Day 117 of 170: Leandro Barbosa to the World: Anything is POSSSSSAAAAAAAAAABBBLLLLLLLLLLLL

Categorized as: Author: Patrick, Fantasy Basketball
Posted on: February 21st, 2009

Unlike yesterday, there we’re some hella good fantasy performances last night, including some guys (like Kobe – 0.82) who didn’t even make the cut. But in the biggest news of all, Leandro Barbosa breaks the 2+ game score barrier with his performance against the Thunder. Who would have thought Leandro Barbosa would be the guy delivering the first 2+ nightly fantasy rating? Hell Hasfrozenover won the GMTR pool with his pick of Barbosa to be the first guy going over the 2+ wall.

Line of the Night: Let’s conveniently ignore the fact that the Suns recent wins have come against the Clippers (twice) and Thunder, because it’s too much fun having THE PHOENIX SUNS back in our lives! (I capitalize because I care). With Amare out (probably for the rest of the year after undergoing surgery to fix a detached retina, the Suns just played smaller and faster (starting Grant Hill at the 4, J-Rich at the 3, and Barbosa at the 2). Leandro Barbosa (2.08) exploded for a career-high 41 points off 16-21 shooting, adding 7 rebounds, 7 assists, 6 steals and 5 threes in 42 minutes on the court. This is what Barbosa had to say about the performance:

“I love to play running up and down.”

Indeed.

Honorable Mentions: Oh, another ho-hum night for Chris Paul (1.02) with 21 points, 16 assists and 4 steals in an overtime loss to the Lakers; and the new improved Suns offense is so good, even Jason Richardson (0.99) is rejuvenated. J-Rich had 34 with 4 threes; and of course, I could NOT not mention that Lebron James (0.88) dropped 55 on the Bucks last night. He added 9 assists, 5 boards, 8 threes and 6 turnovers to a performance that would have rated much higher if not for the free throw shooting (15-22 from the line).

Waiver Wire Line of the Night: I’ve been rolling with Rasual Butler (1.11) in the GMTR monster league for the majority of the year. And while I can’t say that is how I exactly scripted the plan for my team, he usually pulls out at least one good game every week and it convinces me not to drop him. Against the Lakers last night, Butler had that good game, scoring a season-high 31 points, going 6-8 from three and adding 2 steals. Butler is currently only owned in 17% of Yahoo leagues, despite the fact that he starts and hits 1.7 threes a game.

The Biggest Loser: Brand, Bynum, Jefferson, McGrady, and now Amare. A night after he drops 42 points and you think he’s ready to explode during the second half of the year, you find out he’s probably going to miss the rest of the season after getting surgery to repair an eye injury that was aggravated in the game. If this keeps up, your league’s big championship matchup might come down to Nazr Mohammed vs. Brian Scalabrine.

Oh, and just to make your day even brighter, Danny Granger is expected to miss at least 3 weeks with a partial tendon tear in his right foot.

All Eyez on Me: Philadelphia (27-26) at Miami (28-25) – Andre Miller, who has the NBA’s longest current consecutive games played streak at 501, might sit this one out with a strained calf. And man, I hope that Jermaine O’Neal improves on the 1 rebound he grabbed in his Heat debut. I didn’t draft him in every league this year for him to get hurt and play like crap… oh. right.

Sacramento (12-44) at Dallas (32-22) – The Kings should be welcoming Rashad McCants, Calvin Booth, Drew Gooden, Andres Nocioni and Ike Diogu to the team in Dallas tonight. What can you say about a group of guys like that? Really. I’m struggling for a joke here.

The Golden Ticket: Oklahoma City (13-42) at Golden State (19-36) – It is Kevin Durant’s time to show us what he can do against a porous defense. And I can’t wait to see what Tyson Chand… oh. right.

Here is something that I did not notice until now – if you play in a league that doesn’t count turnovers, Stephen Jackson is currently ranked 15 on our overall rater and is 6th is you look at only the last 10 games.

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Tags: Amare Stoudimire, Leandro Barbosa, Rasual Butler