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It's a Sprint to the Finish: Centers Who Can Help You Out

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Categorized as: Author: Patrick, Ballin Outta Control, Fantasy Basketball
Posted on: March 20th, 2009

A while back, we took a look at guards and forwards to help your team on its stretch run. Without wasting any more time it’s time to look at the centers (or center eligibles to be exact) who might be available and worthy of a pickup. Onto the biggest of the big men:

Antonio McDyess (Ranked #115 on the GMTR rater for the year/#31 over the last 10 games) – The old man is still getting it done, especially with Rasheed Wallace out of the lineup for the past five games. McDyess has averaged 40+ minutes, with 16 points, 15 rebounds and 1.4 blocks in those games. While he’s not coming anywhere close to keeping up that pace over the next month, even when Wallace returns (and it’s unknown when that will be) McDyess is going to continue to get about 30 minutes a game while being a good source of rebounds with a few blocks thrown in.

Antonio McDyess

Spencer Hawes (124/125) – A little consistency would be nice from the kid, but the Brad Miller trade has opened things up for Hawes. He’s averaged about 40 minutes a game in the month of March with 15 points and 6 boards. It looks like Hawes has cemented his place in the Kings lineup for the rest of the season and likely a lot longer, but the ride this year is going to be bumpy.

Joel Przybilla (152/104) – Forget about the recent return (followed by a future injury) of Greg Oden. Przybilla is the Blazers’ starting center (at least for the short-term – maybe the rest of the season). Like a lot of the centers on this list, he’s heavy on boards and blocks (11 and 2.5 in the month of March) but lacks any resemblance of an offensive game. If you’re in need a big ball center (lets say you made the mistake of drafting Oden, for example) ride Przybilla and his 30 minutes a game for the rest of the season.

Ronny Turiaf (132/121) – Turiaf is starting again thanks to an ankle injury Andris Biedrins suffered on the 13th. In the 3 starts since the injury, Turiaf has done about what we’d expect from him: averaging 7 points, 6.3 rebounds, and 1.3 blocks. With Biedrins expected to miss the next few weeks, Turiaf will be an block machine and worthy pickup in just about every type of league.

Darius Songaila (183/82) – The Wizards center is quietly moving up our player rankings with… ah… good shooting and a lot of steals. Yeah, if you know anything about Songaila, you know he’s not your average big man. Songaila is averaging 2.8 rebounds and 0.2 blocks on the year, but he is shooting a career best 54% from the field and 88% from the line. He isn’t going to average more about 25 minutes a game, get you any rebounds or blocks, but he is a safe and efficient play on a small ball team (wow – what a strong recommendation!).

Nenad Krstic (155/124) – GMTR’s favorite Yugoslavian center was inserted into the OKC’s starting lineup after the all-star break and the results have been spectacularly average – 11.5 points, 6.5 rebounds and 0.8 blocks a game (hey, Mikki Moore made a career out of less). Unlike some of the other guys on this list, Krstic is not likely to wow you with the occasional great stat line. Instead, he’ll get 30 minute a game starting for the Thunder and put up decent, if unexciting, fantasy numbers.

Hamed Haddadi (327/151) – A guy I can guarantee is available in your league. Memphis called up D-Leaguer Haddadi to replace the injured Darko Milicic on Wednesday and in his first game with the team he scored 7 points and grabbed 7 boards in 18 minutes. So, 1 game into his latest NBA run and he’s already put up a better line than Darko has had all season.

hamed-haddadi
Hamed doesn’t want your shit in his house.

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