Day 81 of 170: Always Bet on Beno

Categorized as: Author: Patrick, Fantasy Basketball
Posted on: January 15th, 2011

…when he’s playing the Knicks after they’ve just returned from a long West Coast road trip.

Line of the Night: Beno Udrih (2.36) took advantage of a fugly Knicks’ performance to score 29 points (on 11-14 shooting) adding 5 rebounds, and 4 steals in 40 minutes. Udrih is now sitting at #61 on the GMTR player rater for the season – and is the highest ranked King for fantasy this year.

Honorable Mentions: Amare Stoudemire (2.21) was the only Knick starter who didn’t completely embarrass himself in the game against the Kings. In fact, his 25 points, 13 rebounds and 5 blocks was huge compared to the rest of the team. But he was also a panic-inducing 6-22 from the field.

Aaron Brooks is being worked back into the lineup at a glacial pace, meaning that Kyle Lowry (2.29) continues to get 40 minutes of run a night. In a start against the Hornets, Lowry scored 28 points, with 6 boards and 7 assists. Hopefully you weren’t an idiot like me and dropped Lowry when Brooks came back a few weeks ago.

Antawn Jamison’s (2.24) defense is so horrible that the space between him and his defender requires its own name (and postal code). He’s probably been saving it for the offensive end, as witnessed by his 26 point, 11 rebound double-double against the Jazz. He also hit 4 threes. The new King of Cleveland (am I rushing that title?), J.J. Hickson, (-0.16) also exploded for 21 and 14 in the game. Unfortunately, he also exploded for 9 turnovers.

Nice to see a good game from Brook Lopez (2.08), who scored 35 points on 13-19 shooting against the Knicks. It would have been nice to see more than 6 rebounds from the big man, though. A word of advice for Brook… 7 footers usually stand under the basket and raise their arms when a shot is taken. Maybe you should give it a try.

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Waiver Wire Line of the Night: Technically, it was Shaquille O’Neal (1.75) who lumbered his way through 35 minutes for the Celtics to score 23 points, making 10-12 shots, and blocking 5 shots. A couple things to note. One, this performance came against the Bobcats and why-am-I-still-in-the-league Kwame Brown. Two, every non-Turk over 6-8 is currently out with injury for the C’s, forcing Shaq to play extended minutes in the short-term.

Jarrett Jack (1.47) got some extra minutes off the bench with Marco Belinelli out with a sprained ankle. Jack played a season-high 37 minutes, scoring 23 points with 7 assists. Belinelli’s injury isn’t serious, so expect Jack’s value to be short lived.

In his second game as the Piston’s starting center, Greg Monroe (1.19) put up 12 and 7 with 3 steals in 38 minutes. It was his first non-double-double in 5 straight games and with Ben Wallace out for the time being with a sprained ankle, Monroe make a nice pickup if you’re in need of a center.

Injury of the Night: Leandro Barbosa had to be carried off the court during the Raptors’ loss to the Pistons after injuring his leg on a cut to the baseline. He’ll get more tests on it this week, but he won’t be traveling with the team on their upcoming 5 game road trip. His absence means that we’ll probably see Sonny Weems back in the rotation, or maybe just more minutes from DeMar DeRozan and Linas Kleiza.

Biggest Loser:How bad are the Kings? The Knicks shot 32% as a team last night and still only lost to Sacramento by 10 points. Their bad shooting night started and ended with Raymond Felton (-0.99), who was 2-15 from the field, finishing with 6 points and 6 assists.

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Daily rankings and stats come from the GMTR H2H Player Rater (beta version).

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Tags: Beno Udrih, Greg Monroe, Jarrett Jack, Shaquille O'Neal