Damn Lies Fantasy Hoops Show: Buyin’ or Sellin’?

It’s a Jeff & Greg production on this week’s Damn Lies Fantasy Hoops Show. The two put on their thinking caps and immediately got cases of lice. It’s been a while. On the agenda is discussion of some possible “sell high” and “buy low” targets. The hot starts of Joe Johnson, Marc Gasol, Ricky Rubio, Jose Calderon, DJ Augustin and Mario Chalmers are debated, as well as the poor showings from Joakim Noah, DeMar DeRozan and Luis Scola. If you can get past these two Kobe haters gloating over a LeBron-led Heat win over the Lakers, you’ll find a show chock-full of knowledge. Bug free!

2011-12 Damn Mock I: Ninth Round

Oof. Round Nine. Say hello to Darko, Roy, Camby, et al. A cornucopia of “oof”. Things are thinning out to the point where the first rookie is off the board, before anyone knows where anyone will be drafted. But Kyrie Irving will likely go higher than this in real drafts as fantasy owners tend to want to grab the top picks earlier in case one or more breaks out. We’re not so sure any rookie in this class will return excellent fantasy value, as you can see by us waiting so long to grab a rook. The lesson: here’s where we start reaching. It’s always the most interesting part of the draft. An aside: Darko called to personally thank Greg for drafting him.

The rules: Jeff, Tom and Greg are taking four teams each in this 12-team league, which is a nine-category rotisserie league (FG%, FT%, PTS, REB, AST, STL, BLK, 3FG, TO) that will draft the following: 1 PG, 1 SG, 1 SF, 1 PF, 2 C, 1 F, 1 G, 2 U. We’ll be building each team ourselves based on this format. Hope you enjoy, and feel free to mock us in the Comments.

FIRST ROUND | SECOND ROUND | THIRD ROUND | FOURTH ROUND | FIFTH ROUND | SIXTH ROUND | SEVENTH ROUND | EIGHTH ROUND

DAMN MOCK I NINTH ROUND

97. Team 1 (Greg) – DeAndre Jordan – The Clipper frontcourt is a bit murky right now with Blake Griffin and Chris Kaman already set. Even so, Jordan is still capable of putting up prodigious rebounds and blocks totals in 25 minutes a night. The Clips would love to trade Kaman and his enormous contract and give Jordan the run he deserves. Still, the chances of Kaman remaining healthy are about as good as Michelle Bachmann’s chances of claiming the 2012 presidency as he has missed an average of 34 games over the past four seasons.

Damn Lies Midseason Report: Atlantic Division

A cheap ploy for us to get page views, and Nets forward Kris Humphries.

We’re gonna mix it up a bit this week at Damn Lies. Now that the season is roughly halfway over (emphasis on ‘roughly’), we thought it would be fun to hand out grades to each player who has made an impact, positive or negative, on the fantasy landscape. Think of these as sort of the Golden Globes to our annual postseason awards, The Dammies, only with fewer scientology jokes. This isn’t very scientific, in the sense that the three of us were liberal arts majors and are much more comfortable making stuff up rather than postulating an actual theory, which I can rarely do without pulling a muscle. For each team, we’ll assign grades based on how players have lived up to fantasy expectations. If a guy has disappointed or has been hurt more than not, he could get a ‘D’ or ‘F’ even though his numbers aren’t totally awful. If someone went undrafted in every league but has come out of nowhere to offer solid value, he could get an ‘A’. Or not. It’s really up to us. Don’t think to much about it.

I’ll start with the Atlantic Division, and we’ll have a new division per day. Enjoy!

I’ll Be Damned: Got MLK?

Unsurprisingly, Darren Collison has thrived since Jeff traded him to Tom a month ago.

Martin Luther King Day is typically a wonderful day in the NBA and Monday was no exception, featuring games all afternoon and into the night, several of them excellent or at the very least interesting. This feels like a good time to ponder where we stand in mid-January.

It’s typically time to take stock of your team and make some bold moves to get in position for the stretch run of the season. In fact, this next month will be one of the craziest of the season, leading up to the Feb. 24 NBA trade deadline. I guarantee you have dropped someone or will drop someone who will end up being amazing in the final two months. I usually have about three or four of those guys a year. Keep your eyes on the prize and don’t be afraid to be bold. In fact, it is perfectly acceptable to lose a trade if you have to. By that I mean giving up a little bit more than you get back to secure some categories. As long as you trade your good players to teams that can’t hurt you down the road, pull the trigger. It’s a harder strategy to follow in head-to-head formats, where the goal is to sneak into the playoffs somehow and hope to have a healthy team that gets lucky. Reminds me of fantasy football. That’s why I’m a rotisserie league guy. May the best team win, I say.

Let’s pore over the box scores from Monday and take a look at some of my favorite stat lines as well as the more bizarre or interesting ones from the 13-game slate.

Moving Without the Ball: Waiver’d and Wire’d

Via RotoExperts

Turn your back on Toney Douglas? I sure wouldn't.

Every once in a while we here at RotoExperts like to mash things up. Whether it be Andriesse’s obsession with mashing potatoes or Rysz’s inner Hulk’s need to mash and smash his foes, we’re just down for a good mashing. That’s why this week, “Moving Without the Ball” has teamed up with Jonathan Huang’s weekly waiver wire piece to bring you “Moving Huang Without Waiver the Ball Wire.” It’s a working title.

Need To Be Owned. Period.

Toney Douglas (PG/SG, NYK)
Hello, handsome! He’s owned in 63 percent of Yahoo! leagues, so the secret is already out. If you are in one of the 40 percent of leagues where he’s available, you should definitely scoop him up. Yes, he’s coming off the bench, but remember how successful Nate Robinson was before his run in with Mike D’Antoni coming off the pine. Douglas gives the Knicks an energy guy who can play defense and score in many different ways. He’s scoring 16.5 points per game, stealing 2.5 balls and hitting 1.8 threes. The steals will dip below 2.0 per game, but he should be able to sustain the rest of his numbers. His 4.2 rebounds per game will also drop slightly, but I can see his assist numbers (2.2) creeping up toward 3-3.5 per game. Douglas is for real and well worth the add.

Damn Lies Fantasy Preview: Toronto Raptors

 

Mess with the bull and get the horns, Lorenzo!

 

Well, it was bound to happen. Welcome to the 2010-11 season, Raptors fans. I would like to introduce you to your franchise player, Andrea Bargnani. My brother from another madre. Gone are the days of a soft 20 and 10 from Chris Bosh, and here are the days of an even softer 18 and 8 (plus 1.5 blocks and 1.5 threes!) from Bargnani. To be honest with you, from a fantasy standpoint Bargs might have better year-end value this season than Bosh. Wouldn’t surprise me one bit. But then again, he’s a fellow paisan.  My love for him doesn’t go as deep as my adoration for Danilo Gallinari, but no one’s ever complained about being Tom Lorenzo’s No. 2.

LIES
Jose Calderon is the highest paid Raptor, yet it’s Jarrett Jack who’s earning his pay at the point guard. Calderon burned fantasy owners last season and it’s pretty evident from the early mocks I’ve been in that they’ve yet to forgive and forget. He was nothing more than a mediocre point guard, when healthy. Jack wasn’t much to write Rome about, but at least he played all 82 games. That being said, neither interest me that much. If I can grab Calderon in the 10th I might give him a look. Hey, how about giving Marcus Banks a look?

DAMN LIES
Linas Kleiza has returned to the NBA! Woo-hoo! I wonder, yes, it’s true, I wonder what kind of value he’ll have in Toronto. I mean, it’s not as if he was a terrible player when he left for Greece. With Denver he was good for about 10 points, 4 rebounds, and over a three per game. Not terrible. But then again that was in Denver where the ball was dominated by Carmelo Anthony and for almost the entire 2008-09 season he was in a timeshare with J.R. Smith. Look at the Raptors roster and tell me you can’t see Kleiza playing 22-25 minutes. That could turn into a productive value add, no? Yeah, you’re probably right.

STATISTICS
Not only do I like the numbers that Bargs can put up this season, but I may just take Leandro Barbosa as my second Raptor. Barbosa is a guy who can give you 15+ points and add 1.5 threes and close to 1.5 steals. How’s that for a 10th rounder! Seriously, though, after Bargnani who do you take? Amir Johnson has nice upside and I can see him posting big blocks numbers, but nowhere else has his game developed. He’s a last round pick as far as I’m concerned. Julian Wright intrigues me as someone who could steal some balls, but he too is unproven. Then there’s DeMar DeRozan. I would definitely take a shot on DeRozan in the final few rounds, but he’s got some holes in his game. I like how efficient he is (49.9 FG%, only 0.8 TOs), but he can’t shoot the three-ball, doesn’t dish the ball, and isn’t a good rebounder. Nice value, but I’m not crazy about him. Again, after Bargs tell me who you would take next. Barbosa?

DEPTH CHART
PG: Jarrett Jack, Jose Calderon
SG: DeMar DeRozan, Leandro Barbosa
SF: Linas Kleiza, Julian Wright
PF: Amir Johnson, Ed Davis
C: Andrea Bargnani, David Andersen

Up Next: Charlotte Bobcats

Full Schedule

Fantasy Basketball Roundtable: How You Doin’?

It’s time for us to put our money where our mouths are (I believe for most of us, they are on our face). While many prefer to call us analysts or commentators, the preferred nomenclature around these parts is “experts,” dudes. So while we fancy ourselves as fantasy basketball experts, DS&L thought it would be fun to give the readers a somewhat end-of-the-year review of how we fared in our many fantasy basketball leagues. After all, there’s no sense in reading our content if we can’t man up and let you in on the secrets to our success.

So, this week’s questions is: How are your fantasy teams doing this year? What has been your best move? Biggest mistake?

Ryan Lester (Lester’s Legends)

I am in two leagues. Fortunately I made the playoffs in both. One of them is a keeper league and the other is an annual league. I’ll start with the keeper league.

Last year I began making a power play before the season even started. I traded my 2nd, 3rd, and 4th round picks for the #2 overall pick to pair with the #1 I held from winning a pre-draft contest. With the top two picks I secured LeBron James and Chris Paul. I continued my aggressive approach by mortgaging this year’s draft picks in an effort to take home the title. It paid off. This year, however, I was handicapped in the draft with a stockpile of late round picks.

I managed to select a few multi-category goes with my only early picks (Stephen Jackson & Boris Diaw) to pair with my trio of keepers (LBJ,
CP3, and Iggy). The rest of the players became interchangeable. I worked the waiver wire almost to perfection landing Darren Collison and Carl Landry among others. I managed to finish with the second best record, but thanks to our divisional format I was stuck in the 4th seed.

Instead of getting a bye in the first round I got to square off with a team in which we both had advantages in four categories. It was going to come down to field goal percentage. Iggy’s 5 for 22 performance on March 15th set the tone. I was playing catch-up the rest of the way. Ultimately I fell short in my quest to defend my title.

It wasn’t a perfect year though. Early on I told myself that I didn’t have the horses to defend the title, and I should just try to get by with the my guys and the available free agents. Unfortunately I veered from the path a bit with some minor draft pick trades. Most of those
deals ended up blowing up in my face thanks to a bit of bad luck. I dealt a 5th and 7th rounder to make up for my rebounding deficiency
with Marcus Camby and Joakim Noah. I dealt a 10th rounder right before our trade deadline for Luol Deng, who subsequently went down with a calf injury. I traded an 8th and a 14th rounder for Eric Gordon and a 10th and 11th rounder, which I may have done straight up without
getting Gordon. He also missed time.

I didn’t quite mortgage my future as bad as last season, but if I had just stuck to my guns and let this season play out, I would have been in much better shape. In fact, I could have gone the opposite route and secured some early draft picks for myself. However, if the players I dealt for didn’t all go down with injuries I could have possibly taken home the crown so I have no regrets.

In my other league I secured the #2 seed and a first round bye. The first round of the playoffs are going on this week (3/22-3/28). My biggest mistakes in this league were in the waiver wire. While I excelled in my other league out of necessity, I missed out on Andray Blatche and Darren Collison. I ended up cutting Marcus Thornton before his second stretch of monster numbers. That league is still ongoing so time will tell if my mistakes were costly.

"I'm still not sure how that dude landed us both in the same draft, LeBron. Shouldn't that be illegal?"

Erik Ong (Give Me The Rock)

Roto:

I am in two rotisserie leagues this season, both of which are 12-man leagues. I am wallowing in the bottom 33% of both of them. One is standard while the other is in its first year as a keeper league. I had an overall approach for drafting in most of my fantasy leagues this season and that was not to disregard my personal bias in favour of owning “quality” point guards. Unfortunately, I ended up being too guard heavy in both leagues. That was something that obviously did not lend itself towards a balanced team. I ended up having problems with the big man stats and thus suffered huge penalties from those categories. Playing to this particular favouritism worked well for me in my head to head leagues, but it left me gasping for air in roto. I suppose I will lean more towards a BPA (best player available) strategy in next season’s roto drafts.

H2H:

Out of the six head to head leagues I entered, I made the Playoffs in five of them. In two of those leagues, which made use of the early playoff setting, I was eliminated in the first round and am currently struggling to grab a fifth place finish. I had a first-round bye in a one of the remaining three leagues, so I am still awaiting a semi-final matchup opponent.

Overall

One of the bigger mistakes I made this season can be attributed to my pre-buying of Anthony Randolph’s fantasy I.P.O. I bought heavy into his upside over the pre-season hype, and ended up paying dearly by wasting some critical value in the fifth and sixth rounds of my drafts. In a nutshell, some other mistakes I would say I made this season was owning too many Knicks, Warriors, and Wizards. Bad choices, indeed.

Since I did  end up with an 83.33% playoff-appearance success rate in my h2h leagues, I would rate that as an overall good showing this season. One of the biggest things that I can attribute to that success, was that I learned something new as far as in-season fantasy basketball strategy is concerned. I ended up with some not-too-clear drafts (in terms of direction). I have always been an aggressive FA sniper (or full-auto blaster, depending on your point of view). This season, I allowed key pick-ups to dictate or guide the direction I steered my team towards. I let the strongest picks tell me what categories to focus on for the future. This strategy was very helpful in taking my teams deep into the playoff-hunt, but needed around two to three months to fully percolate. I gained a deeper appreciation of how shifting in one or two new players can change the dynamic of my entire team. Once the direction for a particular team became clearer and clearer, I then opted to focus succeeding pick-ups and consolidate my updated strengths.

Patrick Madden (Give Me The Rock)
I played in six fantasy leagues this year: One was personal league with friends, two were GMTR reader’s leagues, and three were expert’s leagues which I snuck in despite not being an expert nor popular. The three expert leagues I’m participating in are the Barkley’s Mouth Experts League, the CBS Sports 30-Man League, and the ESPN Writers’ Auction League.

No, I don’t write for ESPN. Rather, the league must have had someone drop out at the last minute and I was both available and had experience with auction leagues. So, it’s 11 of ESPN’s finest minds and me battling it out for bragging rights. I’m currently in third place.

CBS 30-Man

This league has 30 teams in two divisions (CBS and the World) and starts 6 players (the 5 positions plus a flex spot). If you do the math, it means this league STARTS 180 players. My third year in the league and I sucked as always, finished 10th out of 15th in the World Division and missing the playoffs for the second straight year. This league has already finished its playoffs, so congrats to Barkley Mouth’s Matt Satten for beating out some of the finest minds in the industry and taking home the championship.

H2H leagues

Again, I missed the playoffs in the Barkley’s Mouth league thanks to a murder’s row of failure in the back half of my draft (my 4-10 went: Andris Biedrins, Ray Allen, John Salmons, Manu Ginobili, Leandro Barbosa, Marvin Williams, and Richard Jefferson). I’m surprised people take advice from me after that beauty of a draft. However, I am currently in the playoffs in the other two H2H reader’s leagues and will finish somewhere in the 1-4 range.

Roto

As mentioned above, I’m currently 3rd out of 12 in the ESPN Writers’ League, with a shot at second by the end of the year. My personal league I’m also in third place with a shot at second.

Best/Worst Moves of the Year

I was an aggressive trader this season because a number of my drafts did not go well. For example, here are all my trades in one league this season:

10/24
Traded for:  John Salmons (Mil – SG,SF)
Traded Away: Jeff Green (OKC – SF,PF)

11/22
Traded for:  Wilson Chandler (NY – SG,SF,PF), Mario Chalmers (Mia – PG)
Traded Away: Danilo Gallinari (NY – SF)

11/24
Traded for:  David West (NO – PF), Darren Collison (NO – PG,SG)
Traded Away: Jason Thompson (Sac – SF,PF,C)

12/9
Traded for:  Jason Terry (Dal – PG,SG)
Traded Away: Andris Biedrins (GS – C)

12/26
Traded for:  Erick Dampier (Dal – C), Tyrus Thomas (Cha – SF,PF)
Traded Away: Anthony Randolph (GS – PF,C)

1/6
Traded for:  Andrew Bogut (Mil – C), Manu Ginobili (SA – SG)
Traded Away: Trevor Ariza (Hou – SG,SF), Paul Millsap (Uta – SF,PF)

1/17
Traded for:  LaMarcus Aldridge (Por – PF,C)
Traded Away: Wilson Chandler (NY – SG,SF,PF)

2/19
Traded for:  Russell Westbrook (OKC – PG), Andrew Bynum (LAL – C)
Traded Away: Michael Beasley (Mia – SF,PF), Andrew Bogut (Mil – C)

Best Move: That David West and Darren Collison for Jason Thompson felt dirty to me at the time, even though West was in a huge slump to start the season while Thompson was on fire. My best piece of advice for any fantasy owner: Just like the stock market, buy low and sell high. It doesn’t always work out and sometimes you’re left with an underachieving John Salmons for the season, but more often than not you’ll come off the winner by the end of the year.

"No, coach, my game's not in here either."

Worst Move: It didn’t happen in this league, but in one of the GMTR Readers’ Leagues I traded away Andrew Bogut for Jose Calderon mid-season. I really didn’t think Bogut could maintain his torrid pace and was an injury risk, while I thought it was only a matter of time before Calderon won his starting job back. Plus, I needed assists. Calderon won his starting job back all right, about a month a half later, and looks just as bad as he did while coming off the bench.

Tommy Beer (HOOPSWORLD)

My teams have done relatively well, if not great this season.  I am in first in one league, and top-2 in a couple of others, while I am just middle of the pack in another…

As far as biggest busts, luckily I was able to avoid guys like Jose Calderon, Elton Brand, and Gilbert Arenas.  However, I got burned by a
pair of wing players:  Caron Butler and Vince Carter. Quite possibly the biggest bust among all small forwards, Butler has certainly not lived up to his draft-day value.  Butler’s poor production is especially surprising because he has been able to actually stay healthy all season long.  If you were to tell fantasy GM’s back in October that Caron would end up ranked so low, most would assume it was due to major injury woes.  Since his trade to Dallas, Butler’s numbers have taken a further hit.  Thru 13 games with the Mavs he is averaging just 16.2 points, 4.3 rebounds, and 1.9 assists in 35 minutes a night.

And while Caron Butler has been a bust, Vince Carter has earned the dubious distinction as arguably 2009-2010’s most disappointing wing player.  Carter’s numbers absolutely plummeted across the board during his first season in Orlando.  VC hasn’t been this bad since he quit on the
Raptors back 2004.  We don’t have to go into the gory details, I’ll just point out this: During the month of December, when his season hit absolute rock bottom, Vince Carter played 14 games and shot 28.4% from the floor and averaged 8.7 PPG.  Very hard to have imagined back in October that Carter would have averaged less than nine points and shot such a putrid percentage over the course of an entire month…

My best value picks were probably Channing Frye and Steph Curry.

Curry generated a lot of hype coming out of Davidson, but there were questions as to whether he could handle the transition to PG position in the pros.  And due to his slight build there were also questions if he could endure the physical rigors of the NBA grind.  Well, nearly five months later, Curry has answered those questions affirmatively.  Instead of hitting a rookie wall, Steph has only stepped up his game of late.  His numbers since the All-Star Break are insane – the Warriors have played 12 games and he is averaging 20.8 points (90.9% from the free-throw line), 7.6 assists, 5.6 rebounds, 2.3 three’s, 1.5 steals.  Wow.

And the best waiver wire pickup was undoubtedly Darren Collision: The 2009 draft class may go down as producing arguably the greatest and
deepest PG crop in recent history.  In addition to Curry and Evans – we haven’t even discussed Brandon “Double Nickel” Jennings or Ty Lawson – Darren Collison has come out of nowhere to take the league by storm over the past month.  Just how good has Collison been since taking over for Chris Paul?  In 26 games as a starter, Darren was averaging 21.6 PPG, 10 assists, 3.7 rebounds, 2.1 steals, 1.0 three, in 44+ minutes a night.  Oh, and he is shooting 52% from the floor during that stretch.  Mindboggling.

Jeff Andriesse (Damn Lies and Statistics)

I’m in several leagues, but three main ones that I consider my top ones. One is a rotisserie-style weekly league with 10 teams and a limit of one pickup per week. One is a roto-style 10-teamer with unlimited pickups and daily lineup changes. The last is the RotoExperts in-house league, a head-to-head league with daily lineup changes and a limit of five pickups per week.

So I run the gamut in terms of formats. I’m doing well this year. In the weekly roto league, I’m comfortably in first place, which is a minor miracle considering I drafted Andris Biedrins in the fifth round and Michael Redd in the seventh. Luckily, my late-round selections of Tyreke Evans (13th) and Stephen Curry (14th) paid off in spades. I can attribute my standing directly to them. I even flipped Evans and Chris Bosh for LeBron at our league’s trade deadline. My best move, however, was probably picking up Andray Blatche right before his explosion and right when Caron Butler, Antawn Jamison and Brendan Haywood were being shipped out of town. Blatche’s recent drama aside, he has carried me for the last month and a half.

In my daily roto league I stand in second place behind a “T. Lorenzo”, who I suspect is cheating. In all seriousness, I’m pretty proud of this league since Tom and I were invited to participate with a group of select hoops junkies from the Fantasy Basketball Cafe message boards. Also, I took Dwight Howard in the second round of this league as a sort of challenge to myself. I’m actually not in last in free throw percentage (8th, .765) and have surrounded Howard with Kevin Durant, Joe Johnson and Ray Allen to help dull the negative impact in that category. My best move was trading David Lee for Josh Smith in mid-January. I was sitting in a comfortable spot in rebounds and really needed a blocks and steals boost. Smith has helped me move up the standings into second. If I never made the deal, I think I’d be in fifth or so.

Finally, in the RotoExperts head-to-head league I finished the regular season in third place and probably could have finished in first if not for a 7-1 loss to the first place team during the shortened week before the All-Star Break. Not that I’m bitter. I’m currently locked in a battle in the first round of the playoffs against the six seed. I’m doing it with mirrors in this league as a cursory glance at my team doesn’t reveal too many stars outside of Kevin Durant and Jason Kidd. I drafted Biedrins in this league, suffered through Kevin Martin’s injuries and the crippling disappointments of Spencer Hawes and Mario Chalmers. I should be shunned by society for dropping both Carl Landry and John Salmons during the year. What’s kept me in it has been my reliance on category guys like Chris Andersen and Channing Frye (earlier in the year), as well as some phenomenal pickups in Carlos Delfino, Corey Maggette, Brandon Jennings (mostly) and Toney Douglas (recently). I’ll take a third-place finish after all the injuries and bone-headed moves I’ve suffered through, but of course right now I’m greedy and am hoping to win a few rounds of the playoffs.

Tom Lorenzo (Damn Lies & Statistics)

In the RotoExperts in-house league I finished the regular season in second place, just 2.5 games out of first. I had a first round bye, so I am heading into the semi-finals this week, where I will dominate! Or so I hope. In that league I never fell any further than 4th place throughout the entire season, and had a fairly nice stay at the top of the standings during the first half of the season. My best move was obviously picking up Darren Collison — who I happened to add and drop at three different points this season. My worst move was drafting Gilbert Arenas in the fourth round. To be honest with you, I made very few substantial moves this season mainly because I had some nice value picks in the draft — Jason Thompson (8th round — he was really good at one point, remember!?), Marc Gasol (9th), and Danilo Gallinari (12th).

In my weekly roto league, in which Andriesse is dominating, I am sitting in second place. I left myself a little short in big man stats, since I was able to scoop up Kevin Durant and Brandon Roy in the first two rounds. Then followed that up with a Brook Lopez–David West–Jason Kidd mash-up. There’s my core. Not much in the way of a dominant rebounder in there. My best moves were probably drafting Marcus Thornton and Brandon Jennings. My worst move was being one of those Anthony Randolph suckers. Sigh.

In the daily roto league that Jeff and I are in, I have been in first place since the first week and maybe have spent a day or two in second throughout the season. Why? My killer draft! I had the first pick, and if you don’t mind, here’s how I drafted… (in order)

LeBron James, Jason Kidd, Brook Lopez, Carmelo Anthony, Rajon Rondo, Eric Gordon, Tyrus Thomas, Luis Scola, O.J. Mayo, Marc Gasol, Greg Oden, Richard Jefferson, and Carl Landry.

I also added Darren Collison in this league and Anthony Morrow (for his 3’s). I have to say I am proud of this team. They’ve worked hard for me all season long. AND, I got a lot of slack for taking LeBron as the No. 1 overall pick in a 9-cat roto league… Just sayin’.

To quickly wrap-up the rest: I am in a RotoCommunity.com experts H2H league — finished in 9th place because I thought it would be cool to draft Chris Bosh, Pau Gasol, and Troy Murphy as my first three picks AND took Anthony Randolph in the 7th and Blake Griffin in the 8th round. YUCK!

I am also in that 30-Team league with Patrick (co-owned with MMA great Hector Castor). We finished in 9th in the World Division because we used our first-round pick (#20) on Jose Calderon. That says it all!

Daily Lies & Statistics: Lui Lui oh no, me gotta go

The boys at Damn Lies and Statsitics have been saying all along that Carl Landry is a terrific young player and that Sacramento stole him from Houston, albeit for the talented Kevin Martin. But least we forget that the Rockettes still have in their possession one Luis Scola, who has been putting on a display not seen in those parts since Akeem Olajuwon added an H to his first name.

Hluis Scola? Doesn't quite work.

My power was out all weekend and Saturday night I had to resort to checking stats on my blackberry. My eyes were getting a little fuzzy, and when I saw 20-for-25 from the field for 44 points out of the Houston big man I thought there had to be some mistake. Did Bill Walton, circa 1973 just re-appear?

In his last five games, the Argentinean has averaged 26.2 points, 15.2 rebounds, 3.0 assists and has shot 58 percent from the floor (55-94) and 87 percent (21-24) from the line. He doesn’t offer much in terms of shot-blocking, but Scola owners are probably swimming in pools of their own drool right now.

Let’s look at some of the weekend’s other heroes.

Jason Maxiell has taken full advantage of Ben Wallace‘s injury woes and has played like a man possessed. On Friday he posted 12 points and 10 rebound as the Pistons defeated the lowly Wizards. He followed that up with a 19-point (6-9 fg), 12-rebound binge in a loss to Atlanta. The Pistons stink, Wallace has applied for AARP, and Maxiell has posted three straight double-doubles and four consecutive double-digit rebounding games. If your league still allows pickups and you need boards and field goal percentage, Maxiell could be your man.

Richard Jefferson has mauled his owners this year as he has pretty much been unstartable throughout. But something funny happened on the way to the Alamodome and on Friday he registered 19 points (8-13 fg), nine rebounds and three assists in a win over Minnesota, and on Saturday recorded 18 points and nine boards in a victory over the Clippers. Now mind you Carver High’s Salami and Goldstein just double-doubled against the T’Wolves and Clips, but this could be the start of something good.

I don’t know why I find Bill Walker‘s name so dang funny, but I do. For those of you who like me have five weeks left in the season and nothing to lose, Walker may be a guy to take a shot with. There is no middle ground with him. You’re either looking at 20+ points and a host of threes or a 2 and 1 in eight minutes. This past weekend was the former as he erupted for 21 points (8-13 fg), four rebounds and four assists in the Knicks’ loss at Memphis and then exploded for 23 points (9-12 fg, 5-8 3-pt fg) in New York’s shocking blowout of the Mavs in Dallas. Let me ask Bill Wennington what he thinks.

It is again Toney Douglas‘ turn to prove his worth as the primary point guard for the Knicks. On Friday he posted 19 points (8-13 fg, 24 3-pt fg) and followed that with 21 points (8-10 fg, 4-4 3-pt fg) and eight assists in their win at Dallas. Tonight could be Sergio Rodriguez‘s turn to shine, but it’s looking more and more likely that the gimpy Tracy McGrady will not be eating into their numbers too much.

I make no bones about the fact that I love Jose Calderon‘s game. He was the Raptor starting point guard until sidelined by injury in December. Jarrett Jack claimed the starting role during this period and has maintained it the past three months. Nothing against the talented Sourdough Jack, but Calderon is the type of cerebral and efficient point guard that organizations now tend to overlook. Somewhere along the way, he was labeled a defensive liability, probably an unfair assessment as he seems all about winning. In two games over the weekend he averaged 17.5 points and 9.5 assists, and at Golden St. on Saturday drilled 7-of-8 from 3-point range. I do make bones about him still being the backup, but that could change in a hurry.

Troy Murphy has remained steady despite a season not for the feint of heart in Indiana. He is averaging a disappointing 13.9 points and 9.8 rebounds, but throw in his 1.7 threes per contest and you have yourself one of the top fantasy big men in the game. The Pacers have a smell to them, reminiscent of a muggy summer evening in a New York subway, but Murphy will be a big part of the rotation the rest of the way and double-double his way into his owners’ hearts.

It’s tough to recommend a Miami point guard while Dwyane Wade monopolizes the ball the entire game, but don’t get me wrong as I love Wade. But with Rafer Alston skipping to his Lou somewhere in America, Carlos Arroyo‘s role as the starter is clear. On Sunday, he posted a double-double with 12 points (6-9 fg) and 10 assists against the Sixers. It may be a stretch to expect this on a consistent basis, but decent assist numbers await.

Julian Wright has taken over as the starter at small forward in New Orleans with Peja Stojakovic out and has looked solid in three games (38.3 mpg). Against Denver on Friday he erupted for 13 points, eight rebounds, four assists and five steals as owners were involved in a Wal Mart shoppers-style rush to waiver wires to claim him. Enthusiasm on Wright should be tempered, but with the exception of threes, he can offer a smorgasbord of categories at a bargain bin price.

Six games on tonight’s card, including tasty matchups for the Lakers at Golden St. and for the Jazz at home against the Wizards.

Daily Lies & Statistics: Rap Stars

Well it’s been quite some time since we’ve seen the old Hedo Turkoglu this season. In fact, not since Dec. 13 has he hit the 20-point mark in a game. Finally, though, we got a little taste of what he’s actually capable of on Thursday night against the Knicks– 26 points on 8-of-16 shooting, three treys, 11 rebounds, two steals and a block. Where did that come from? The heart maybe? For the month of January Turkoglu has averaged 9.3 points and 31.1-percent shooting from the floor. He’s been dropable and/or sitable (those are made up fantasy hoops words) over the last 10 games. Now we finally get some real action from him. Let’s hope he can at least give us a few solid scoring performances and shoot over 40 percent from the floor for the next few games. Then we can get serious about putting him back in our lineup. I’m as sacred as you are though, about putting my trust back into the Turk. Burn me once, shame on me. Burn me twice, meet my fist!

When Raptors were Rap Stars...

The other disappointing Raptor, Jose Calderon, played a nice game as well against the Knicks — 12 points, one 3-pointer and seven assists in 24 minutes. He actually led a second quarter charge to help bring the Raptors back into this one. I know that many are looking to drop/move Calderon, but I would say that you shouldn’t do so on the cheap. Jarrett Jack is still the starter, but Calderon’s name has more value than anyone else on your waiver wires. At least try to trade him before dropping him.

Andrea Bargnani seems to be troubled by a sore foot. That seemed pretty evident on against the Knicks — two points on 1-of-9 shooting, three rebounds and three blocks in 30 minutes. I’m soooo tired of these diva Raptors. Make sure to follow his status.

Jared Jeffries left Thursday night’s game early with a hyper-extended knee. He’s not much a factor in 12-team leagues. Al Harrignton also said that he’s going to get his left knee scoped. Might we be talking about Jordan Hill as an option soon? It’s possible. By the way, this is what happens when a team’s best player gets an All-Star snub….

David Lee posted another huge line — 29 points on 13-of-21 shooting, 18 rebounds, three assists and a steal. This after getting snubbed and not being named to the Eastern Conference All-Star team. We fantasy owners don’t care much about records, so the idea that the Knicks aren’t a playoff team doesn’t fly with us. If it helps, Mr. Lee, you would be the starting center for the second all-fantasy team. Feel better? Sure you do.

Kendrick Perkins was ineffective against Dwight Howard on Thursday night. He posted just three rebounds and four points in 15 minutes, thanks mostly to the five quick fouls he picked up.

Rajon Rondo (my man!), after being named to his first All-Star team, failed to pick up a steal against the Magic for the first time in his last 10 games. This was also only the fourth time all season he didn’t record a single steal. Still, Rondo is deserving of being named to the All-Star team.

Vince Carter is on my All-Suck team this year. He once again shot bricks, going 3-of-12 from the floor against the Celtics. After three straight promising games, Carter once again looked useless.

Amar’e Stoudemire needs to get some angry e-mails from his fantasy owners as it seems like he’s mailing it in. Yeah he had 22 points against the Mavs, but he only pulled down one rebound — an offensive board, to boot — in 26 minutes. What a waste. I would much rather prefer a 12-point, 12-rebound performance.

Goran Dragic had 13 points in 15 minutes, helping the Suns get back into this game in the fourth quarter. Unfortunately for him, Jason Richardson is getting back on track — 17 points on 8-of-14 shooting in 28 minutes — so the minutes might not get above 15-18 for Dragic.

Daily Lies & Statistics: Calderon v. Jack – Settled on the court.

With only two games on the schedule Tuesday night (thanks Jeff!), the big fantasy-related story is the timeshare in Toronto at the point guard position. In one corner you have a 6-3 point guard out of Georgia Tech. In the other corner, a 6-3 Spaniard with nothing to lose!

Jarrett Jack has been starting for the Raptors since Dec. 5 of last year and has played well enough to lead the team to a 12-7 record. Jose Calderon, before going down with a hip injury (not a “cool” one, but the body part), was the starter and in most leagues drafted in the late-second or early-third rounds. Jay Triano has insisted that Jack will remain as the starting point guard even as Calderon has returned. However, right now we’re looking at a timeshare in which both players are logging almost the exact same amount of minutes. At least up until three games ago…Calderon has logged a few more minutes than Jack in each of the last three games, and on Tuesday night in Cleveland he played 26 minutes to Jack’s 21.

It's only a matter of time before Calderon grabs the bull by the horns...

The Spaniard came off the bench to score just six points on 2-of-9 shooting, but also added a team-high six assists and two steals. Jack was more efficient from the field going 4-of-6 for 11 points, but he played less of a role as a ball distributor dishing out only three dimes.

I think we might see Calderon regain his starting gig sometime in the near future. I’m not saying that he’ll come back to play as a second-round talent, but he’s much more valuable now than he was a week ago and his stock should continue to rise. I’m thinking about buying low on Calderon when I can. I’m not selling the farm, but I’ll give up a sell-high point guard to get him.

Enough about these two fine men…let’s talk action!

Raptors vs. Cavs

Hedo Turkoglu’s game is nasty! Ugly! He scored three points on Tuesday in Cleveland on 1-of-6 shooting. I’ll continue to urge you to sit him. The idea that he’s less comfortable in Toronto since he’s not playing much point-forward seems to be spot on. He’s lost in the offense and essentially useless to fantasy owners.

Marco Belinelli (flu) returned to the basketball court after missing the last two games. He came off the bench to play 20 minutes and shoot the ball pretty effectively — 6-of-12 from the floor and 1-of-2 from beyond the arc for 14 points. Belinelli is essentially splitting time with DeRozan, so his value is mainly for deep leagues only.

LeBron James just missed picking up his third triple-double of the season — 28 points on 8-of-18 shooting, 12-of-14 from the line, nine rebounds, 11 assists, three steals and three blocks. Damn he ‘s good. If there’s one aspect of his game you can complain about it’s his three-point shooting — 0-of-7 from beyond the arc. Other than that…he was unstoppable.

Mo Williams chipped in with a double-double, his third of the season — 22 points on 7-of-15 shooting, four 3-pointers and 10 assists. Williams has been steady all season long. More valuable than his current trade value. Guys seem to feel that he’s worth Jason Terry on the market. Try again.

Pacers vs. Heat

Brandon Rush was back in the starting lineup for the Pacers. I’m fairly certain he’ll remain there for some time after he lead the team in points and minutes — 17 points on 7-of-9 shooting, 10 rebounds, one 3-pointer and a steal in 36 minutes. He’s a nice add right now.

Danny Granger missed 11 straight shots on Tuesday to finish 2-of-16 from the floor. He scored just eight points, which is the first time he’s failed to hit the double-digit scoring mark since December 5, 2008. Granger’s on a 6-of-29 slump over his last two games. What can you say? You have to keep starting him.

Tyler Hansbrough sat out with an inner ear infection. He is still listed as day-to-day. I just felt that I needed to mention his status. He doesn’t have much fantasy value right now.

Rafer Alston keeps putting up mediocre numbers — eight points on 3-of-5 shooting, two 3-pointers, five rebounds, three assists, one steal and one block in 27 minutes. It’s a bit disheartening to see him not take advantage of the opportunity he’s been given in Miami. The good news, though, is that Mario Chalmers is not making much of a case to move himself back into the starting lineup.

Michael Beasley has logged 39 minutes in back-to-back games. On Tuesday he doubled-up going for 21 points on 9-of-15 shooting and 10 rebounds. You have to love his recent play.

Dwyane Wade could not be stopped by the Pacers — 32 points on 12-of-20 shooting, four 3-pointers, three assists, two steals and three blocks.

Thirteen games for Jeff on the schedule tonight! Here are a few notes…

Kevin Garnett will not play, but he is looking at a possible Friday return.

Brandon Roy (hamstring) said he’ll play, but it’s worth checking in on his status.

Gerald Wallace (ankle) did not practice on Tuesday and is questionable for Wednesday night’s game against the Heat.

It’s still possible that the Warriors will dress only seven players against the Nuggets. If that’s the case, Cartier Martin could be a nice flier in deep leagues.