Day 15: Michael Beasley still has talent and Jordan Hill is no longer silent

(Get it? Jordan Hill. Silent Hill. The video game... eh, I like it. Illustration courtesy of FaustSketcher)

I've never played a Silent Hill game before. You'd think I would have, since I'm a big fan of sci-fi horror films like Alien and The Thing, but for some reason I've never purchased a single horror video game. I imagine they're pretty spooky, and I imagine Silent Hill is especially terrifying (it doesn't take much to scare the piss out of me), but for some reason, I've never been compelled to shove out money to get that horror high in the form of a video game.

Anyway, I ran a couple Google searches for Silent Hill, just because I decided last night that I was going to roll with the stupid Silent-Hill-Jordan-Hill pun headline that you see at the top of the article. And when I clicked on Google Images, it kept coming up with results for some character named "Pyramidhead," whose design was so goofy-looking that I initially took it as a fake character created by a 9-year-old. But lo and behold, after searching Google Images for "Pyramidhead," so many images of this character flooded the screen that it became clear to me that Pyramidhead really is a character in the Silent Hill game(s), much to my amusement.

I don't actually have an artist's rendering of Mr. Monsieur de la Pyramidhead, but if you want to know what the dude looks like, just run an image search and you'll discover him immediately. If you don't feel like doing that, the best way I can describe Pyramidhead is that he's a shirtless man clad in white MC Hammer pants, he wields a giant Final Fantasy-esque sword/cleaver, and you can't tell what his face looks like because he has a giant black "pyramid" on his head, that to me looks more one of the imperial star destroyers from Star Wars.

Basically, this is the weirdest looking video game character I've ever encountered in my life, and -- just from the outside looking in -- it's hard to see how this dude could possibly be taken seriously as a villain. I'm sure if I played the game, I'd probably wet myself every time this guy came on screen or something (maybe). But... I dunno. I don't think you could sell Pyramidhead as a legitimate movie villain in the United States, no more than you could Basketballhead, Buckethead or Motorhead.

All right, fantasy basketball time. Andale!

• Vaulted into the starting lineup, Jordan Hill had a terrific game for the Lakers, scoring 21 and adding 11 rebounds, 2 steals and a block in 26 minutes. Hill, when healthy, has been a very good stat-producer, though he's never had the chance to put up big numbers, what with Andrew Bynum and Dwight Howard hogging all the playing time. Now that those guys are gone, and Chris Kaman is back to coming off the bench, Hill has a genuine shot to put up 10 rebounds and a block or two on a regular basis. I can't unconditionally recommend him, just because Kaman is still going to get playing time and Hill gets hurt constantly. That being said, he should be quite useful so long as he's in the starting lineup.
• Speaking of Andrew Bynum, the Cavaliers center will miss the next two games due to an undefined family matter. I think there's a good chance Bynum becomes a valuable fantasy player at some point this year. But for now -- given the uncertainty of his playing time, I would absolutely drop him in a heartbeat to pick up Jordan Hill.
• Jodie Meeks had a nice night shooting bombs for the Lakers, hitting 3 three's and finishing with 15 points. Meanwhile, Nick Young scored 17 and Xavier Henry scored 15. Meeks is probably the most valuable of three due solely to his starting spot, but I'm not sold that any one of these three guys will distinguish themselves over the others, or at least to such a degree that they will absolutely need to be owned. Plus, Young and Meeks do almost nothing besides hit three's, so while they may be productive in the interim until Kobe hauls himself onto the court, I'm not inclined to give any them much of a ringing endorsement.
• Steve Blake, on the other hand, needs to be on your fantasy team if he isn't already. Blake finished with 5 points and 10 assists -- his third straight game with at least eight dimes. He's not going to set the world on fire with his scoring, but he's more than steady enough a distributor for him to valuable for the forseeable future.
• Tyreke Evans got 30 minutes of garbage time for the Pelicans, which resulted him in having a decent stat line of 11 points, 6 assists and 4 rebounds. Evans is having a truly awful season; if you look carefully, you'll notice that he's only played well in games that were total blowouts, which allowed him to get in the game more. You really can't go to war with someone who only plays well in massacres, so if own him, you absolutely should start shopping him to anyone who might be enamored with his name.
• Jermaine O'Neal had a "huh, that's interesting" statline against the Pistons yesterday, producing 17 points and 6 rebounds off the bench for the Warriors. O'Neal, many moons ago, was an absolute beast for the Indiana Pacers. Sadly, injuries more or less ruined his career, though he's still an effective role player off the bench. For fantasy purposes, he's not worth owning, even in a scenario where something were to happen to Andrew Bogut.
• DeJuan Blair had a solid night for the Mavericks, picking up 9 points and 11 rebounds in 22 minutes. I actually added Blair on Monday just as a one-day streamer in my primary league, and sure enough, Blair came through and gave me solid bonus stats. Blair is never going to be 100% ownable, especially in his current bench role. But of the many players likely to hang around the waiver wire for most of the season, Blair has a good chance to among the most helpful on a game-to-game basis. No, I'm not telling you to run out and get him. But if you need a cheap source of rebounds on a random night of the year, there's a good chance Blair will be available to help you out.
• Trevor Ariza's awesome fantasy season continued on Tuesday, with the Wizards small forward scoring 27 points on 10-17 shooting with 5 three's, 7 rebounds and 4 steals. As crazy it is to believe, Ariza is among the league leaders in steals and three-pointers, which is a direct result of the insane amount of minutes he's been getting. (He played 37 minutes last night, which actually lowered his season average, albeit slightly.) Ariza should continue to be super valuable the rest of the way.
• Jose Calderon didn't do much against the Wizards, scoring 11 points and handing out 4 assists. Calderon is averaging just 5.5 assists per game and has produced 7 assists in a game just once since opening night. He's a notoriously streaky player who can throw up a string of monster assist totals at any time. I realize he's off to a rather underwhelming start so far, but if you're in the hunt for assists, Calderon is absolutely worth targeting.
• In 19 minutes off the bench, Michael Beasley scored 19 points for the Miami Heat, which was more than Chris Bosh and D-Wade scored combined. Beasley was an awesome fantasy player for one glorious year in Minnesota, but he's otherwise been a disappointment in the NBA. And now that he's in fantasy hell, playing behind Wade, James and Bosh, there's no reason to even have him on your watch list. In real life, Beasley has a chance to help out the Heat in their quest for a third straight title, but there's simply no way he'll get enough playing time for performances like this to be anything but a blip on the radar.
• Brandon Knight looked better in his second game back from an injury, producing 6 points and 6 assists off the bench for the Bucks. Currently, the Bucks are starting Nate Wolters at point guard, who in the spirit of fairness I'll note has a rather glorious 34-to-5 assist-to-turnover ratio. But this is Knight's job for the taking, and given how hammered with injuries the Bucks are at the moment, it shouldn't be long before Knight is getting regular playing time again.
• I noticed that Flight is now available for viewing on Netflix. Flight is a movie with momentary touches of absolute brilliance; both the flying sequence and the hospital hallway scene were fantastic, and Denzel Washington does a great job portraying an alcoholic asshole. What sucks is that the movie really needed an extra 15 minutes of editing; there's a whole subplot to the film involving some hooker the main character is seeing, and it completely detracts from the rest of the movie. If the producers had sliced 15 minutes of romantic B.S. from the film's runtime, I seriously would consider it one of my favorite films of all time. Instead, it's still a very, very good film, but it does start to drag at points, and no film -- no matter how great it is -- should ever stay on the screen longer than it needs to.