Give Me The Rock

It’s that time of year in fantasy basketball when injuries and missed games begin to destroy all the wonderful progress your fantasy team has made since November. Watch as the fantasy team you spent countless hours obsessing over while ignoring your job, wife, kids, and the outside world in general goes into the crapper in a few short days thanks to events that are completely out of your control. Yes, it’s true, and I personally experienced the feeling this week with Jermaine O’Neal, who left Wednesday’s game after aggravating his chronic knee injury. He’ll be back in a game or two, right?

“The question is when I am going to get back onto the court. Hopefully I can play in the next few games,” he said. “I’ve been trying to stay with it, but it hasn’t really gotten any better. It’s gotten worse.”

Uh. Not the most encouraging words. The free agent option until O’Neal returns is Jeff Foster, which, as Fantasy Basketblog explains, is indeed no option at all. Jeff Foster and fantasy basketball championships go together like hand puppets and Harlem. They exist in different planes of reality and trying to put them together will result in confusion and anger.

As I’m sure you’ve thought to yourself by now, Jermaine O’Neal injuring his knee is hardly an unexpected event, and to feign surprise about it is an insult to your intellect. Fair enough. More of a surprise is Joe Johnson, who is likely out for the season with a bruise in his right calf. And, really, with a record of 23-39, there’s no reason for Johnson to rush back to the Hawks. I just found out how the injury happened, though:

The injury apparently occurred in Monday’s game against the Miami Heat, when Johnson was accidentally kicked in the leg by teammate Esteban Batista

That’s spelled E-S-T-E-B-A-N, if there are any Joe Johnson owners out there who feel the need to send hate mail. Anthony Johnson played 44 minutes for the banged up Hawks in their last game, and I guarantee you that he’ll be more productive than Jeff Foster if you were pick him up. On a scale of 1 to 10, that’s some level 2 praise right there. A step ahead of “well, he tries harder than Michael Olowokandi”, which can be said of everyone with the possible exception of Lebron James.

Esteban Batista, Quality Teammate

In related news, you sold high on Wally Szczerbiak after his hot start to the season, right? Well, after missing 24 games so far this season with 5 ankle sprains, Szczerbiak “underwent season-ending surgery on his left ankle Thursday.” That’s 5 ankle sprains THIS season, not in his career. A good fact to remember when you’re thinking about drafting Szczerbiak next season.

I’ve been waiting on Andres Nocioni’s return from plantar fasciitis since before the All-Star break and now it appears that he might not return at all this season. Well, it’s a keeper league, anyway. Although, I’ll probably end up keeping Nocioni’s teammate Deng instead, who’s put together a great low-key year for me and is one of the only guys on my team who can actually put the ball in the hoop over half the time.

To end on a positive note: Mark Madsen returns for the Timberwolves tonight, setting up the huge Shaquille O’Neal/Mark Madsen grudge match showdown. Dance, white boy, dance.