Indiana’s Brandon Rush tumbled to the floor on Sunday and on the way down slammed into Danilo Gallinari‘s left knee. That’s a mild sprain. It’s also a mild strain on fantasy owners having to decide between Charlie Villanueva or Mickael Pietrus as their replacement for the threes they’ll be missing in the next 2-3 weeks. The thing about the Rooster is, he’s way overvalued in fantasy leagues. In the last two weeks he’s averaged 14/4.6/2.2, and only 1.2 threes. His percentages are great, but he hasn’t been a big part of New York’s offense so far, taking a back seat to Amar’e, Felton, Chandler and, until recently, Landry Fields. He has improved from last year, but so have the Knicks and he’s no longer the focal point of a bad team as much as he is a role player on a playoff-caliber team. Had teams rostering Gallinari instead rostered James Harden, J.J. Redick or Jared Dudley in the last two weeks, they would have been better off today. Hindsight’s 20-20 or 2,000-2,000 if you’re an insect reflecting on the past, so I ain’t mad at’cha for rostering Gallinari over any of those other names from 30 words ago. Owners should take these next 14-21 days to do two things: 1) understand how replaceable Gallinari is. He offers three-point shooting, good free throw percentage and average scoring. That’s very replaceable. There are a handful of names in bold in this intro blurb that could do the job. 2) Watch Landry Fields. The kid may be hitting the rookie wall, which would be great news for Rooster owners as Fields is the player taking some of Gallinari’s shots. Caveat alert! If Fields continues his slump, not only will I retract everything written before number two, but also, Gallinari’s offensive output will almost certainly increase after he returns.
Here’s what else I saw in fantasy basketball last night:
Chris Bosh – 11/4/2. LeBron and Dwyane each scoring 30+ points in a game only makes 2-out-of-every-3 owners happy.
Brandon Bass – 10/3 in 26 minutes. He was cold. Ryan Anderson was less-than-cold (4-for-7, 2 treys). Bass is playing more minutes, Anderson is doing more with his. Really, I think more than a PF duo, we’ve got ourselves a CBS dramedy. From A To B: “If they didn’t need each other, they’d probably kill each other!”
Hedo Turkoglu – 10/14/10 triple-double with five steals to boot. He’s averaging 14/9/6 in his last four games and I’m still not sold on him. Why, you ask? You didn’t ask, you say? I should stop making assumptions about what you’re thinking, you threaten? Fine. I’ll just tell you. He’s still only shooting .442 and averaging 35 mpg (.465/36.5 in his last four). The Magic are too stacked to keep him out there for that many minutes if he’s not shooting better than he has been. Ride him while he’s hot but remember, shooting .465 is hot for Hedo.
Tracy McGrady – 11/9/11 starting in place of a flu-ridden Rodney Stuckey. Continuing our coverage of improbable triple-double threats, I present to you: Tracy McGrady everyone! If you had told me that in the first week of 2011 there would be a triple-double and two near trip-dubs and listed Glen Davis, McGrady and Turkoglu as the culprits, I would have knocked the sandwich out of your hand and not offered to pay for a new one. Go ahead and grab McGrady while he’s getting burn ’cause I don’t think he can keep this up much longer.
Rodney Stuckey – Played 14 flu-ridden minutes, which you would have known had you not skipped McGrady’s long blurb to read Stuckey’s short one.
Charlie Villanueva – Fouled out against the Jazz bigs, but played well in his limited minutes offensively. More than any other Piston, Carlos Newhouse has remained both consistent with his minutes and steadily improving his output (13.7/4/0.3 in October, 14.2/5/0.9 in December)
Martell Webster – He’s scored in double-digits in each of his last three games (14 ppg) and in nine of his 11 games this season. Jrue story.
Kevin Love – Twenty-four boards. Again. August Adam woke me up at two in the morning to tell me that a) they’re selling a kickass set of Ginsu knives on channel 314, b) he’s been having trouble sleeping lately, and c) he’s putting Kevin Love in the 2011 Top 15 fantasy players.
Tyrus Thomas – DeSagana Diop is done for the season, Gerald Wallace‘s bone bruise will keep him out most of the week and sounds like what you get after finally giving in to the crazy girl from apt. 2B and doing it, and Nazr Mohammad must have boinked the same lunatic because his bone is bruised as well. There ain’t no one left in Charlotte’s front court to take minutes away from Tyrus Thomas. Unless … no! If Kwame Brown plays more minutes than T-Time this week, then it will tell you all you need to know about Thomas.
Evan Turner – 2-for-10. He’s only shot better than .400 in three of his last 13 games. Blechh.
Andres Nocioni – 13.5/7.3/1.8 and shooting .576 in four games replacing the injured Andre Iguodala. As Iggy will miss the next three games, he’s a strong add in deeper formats.
Louis Williams – 1-for-11. He’s sneaky streaky. Bench him for now, wait a week and watch him heat up again.
Brad Miller – He’s not starting, but he’s definitely the Houston center to own. 10/11/5 with two blocks as this was his first double-double of the season. If this were the ’80s, I’d say that “it’s Miller time!” If this were the ’80s, I’d also have a group of busty models with cutoff jean shorts and teased blonde hair standing next to me while I said it.
Aaron Brooks – 4/1/5 in 16 minutes. He’s not playing terribly, he’s just not playing much. Buy low on him if you don’t own him. If you do own him, shame on you. this is a free society. No man should claim to own another man!
Kevin Martin – 3-for-15. Arronsacked! Artest would be proud.
