Melo, JR, Nate Rob suspended

Categorized as: Denver Nuggets, Diatribes, Fantasy Basketball, NBA Basketball, NBA Teams, New York Knicks, Player News
Posted on: December 18th, 2006

or: How I didn’t want to post about the brawl since I was hoping the whole thing was really just not that big a deal, and that maybe nobody would get more than a couple games off

According to I Heart Celtics – the first place I saw it when going through my RSS feeds:

FIFTEEN FOR ‘MELO; TEN FOR J.R. AND SPONTANEOUS NATE

Mardy Collins got 6, Jared Jeffries 4, Jerome James and Nene 1 each. If you hit that IHC link, you’ll see people who pretty much agree with my feelings. I’m obvioulsy not a “more fights would make basketball cool” type, but really, that wasn’t that bad. I mean, isn’t throwing a punch a minimum 2 game suspension? What did Melo do that warranted an extra 13 games? I can understand giving Melo, JR, and Nate Rob the 6 that Mardy got, but when you get into double-digits, that’s pushing it.

Maybe Stern was trying to present a demonstrable piece of evidence against the “star treatment” theory by giving Melo more time than anyone else. I just feel like Nate’s actions, while not actually involving “attacking” anyone, were more harmful than Anthony’s punch. Without Nate there, there probably wouldn’t have even been a fight.

Of course, it’s possible the same thing could be said about Isaih Thomas as PerkIsABeast (among others) are reporting that he ordered the hit on the Nuggets in the first place. Sounds like a good time to show him the door. He’s probably going to be gone at the end of the season, so why not get a jump on it now, eh?

Fantasy Impact

For your reference: JR Smith and Nate Rob will be back the week of Jan. 8th. Carmelo will be out until the week of the 22nd.

Starting with the Knicks to take out the low-hanging fruit: If you have one of these guys on your fantasy team, you better be in the deepest league that I know of.

Nuggets:
I’m going with Earl Boykins. In fact, he was a Free Agent and I’ve already picked him up in one league (I gave up on Daniel Gibson already). He should be good for at least the 10 games that JR is out.

As for the Carmelo’s replacement… start digging. The Nuggets don’t have another exclusive SF, and their only general Fs are: Eduardo Najera, Yakhouba Diawara, and Linas Kleiza. DerMarr Johnson is a GF on their roster, but you can see where this is going. Najera is the only guy with any potential. If you’ve got someone like Daniel Gibson sitting on your bench, there’s probably more upside in going with Najera (at least for the 10 games that both JR and Melo are out, and probably for the other 5 games that Carmelo will miss). Unfortunately, there’s not a lot of fantasy impact from the power outage that Denver will experience.

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