The Week in Trends: 12/17/06

Categorized as: Ballin Outta Control, Fantasy Basketball, Injuries, Player News, Sleepers
Posted on: December 18th, 2006

I’m a little late with this week’s edition of the week in trends, but what it lacks in timeliness, I will make up for in quality. And I promise that you will not have to read about Nate Robinson a single time in this post… Starting now. So, who had the best week ever?

• Ok. Marvin Williams had only played one game prior to last week. But still. Anyone that was patient with Williams through the first month of the season is now being rewarded. His last game saw a 23 point 7 rebound performance with 2 blocks and 2 threes. Go and immediately add Williams to your team if he’s still available in your league.
• Two Celtics make this week’s list – Tony Allen and Al Jefferson (Jefferson for the second week in a row). With Kendrick Perkins, Wally Szczerbiak, Michael Olowokandi, Theo Ratliff, Ryan Gomes, and the brain of Doc Rivers currently out for the Celtics, Big Al and to a lesser extent Allen are getting their chance to play a significant role on a crappy team. Fantasy Basketblog thinks Jefferson is good enough and smart enough, but I’m not quite as excited. I would wait to see what Doc Rivers does with playing time once everyone is healthy before buying high on Jefferson.
• Nels already discussed Big Ben’s return to domination sans headband. Averaging 19 rebounds a game on the week is pretty good, it’s kind of like sleeping with 15,000 women. The only person not impressed is Wilt Chamberlain.
• What does Boris Diaw bring to the Suns? How about a little triple-double action? And bravo if you bought low on Diaw recently. You might want to think about quitting your job and becoming a day trader.
• Hey – look who showed up on this week’s list! Just one week after selling him out, Gerald Wallace starts to make some noise with a 31 point game on the 16th. There are two ways to look at this game. One, he’s finally getting healthy after hurting himself at the start of the season (his 3 blocks in that game was the first time all season he’s had over 1 in a game). Or, two, this big game came after Sean May left with an injury and against a Celtics team that found a way to get Brian Scalabrine 40 minutes. Your call.
• Usually, when a guy jumps above 100 on the player rater, it gets my attention. Sean May, you get my attention. He’s not current starting for the Bobcats and he left last game after spraining an ankle, but I’d keep an eye on him, especially if you have Gerald Wallace or Emeka Okafor on your team.
• Two guys not to be too excited about are James Posey and Matt Barnes. Posey got hot one game last week and hit 7 of 11 threes. The rest of the week wasn’t so pretty. Barnes has gotten some attention with Jason Richardson and Troy Murphy being out for the Warriors and put together a really nice double-double on the 12th of December. But like Posey, a little more consistency would be nice. Even with the minutes, there are likely better options in your league than Barnes right now.

And who has not had the best week ever?

• Ten minutes is an eternity for fantasy basketball purposes. Leandro Barbosa averaged 37 minutes a game in November and 26 and a half so far in December. And while his points haven’t really declined, his supporting stats are way down. Now that Bell and Diaw have seemed to recover from early season slumps, Barbosa’s stats appear to be suffering.
• Oh, not so fast. It looks like Raja Bell is having some troubles of his own. Specifically, from the land of 3-point baskets, where he went 5 of 24 last week, including a very easy to calculate 10% (1 for 10) on the 15th. He’s not losing any minutes or taking any fewer threes, so it looks like things could be back to normal for Bell owners once he regains his stroke.
• Kyle Korver also had a pitiful shooting week, going 16 of 49 from the floor and 3 of 12 from behind the arc. For most players, an injury/suspension to another starter usually means greater opportunity (see Jefferson, Al), but Korver appears to be the type of player that especially benefits from Iverson being out on the court and drawing defenses away from him. Things aren’t so easy when you have to work to get an open shot, especially when you’re white-guy slow.
• Dirk (Dec 15), Michael Redd (Dec 13), and Luke Ridnour (Dec 15) make this list because of one horrendous game each. They have all bounced back since then, so don’t worry too much about them.
• A few guys who shouldn’t be on your fantasy team anyway? Fred Jones, LaMarcus Aldridge, and Jose Calderon. Thanks for playing, we have some parting gifts.
• Looks like J.R. Smith and his owners have bigger problems to worry about than an off week. He’s been suspended for 10 games for a little incident you may have heard about.

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