Give Me The Rock
this is fantasy basketball
Another day of no regular season games, lines of the night or biggest losers. We did however get a bunch of all-star events from Dallas. And the only thing that was left running through my mind after seeing Nate Robinson win his third dunk titles was “why the hell am I watching this?” With one or two exceptions, the dunks were pathetic. Why did Gerald Wallace even take the time to participate in this thing if he wasn’t going to try?
The three point contest was reasonable entertaining enough, especially since (unlike the dunk contest) all the shooters came to play and they all put up decent scores. In the end, my boy Paul Pierce took home the award, but not without a fight from the impressively accurate Stephen Curry.
But overall, All-Star Saturday night was a bore fest. You know your dunk contest is a dud when the Olympic short-track speed skating was entertaining me more.
Trade of the Day: After hearing rumor after rumor, it was clear that Mark Cuban was going to shake up the Mavs one way or another. And on all-star weekend, the Mavs acquired Caron Butler, Brendan Haywood, and DeShawn Stevenson in exchange for Josh Howard, Drew Gooden, James Singleton, and Quinton Ross.
What does this all mean for fantasy? The package of players heading to the Wizards are straight-up salary relief, it’s a trade that will save the Wizards $14.6 million in salary next season. But there still are fantasy implications on the Wizards side. First off, grab Drew Gooden and Andray Blatche if they are still available in your league. One of them is going to become the team’s new starting center. I’d put my money on Blatche personally, as Gooden is potentially a buy out candidate if the Wizards don’t need his services. Still, try and scoop them up before someone else does and you can sort it out later.
Josh Howard’s value also increases (although it had no where to go but up) as he’ll become Butler’s fill-in on the Wiz. He should be able to score 20 points a game on that team while he plays out the final days of his contract.
As for Dallas, the 29-year old Caron Butler takes over for the disappointing Howard and should be able to get some decent minutes playing alongside Jason Kidd. The extent to which he fits in with the Mavs and Rick Carlisle‘s offense depends on if he’s going to start putting in the effort again, which hopefully won’t be a problem now that he’s on a playoff team. In the end, I think Butler’s fantasy value remains about the same. The minutes will go down for him, but he actually has something to play for again.
Brendan Haywood – who was having a quietly great fantasy year – sees his value take a hit as long as he’s splitting time with Erick Dampier. Dampier is nursing an injury right now, so it is worth holding on to Haywood while you break out your Erick Dampier voodoo doll. But as long as both are on the court, it’ll be a fantasy lose-lose for both players.
All Eyez on Me: The 2010 NBA All-Star game is on tonight, starting at 7PM eastern time. Hopefully things are more interesting than yesterday, although considering the players who are involved tonight versus guys like Shannon Brown and Daequan Cook, I think we are in good hands.
In case you are wondering, NBC is counter programming the All-Star game with Olympic pairs figure skating. Sounds like something nice to do with your significant other on Valentine’s Day.
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