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Line of the Night: It wouldn’t be right to let a season pass without a visit from GMTR’s favorite white guy this side of Keith Van Horn. Yes, Troy Murphy (1.07) checks in with the best line of yesterday with a rather pathetic looking 15/12/4, although he did have 3 threes and 3 steals, as Indiana got taken down by Denver 135-115.

Injury of the Night: Indiana lost not only lost the game, they caused collateral damage along the way. In the third quarter of the game, Jeff Foster slapped Carmelo Anthony on the wrist going for a steal. Today, we find out that Melo has a “probable” wrist fracture and could be out for a while. Time for a little more Linas Kleiza and JR Smith I guess.

Honorable Mention: Murphy walks away with LotN, but Michael Redd (1.01) and Danny Granger (0.92) scored 35 and 36 points, respectively. Both hit 4 threes too.

Waiver Wire Line of the Night: It’s either Andrea Bargnani (0.82), who got the start again for Jermaine O’Neal (and went for 21 and 8), or George Hill (0.4), who scored 15 points and grabbed 7 boards in only 17 minutes on the court. Unfortunately, that type of insane production is rarely seen outside of Wilt Chamberland’s bedroom.

The Biggest Loser: A few guys to choose from today (I’m looking at you and your non-existent defensive game, Marco Belinelli (-0.55)), but Richard Jefferson (-0.51) carries the highest expectations out of yesterday’s underperformers. Jefferson went 1-7 from the floor, finishing with 6 points, 2 boards and 2 assists.

All Eyez on Me: New Orleans (20-10) at Los Angeles (27-5) – The Lakers look to win their 16th straight home game against Mr. Fantastic and the Hornets. Luke Walton is day-to-day with toe inflammation. If he doesn’t play, it means another start for Trevor Ariza.

Boston (29-6) at Charlotte (12-22) – The Bobcats are just what the doctor ordered for a team in a mini-slump. Of course, you could have said something similar about the Knicks last Sunday.

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We’ve reached the 40% point of the season (yesterday actually), and as such, Patrick and I have made the decision to cut down on the daily posts a little. Really, this just means we’re only going to put in Honorable Mentions when they’re really honorable. We’re hoping this will help us free up a little more time to do other posts that should be more helpful to fantasy owners trying to manager their roster on a daily (or weekly) basis.

Line of the Night: Wilson Chandler (1.16) had 31 points against the Celtics last night as the Knicks beat Boston by 12 points. The front page of Yahoo’s NBA page is calling it a slump for the men in green. When Wilson Chandler is getting the LotN against you, I’d say so.

Honorable Mentions: Rashard Lewis hit 6 threes last night to go with 6 rebounds and 9 assists. He only shot 37%, though.

Waiver Wire Line of the Night: Nicolas Batum (0.85) of the Portland Trail Blazers (in case you were wondering) had 17 points with 3 threes. He’s only owned in 2% of Yahoo leagues, but unfortunately, he shot 100% from the field. He added 5 rebounds, 4 assists, and a steal.

Hakim Warrick (0.65) had 18 and 7 and is owned in 42% of Yahoo leagues, and passes the FG% test with 43%.

The Biggest Loser: Greg Oden (-0.38) continues to disappoint. He made it 35 minutes last night, but only had 10 points and 4 rebounds while shooting 43% from the field, and 57% from the free throw line.

The Golden Ticket: Golden State plays Utah tonight, so get those Jazz players in your lineup. Could be good things for Deron Williams.

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As the new year springs to life and begins to roll along, most people tend to shift their thoughts to the future and what it may hold. It’s about time we do the same. What better way to ponder on what the future may bring than to take a look at how this year’s young guns are doing in the NBA and in fantasy hoops.

A lot of experts weren’t too excited about this year’s crop of rookies before the season began. Frankly, I was one of them. Well not an expert, but I was one of the people who wasn’t holding his breath expecting greatness. I had my eye on a handful, well 3 in fact. Those were Michael Beasley, Derrick Rose, and O.J. Mayo. Greg Oden was on my bubble.

Patrick discussed about not being over eager to grab rookies in this year’s draft as rookies, as a general rule, rarely live up to their drafted expectations. I tried to follow his advice and tried to draft them as late as I could.

Fine, no one member of this year’s crop is named LeBron James. Neither is any one rookie standing out or is poised to be him or have the rookie-impact LBJ had. But collectively, as a class, there are a good number of these youngsters who may not be making huge waves; but are providing good contributions to a lot of fantasy teams today. Whether it’s because they’ve wound up in teams that are in dire need of talent at their positions or simply in need of talent - period.

The sheer number of rookies owned/started in various Yahoo! leagues is a testament as to how deep this batch of youngsters and not-as-young Spaniards really is. A lot of fantasy teams are utilizing the services of a good number of rookies this season compared to previous years. Sadly I don’t have the stats on me to back this up right now, but it does feel like there are so many rookies playing key roles in so many fantasy leagues today. People are paying the price (youth tax - as Patrick has coined it) of inconsistent games and roller coaster performances. There are simply enough good/decent games being churned out by these guys thus far to merit them spots many fantasy rosters.

The Creme de la Creme:

O.J. Mayo (93% Owned) - He is so far the top dog of the litter and is a good example of an instant-impact rook. As I write this he is currently ranked 41st and 56th on GMTR’s 8 and 9 cat rankings respectively. Not bad for a late round pick, eh? While his rookie numbers are more Kevin Durant than they are LeBron James, he wasn’t drafted nearly as early as either guy; so it’s all good. He’s a true combo guard in the sense that he’s a shoot first and think about passing the rock later kind of guy. Which in a way is good for the Memphis Grizzlies as they can use all the offensive help that they can get. He can score by breaking down some D and driving to the hoop or lobbing the ball from beyond the arc . His 19+ PPG and 1.8 3PG is more than respectable for a player who was roughly 89th overall (late 7th to early 8th rounds) in most fantasy drafts. 3 dimes a night plus a steal to boot round out his fantasy contributions so far in the season. He’s already a stud as it is and will only get studlier (I know it’s not a real word, sue me) as the next seasons come rolling along.

Derrick Rose (91% Owned) - He’s a good point guard right now, and has an immensely bright future ahead of him. I’m sure his fans are excited. It would be better if Nels to shared some of the minutes of the latest meeting from the “I own Derrick Rose in most of Fantasy Basketball teams, because I’m a Bulls fan and it’s pretty much slim pickings after him and Ben Gordon - Club”.

Seriously, his good shooting from both the field (47%) and the free throw line (79.5%); decent passing ability (5.9); not to mention his slowly developing touch from the outside (0.4), make him a solid cornerstone for the future Chicago franchise! He’s blossoming sooner and faster than anticipated, thanks in part to Kirk Hinrich’s unfortunate torn ligament in his thumb. Kirk, by the way, is on track for a speedy recovery and should be re-joining the Bulls before Feb. We’ll see how he is reintegrated into the rotation and how it will affect Derrick’s playing time and fantasy contributions. It’s not a far off thought to figure seeing both Kirk and Derrick being a double-combo-guard tandem for Chicago’s back court to establish their chemistry. - Since Ben Gordon may no longer be part of the team next season.

The guys you’ve come to count on to do what they do:

Brook Lopez (72% Owned) - He’s taken full advantage of the time missed by New Jersey’s original starting center, Josh Boone. He a steady source of blocks (1.9) and boards (8.0).  He’s gravy as a tertiary big man and is a more than reasonable choice as a secondary center for almost any fantasy team out there. Josh Boone is getting his legs back under him, but there are no indications that Brook is at risk of losing his starting center gig at New Jersey. As long as he remains productive and aggressive on defense, I see no reason for Coach Frank to stifle his expedient development.

Mario Chalmers (54% Owned)  - As much as I wanted to see Chris Quinn land the starting PG job over at Miami, I was pleasantly surprised and moderately impressed as to how fast Mario was able to acclimate himself to his role with the Heat. He couldn’t buy a basket early on and is still not known as offensive threat so far, but his quick hands on defense and his ability to shoot the ball from the outside are skills that have allowed him to be an asset in the starting lineup. He fits like a glove in head to head teams that aren’t competing in the points category and are more focused on hustle numbers. His treys (1.5), steals
(1.9), and dimes (4.6) are great for rounding out many a team’s guard numbers. There doesn’t seem to be anyone close to contesting his playing time and starting slot, so he looks like a pretty solid guy from this point ’til the end of the season.

The highly anticipated but so far underwhelming:

Greg Oden (82% Owned, Average Pick: 60) -  Consistent foul trouble and early injury problems have clouded Greg’s highly anticipated  belated rookie debut. He is still adjusting to pro play. His below-expected line of 8.0/7.3/1.3 is far below what Blazers and fantasy fans alike were hoping he would be contributing this year. I still remain optimistic that he will get better this year and the next, but I can’t put a time and date as to when we can finally count on him to dial in the 12.5-14/8.9-11/1.6-1.9 line range that we in the fantasy basketball world are wishing he’d bring to the table.

Michael Beasley (80% Owned, Average Pick 68.9) - Much was expected of this “Marion-lite-in-the-making” prior to this season’s opening tip off, but so far he’s been more lite and not enough Marion (the old Phoenix variety). 13.9 points, 4.5 rebounds, 0.6 steals, 0.5 blocks are not exactly the numbers I was expecting from a 70th fantasy draft pick. His playing time decline to an average of 25 minutes per game shows that he still has some ways to go before he can become the Heat’s go-to guy on the wings. Since it’s a possibility that Shawn Marion may test free agency and potentially leave Miami, next season may be the better time to actually own Beasley.

The latest wave of the Spanish Invasion:

Marc Gasol (62% Owned) and Rudy Fernandez (65% Owned) are both filling their roles in their NBA teams nicely. They aren’t making huge splashes in terms of fantasy impact, but they have found their repective niches on various fantasy teams

Rudy has to settle for coming off the bench behind superstar, Brandon Roy; which is obviously understandable. He has, however, become a reasonably solid offensive spark for Blazers. Besides, who resist chanting: “Rudy! Rudy! Rudy!”, especially when the guy’s lighting it up from downtown at 2.0 treys per game?

Marc, on the hand, has been on and off at the starting center job for the Griz. But his 11 points, 7 boards, 1.1 blocks a night aren’t too shabby either.

Neither of them appear poised to be “stars” on their respective teams, but can considered reliable role-players. The same can be said about their contributions to their fantasy basketball teams.

They may be inconsistent now, but watch out for their 3rd-year boom:

Russel Westbrook (58% Owned)- He’s the future for the Thunder at the point position. He still has some time to get a feel of whether he’s better suited to evolve as a combo-guard or a true playmaker.

Kevin Love (61% Owned) - He may eventually pair up with Al Jefferson to be a twin tower tandem, once he develops some consistency. His and Craig Smith’s fantasy values are currently inversely proportional - depending on who ends up more reliable for the night - that’s the guy who gets the minutes.

The guys on the “Bubble” with less than 50% ownership:

Eric Gordon (43% Owned) - Doing well with Ricky Davis’ injuries and ineffectiveness.

D.J. Augustin (42% Owned) - He would have an even bigger fantasy impact if Larry Brown gave him a bit more playing time. Coach probably is not in a rush to usher his development.

So far this batch seeems to be doing pretty good as a whole. For now, these NBA freshmen will have to continue being schooled by their mentors and their veteran opponents alike. There’s nothing like on-the-job learning! Let’s revisit them at the end of their first season and check out their report cards.

Line of the Night/Waiver Wire Line of the Night: When it rains, it pours for Tyrus Thomas (1.5), who in his sixth start in a row, played 34 minutes and scored 15 points, with 8 boards and a career-high 8 blocks. With the exception of Dec 27 against the Hawks, Thomas’ other starts have been pretty crappy and with the return of Drew Gooden to the Bulls’ lineup any day now, you can leave Thomas and his occasional explosions as a free agent.

Honorable Mentions: Kevin Martin (1.26) is back baby, like officially back, with 45 points and 7 threes of the bench for the Kings (the big loser in the return of Martin is Beno Udrih, who got the classic 12 minute “start” yesterday; Shawn Marion who? After averaging about 8 minutes a game in December, Yakhouba Diawara (0.81) got 35 minutes for the Heat as Marion sat with back spasms. He hit 5 threes on his way to 19 points. It should go without saying that I would not pick him up; Andre Miller (0.74) shot 12-14 from the floor and finished with a super efficient 28 points (although the Sixers still lost); and Andre Iguodala (0.73) was 10-15 from the floor for a efficient 25 points, while adding 8 boards and 8 assists (and yet the Sixers still lost, those poor bastards).

The Biggest Loser: Samuel Dalembert (-0.34), for undoing all the goodness his Sixers teammates brought to the table by scoring 2 points and grabbing 3 boards in 16 minutes on the court. It’s been a very down year for Dalembert, especially offensively where he’s averaging less than 6 points a game, and word is that the Sixers are shopping him around to other teams.

All Eyez on Me: Best game of the day goes to Portland (20-13) at Los Angeles (26-5), though the competition isn’t strong, unless you’re a fan of Boston (29-5) at New York (12-19) or Orlando (26-7) at Toronto (13-20) or just like watching LeBron - Cleveland (26-5) at Washington (6-25). Yeah expect LeBron to run wild on the Wizards, although Anderson Varejao should drop back to earth after scoring 26 on the Bulls a couple days ago (it was the Bulls, after all).

Brandon Roy is going to miss Portland’s next few games with a strained hamstring, which likely means a lot of threes for Rudy Fernandez. Play him.

All Eye on Me (for the week): Two game schedules this upcoming week for those of you in weekly changes leagues: Cleveland and Portland.

You might be tempted to throw Anderson Varejao in your lineup now that Big Z is out for a month. But with only 2 games for Cleveland, I’d highly recommend you hold off on that strategy for at least a week.

And what’s up with Houston: Tracy McGrady and Ron Artest are day-to-day (with T-Mac obviously being the more risky option to start this week) and Shane Battier is out for the week at least. I’d recommend someone to pick up, but the situation is so crazy in Houston, I have no idea who’d that be. Would you feel comfortable starting Von Wafer this week? I wouldn’t.

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How many leagues have I been in where someone has actually employed the strategy of streaming?

I didn’t think this was an actual problem but people in both the Readers’ League and the Monster League there was a discussion about Daily lineup changes with a Max Moves and Max Games limit instead of Weekly lineup changes with no limits.

The crazy thing is, I am starting to think they may be right. In this post I am going to attempt to analyze and perhaps philosophize. Yes, even with those boobs up there.

What are the reasons I like the weekly lineup changes? (for Head to Head)

First of all, it makes it easier. You only have to set your lineup once a week - set it and forget it. I thought - and still do - that having daily lineup changes makes it easier for novice fantasy owners to get trounced because they will more easily forget to change their lineup every day, or forgot to set it in advance of a vacation or something.

But then I realized: if you add the Max Games limit, a manager can’t just fill their starting lineup with players who are playing that day or they’ll run out of games about 3/4 of the way through the season at the latest. If your schedule happened to work out so that you could actually play someone at every position every day, with a Max Games limit of 82, you’d be out of games almost exactly halfway through the season. And so, the Max Games limit with Daily lineup changes, it would seem, still prevents the “Whoever has the Most Games Wins” scenario while I strive constantly to avoid, while also adding some extra strategy in the vein of: should I play two extra games this week to try to win 8-1 or should I save those two games and just take a 6-3 win?

I’m not sure why I started with the Max Games limit, when the real point of contention is Streaming. That is, when a manager basically picks up and drops players so that everyone is on Waivers and other managers are forced to wait to pick someone up and perhaps use their Waiver priority for no good reason. I think a more loose definition of Streaming is when there are Daily lineup changes but no limits, which allows managers to pick up and drop players on a daily basis to make sure they have someone starting at each position every day. Of course, having Daily lineup changes with neither a Max Moves nor a Max Games limit is just asking for Chaos of the Worst Variety.

So, is a Max Moves limit better? I guess that depends on how I’m defining better. It is technically better at limiting Streaming as defined above. With a Max Moves limit, there is simply no way to stream players past a certain point, and since the people who use streaming to try to gain an advantage are the kind of people who will do whatever it takes to win, they must certainly realize that attempting to stream with a Max Moves limit will put them at a disadvantage when they run out of moves before all the other managers in the league.

On the other hand, a Max Moves limit in a league with daily lineup changes does nothing to alleviate the problem that, given two equally matched teams, the manager whose players are playing more games in the week will win. In fact, in some instances, it would discourage a manager from picking up a free agent who has 4 games to replace his current bench warmer who might only have 2 games. With weekly lineup changes, maximizing games played is a legitimate part of fantasy basketball strategy. With daily lineup changes, maximizing games played is only a matter of remembering to look at and edit your roster every day.

My conclusion, therefore, is: in a Head to Head league with Daily lineup changes, a league commissioner should add both Max Games Played and Max Moves limits. If the league has Weekly lineup changes, then those limits become unnecessary.

Line of the Night: Kevin Durant (1.26) did everything he could to put OKC over the top of Denver, which included 33 points (9-9 from the line), 9 boards, 5 assists, 4 threes. But it just wasn’t quite enough as Carmelo Anthony hit the game winning three with 0.1 seconds left to give the Nuggets the 122-120 victory.

Honorable Mentions: Dirk Nowitzki (1.26) went for 31 points and added 4 steals; a 40 spot will typically get you into the LotN discussion and yes, Kobe Bryant (1.18) is in the discussion; a not all that impressive (by his standards anyway) triple-double for Lebron James (1.15). He had 16/10/11, but shot only 3-8 from the floor; David Lee (0.98) continues to kick ass and take names with 26 points, 11 rebounds and 5 steals.

Waiver Wire Line of the Night: We know that Trevor Ariza (0.76) can ball, it’s that the minutes haven’t been there for him. Well, yesterday against the Jazz he got a season high 32 minutes and finished with 12 points, 9 boards and season-high 5 steals. He’ll now likely drop back into the 20-25 minute a game range, making him a pretty marginal fantasy play and leaving us with a reminder of what he could do.

And props to Charlie Villanueva (0.56), who scored 27 points in 29 minutes on the court. Why, that’s almost a point a minute!

The Biggest Loser: Looks like it’s between Josh Howard (-0.49) and OJ Mayo (-0.46). Neither were horrific (as I like my biggest loser to be) as Howard had 10 and 7, but shot 3-13 from the field and Mayo had 12 points with not much else. Lets quickly move on…

All Eyez on Me: A couple of good games tonight in Houston (21-13) at Atlanta (21-11) and New Orleans (20-9) at Denver (22-12). Let me throw out a link to an article that Kevin Pelton wrote for Basketball Prospectus recently examining why the hell the Hawks were so good this year after basically not doing anything this off season other than losing Josh Childress. It’s a great read and the answer my friends (spoiler alert) is that their taking and making a hell of a lot more threes this season. Huzzah! That’s why Mike Bibby is a good fantasy player again.

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Image by James@mannequindisplay.com via Flickr

The NBA took the day off yesterday, since, as Patrick pointed out, there was little chance they could compete with college football games. Makes my job easy, though, so I’ll take it.

I’ll also take the opportunity to let you know that even though the actual mid-season isn’t for another 20 days, BasketballMonster.com is offering mid-season memberships for only $9.95. We use BasketballMonster.com on a daily basis for our analysis and I use their trade analysis page any time anything trade-related happens in one of my leagues.

All Eyez On Me: Could be time for big games from the Boston benchwarmers if the starters are able to take advantage of the Wizards and not have to play for a quarter or two.

Miami @ Orlando should be a good one, but it doesn’t appear to be available through any television stations (at least according to Yahoo). I guess everything else today is only on local channels, so if you want to watch some basketball, you’ll have to turn to NBA.com’s League Pass Broadband… which is not offering the same sort of mid-season discount as Basketball Monster. LPB will run you $99.95 right now. Ouch. I guess someone’s got to pay for the upgrades they made in the off-season.

The Golden Ticket: Golden State is playing Minnesota tonight, putting their 4-17 road record to the test against the Wolves 3-12 home record. Should be a Barn F’n Burner. But, Golden State is involved, so who knows, maybe Mike Miller will go off for 50 points.

Dont miss a day of the Fantasy NBA. Subscribe to Give Me The Rock  right now. You can also get bonus (and easily digestible) content by following GMTR on Twitter.