Men Of A Certain Age’ is kinda underrated. Then it asked if I had any seltzer water, which I thought was weird, but whatever.
J.J. Redick – Saw nearly 38 minutes of court time and sank six threes on his way to a 29 point explosion. With Pietrus, Duhon and Richardson all out due to injury, Redick did the scoring of four men … although not those men, because those men would never combine to score 30. You kiddin’? 18 tops.
Ty Lawson – Before Terrence Williams was shipped off to Texas, Chauncey Billups‘ finger flair-up was the big news of the day. Dude’s going to be out for the next three games and perhaps more. In his place was Tyny Titan Lawson who ended last night’s game with a 16/6 line. Incidentally, this was better than Billups’ December and November averages. If he’s still available, any league rostering Billups should also be rostering Ty and preparing to buckle up. Why? Because it’s the law, son.
John Wall – And before Billups gave this week the finger, Flip Saunders’ comments that his star rookie may never be pain free from his knee tendinitis again was the story of the day. I’ve searched all over the Internets looking for more information. I bought my Little Orphan Annie secret decoder just to decipher what the hell Flip meant by “ever.” Like, forever-ever? Forever-ever-ever? What kind of man makes such a – ahem – flip comment like that? Wall’s played 15 games, only five in which he was fully healthy and he’s already Larry Bird from 1986-1992? Oh, this is bad. Or at any rate, it ain’t good.
JaVale McGee – 12/10 with 2 blocks last night, which is okay, I guess. Especially when you consider he’s only averaging 8.4/8/0.8 blks in the last five.
Yi Jianlian – Left early in the first quarter after Artest ronsacked his already wonky knee. Trevor Booker is the add based on the minutes if neither Yi nor Blatche return for the next game. But do not think about adding him unless both are out.
Chase Budinger – Sank 18 points on 7-for-10 shooting in 27 minutes. He’s averaging 16.5 points on .650 from the field in his last two games. Just in time for some other shooter to join the team and make Budinski valueless.
Luther Head – Head got the start over Francisco Garcia in place of the plantar fascist Tyreke Evans. Head played 20 minutes (11/2/3) while Garcia played 26 (10/1/2). Blech.
Jason Thompson – Don’t look now, but Thumpson bumped up his averages from 6/5 in November to 13/8 in December after last night’s 15/10 double-double, the third of the season and second in three games. You could do worse than grabbing Sac’s big man. Googling grab+sac+big man, for instance. That would be you doing worse.
Pooh Jeter – Do I call him “Pooh” or Eugene? I’d prefer Pooh, but I don’t want to get used to it and have another J.R. Smith call me Earl moment. My heart can’t take the flux. Anyway, he supplied an 8/2/6 line in 21 minutes. Eugene Genie has better per minute averages than Beno Udrih. Anyone think Paul Westphal knows that? Me neither.
Jonny Flynn – He returned, he played 16:31, he doled out four assists. We’re going to be dealing with Flynn vs. Ridnour for three months, I can just feel it.
Martell Webster – 17/5/2 and shot 6-of-8 from the field in his first game of the season. Although he was ecstatic to start the season, he was less than enthused to find he was no longer on the Blazers and promised himself he would keep in-touch with offseason acquisitions around the league in future offseasons. With the glut of hybrid guard-forwards in Minnesota, don’t count on this line often. Beasley was in foul trouble for much of the game.
Darko Milicic – Darko said his quad was still sore. Then Darko went 12-for-19 with 25 points and 11 boards. So Darko is a dirty liar.
Acie Law – Played a season-high 21 minutes off the bench and provided nine points, three dimes and a pair of steals. He went from averaging eight mpg in November to 18 in three games this month. Could be nothing. Could be something.
Monta Ellis – Dropped 19 points in the second quarter on his way to 34. And at one point I’m pretty sure Beasley’s tattoos intertwined with Monta’s tatoos like the mane’s of the Na’vi and the dragon-horse creatures in ‘Avatar.’ Although it was all kinds of awesome, it was also the reason B-Easy fouled out. The refs don’t like tattoo twining, bro.
Jodie Meeks – 1-for-9 from the arc in the last two games. Okay, okay. We got it, you like the long ball. Chicks dig the long ball. You can make the long ball. Now settle down and stop shooting the long ball.
Spencer Hawes – 18/5/4/2 blk on 8-for-11 shooting from the field. I’m told he looks better than I’ve been told he looked in the past. I can’t be sure as I’ve never seen him play. That would entail watching a Sixers game and I don’t enjoy basketball enough to do that.
Andrew Bynum – I popped some corn, took the phone off its hook, wore my silk robe instead of my velor one, put on a little Teddy Pendergrass, then muted the Pendergrass because I couldn’t hear what the game announcers were saying, sat back and watched the Andrew Bynum era restart for the Lakers. 7/4/1 with two blocks in 17:29. He’s dead to me.
Greg Monroe – Started for the first time all season, ended with a 5/7 line and played just under 21 minutes. The Pistons whomped the Hawks, which is ironic because if Monroe hadn’t been a starter he might have played more than 21 minutes in this one.
Rodney Stuckey – Two consecutive double-doubles and he’s averaging 19.5/11. Ride that Stuckey thoroughbred ’til it bucks you off.
Tracy McGrady – Sank four fourth quarter treys to go along with a 16/6/3 line in 26 minutes. It was his best game of the season and only the second time this year he’s cleared 25 minutes. As long as the game is in-hand and no one is watching, T-Mac totally plays like his old self. If Kuester can convince everyone in the stadium to close their eyes and not peek when McGrady plays, he’s got an all-star on his hands.
