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Day 126 of 170: Big Diesel Shuts Down the Engines

Author Icon for Patrick

Categorized as: Author: Patrick, Fantasy Basketball
Posted on: March 2nd, 2010

Line of the Night: You’d think Lebron James (0.63) would have this one in the bag with his Cavs destroying the Knicks last night 124-93. But the Cavs were so good that LeBron only had to play 31 minutes (although he did have a 22/7/7 in those minutes). Instead, last night belonged to Aaron Brooks (0.99) who efficiently led the Rockets to a big win over the Raptors with 28 points on 11-16 shooting, with 4 threes, 5 boards and 7 assists in 30 minutes on the court. Brooks currently sits at #59 on the GMTR player rater and you could make an argument that he is one of the top 10 fantasy point guards this season.

Raptors Rockets Basketball
Aaron Brooks, looking more like Muggsy Bogues

Honorable Mentions: Only 20 points and 6 rebounds for the seemingly always-on-this-list Carlos Boozer (0.93), but he did have 4 steals and 2 blocks in a loss to the Clippers; Dirk Nowitzki (0.88) showed up Michael Jordan (who was actually in the stands, not on the court) by leading the Mavs to a win over the Bobcats with 27 points and 13 boards; Marcus Thornton (0.84) dropped a 30 spot on the Spurs with 6 threes off the bench for the Hornets, compared to fake starter Morris Peterson’s (-0.06) 7 points; and finally the force of nature known by us humans as Josh Smith (0.77) had 17 points and 18 rebounds against the hurting Chicago Bulls.

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Waiver Wire Line of the Night: We haven’t heard a lot from rookie Jrue Holiday (0.89) this season. But after a month of starting at PG for the Sixers, he finally put up a line good enough to grab our attention. Holiday scored a career high 23 points on 5-6 from three, adding 6 assists and a couple steals in 29 minutes on the court. With Allen Iverson out of the picture for good, Holiday will get a consistent 30 minutes a game the rest of the year and is worth keeping your eye on if you’re in need of a point guard who doesn’t get assists.

George Hill (0.89) – who is owned in a criminally low 36% of Yahoo leagues – is a sometimes point guard who doesn’t find assists his thing either. Hill logged a team high 44 minutes for the Spurs (Tony Parker and his nagging injuries got 28 minutes) and scored 23 points on 9-13 shooting. Hill is another guy in line to play a lot of minutes down the stretch, especially if Tony Parker continues to be bothered with various injuries.

Celtics’ cast away Bill Walker (0.58) got 35 minutes for the Knicks last night and finished with 21 points on 9-14 shooting. While anything is possible with the Knicks, I’d stay away from Walker personally as Wilson Chandler missed the game for personal reasons. With Chandler back in the lineup, Walker will see a return to a more modest 20-25 minutes a game.

Big Man Down:Shaquille O’Neal will likely miss the remainder of the regular season after having surgery to repair a sprained thumb. While we are far removed from his heyday as a player, Shaq was still a serviceable low end center this season, averaging a 12 and 7 in 23 minutes a game for the Cavs. His absence means the two headed monster of Anderson Varejao and J.J. Hickson will continue to share minutes at the center spot. Neither are a particular great fantasy option at this point.

The Biggest Loser: It’s funny how were all the center of our own little universes, always focusing on how the world affect us and our lives. For example, why does the toaster oven at my office specifically hate me and want to either burn all my food or not cook it at all? Why?

Anyway, while OJ Mayo (-0.92) is probably pissed at his 9 point, 4 turnover, 3-11 shooting night; but I couldn’t be happier because 1) I don’t own him in any leagues and 2) his performance was so bad that it made this section really easy to write up today.

All Eyez on Me:

Boston (36-21) at Detroit (21-38) – After missing 3 games with a sprained right thumb, Paul Pierce is expected back for the Celtics in this one. This is one of those cases where you might want to see how the thumb injury affects his shooting before sticking Paul back in your lineup.

Golden State (17-41) at Miami (29-31) – Dwyane Wade is back and it couldn’t come at a more critical time for the Heat, who have lost 4 straight games and teeter on the edge of the Eastern Conference playoffs. Meanwhile, the Warriors don’t have to worry about a silly little thing like the playoffs, they can focus on more important things like trying to piece together a 5 man rotation on a nightly basis. The latest Warrior casualty is Andris Biedrins, who has something called a sports hernia. I’m going to assume that it is different than a regular hernia and not just a hernia that occurred while playing sports. Biedrins will miss the Warriors five game road trip and probably longer, which means extra minutes for Anthony Tolliver and Ronny Turiaf.

Welcome back GMTR FreeRoll, We Missed You: Just a heads up that the GMTR weekly fantasy game will be back tomorrow on 365 Fantasy Sports after a week off. You cannot officially sign up for the game until tomorrow, but check out this post if you want the info on how to sign up.

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  • utesfan89

    Do I drop Noah? (Or Hedo?) Or do I keep them and hope for improvement?

  • dnyl

    Rasho looking more like a blowfish

  • http://givemetherock.com/ Patrick

    I'd consider dropping Noah, who is dealing with plantar fasciitis and may be out for an undetermined amount of time after aggravating the injury. It does not look good for him the rest of the year. In the meantime, I guess Brad Miller becomes a viable option again.

    Turkoglu's injury sounds less serious. He might miss a game or two, but nothing like Noah. As far as his game? Well it is what it is at this point. Turkoglu is not getting the touches that he was use to with the Magic. Instead of adjusting his game to compensate for that fact, he's content to complain about it 4 months into the season. If he hasn't adjusted by now, I doubt he ever will.