Day 14: Banishing Larry Sanders to the waiver wire from whence he came

(Ah, fantasy stats. They're so good... Illustration courtesy of Filiskun)

Hey gang! I'm going to get to Monday's fantasy action in just a hot second. But before I do, I'm going to talk about my own fantasy basketball team, "Better Call Gasol," since I feel it'd be mildly hypocritical for me to give fantasy advice without exposing what the hell I'm actually doing for my own fantasy team. And I'm going to do this, even though rambling about one's own fantasy team is just about the most self-indulgent thing anyone can write about in sports. But whatever. I promise this will hurt me more than it will hurt you.

So anyway, here's what my team currently looks like: (Sorry if you have to squint a little)

Basically, I am in a 12-team, professional Yahoo! league that cost $100 to enter and pays out $600 to the first-place winner, which I'm obviously gunning for. Now this may not be a lot of money to some fantasy pundits; I once a had brief conversation with a writer on a prominent fantasy site who claimed to be in a five-digit fantasy league. Of course, I don't have the means to even enter such a high-stakes league, being that I'm not backed by a major fantasy conglomerate. To me, $100 is actually a hell of a lot of money to throw up in the air with no guarantee of a return. But you know what? That just gives me all the incentive in the world to pay attention to this league. Whereas most fantasy analysts are in like a dozen different leagues, I simply don't have the attention span to handle such a workload. This is the only money league I'm in this year and, at the very least, I'm hoping to earn back my money. (Because it'd be embarrassing as hell for me to not be able to do that, what with the existence of this blog and all.)

I joined this pro league exactly one day into the NBA season. It was purely a spur-of-the-moment decision. And because of my prolonged entry, my team was actually on a bye for the first week of the year, which sucked, because I'm pretty sure I would've done well that week. In Week 2, I went 5-4 against a team known as "boomsticks."

I really like my team. You know how a lot of fantasy analysts like to pin themselves as a fantasy "doctor"? Well, I'm a fantasy hypochondriac. I'm virtually never satisfied with my team. So for me to be encouraged by my roster coming out of the draft was definitely a good sign. Yeah, I'm giving away turnovers and free-throw percentage by owning the players that I do; it can't be helped when you own Dwight Howard. But by pairing Howard, Pau Gasol and Joakim Noah along with Stephen Curry, I've put myself in tremendous shape to win field-goal percentage, points, rebounds, blocks and (just from Curry alone) three's every single week. If I can exude a dash of pretension to this silly subject, my team is constructed in such a way that it should be very, very difficult for my opponents to take five categories from me. Because I'm ceding free-throw shooting and turnovers, I'm not going to blow my opponents away either, which is a definite trade-off. Still, I like my odds to win most matchups I get into.

Last week, I just barely lost in steals and blocks. I lost blocks because "boomsticks" owned Anthony Davis, who just had to mess things up for me by blocking 15 shots in a single week, which is ridiculous. Boomsticks also won steals, which couldn't be helped due to the unusually high number of steals guys this dude possessed: Metta World Peace, Tony Allen, Chris Paul, Dion Waiters, Anthony Davis, Russell Westbrook and Patrick Beverley. There seriously can't be more than three teams on the face of the earth that own MWP, Allen, Paul AND Davis. In the end though, coming away with a 5-4 victory was pretty tolerable considering how amazing Davis played against me.

This week, I'm facing "Bulls in Six," who lost his matchup last week, 2-6, in large part because he's owning two injured players in Ryan Anderson and Danny Granger. In his introductory matchup, Bulls in Six lost three's by 6, points by 79, rebounds by 7, assists by 13 and steals by 10. It's inadvisable for an owner to carry an injured player unless that player is seriously worth stashing and the owner is capable of surviving their absence. In this instance, not only did Bulls in Six carry two injured players, the players he was baby-sitting weren't even worth the trouble, and because he literally gave away two whole roster spots that could have helped him, Bulls in Six lost five whole categories that he easily could have won had he dumped his two injured guys at the start of the year.

Hopefully, Bulls in Six will maintain his commitment to Granger and Anderson for at least the next week; beating him will be infinitely easier if I outnumber him in players 13 to 11, which it looks like I'm going to. (Thank god my blog is obscure right now, otherwise Bulls in Six could read this, change his game plan, and totally salvage the matchup.) At the moment, I'm content to see him be so foolishly loyal to these two injured players, one which is absolutely worth cutting right now (Granger).

But anyway, that's my team and my current situation. Bulls in Six owns Kevin Love, LaMarcus Aldridge and Damion Lillard, so by no means will this be a "cakewalk." Still, so long as Love doesn't go bonkers the rest of the week, I'm hoping to win my second straight matchup to begin the year.

In case you were curious (which I doubt you were), this is what my matchup with Bulls in Six looks like through one day:

At the moment I'm trailing (hey, thanks Kevin Love, you jerk!), but because I have way more players going the rest of the week, I'm cautiously optimistic the tables will turn.

All right, so I got all that out of the way. Now it's time to talk in full about the guy who's personally trying to rob me of some money this week...

• Kevin Love was annoyingly sensational on Monday, putting up 23 points, 19 rebounds and 7 assists along with 4 three's. Love is averaging close to 5 assists a game this year, which is more than twice what his previous career-high was. In fact, he's currently averaging more points, is hitting more three's, and is shooting a higher field-goal percentage and free-throw percentage than ever before. He's on pace to have the best season of his career and is absolutely in the discussion to be considered the best player in fantasy basketball. I just wish he'd have a down week against me -- is that too much to ask?
• Larry Sanders, we hardly knew ye. The Bucks center will be out for six weeks after he had to have thumb surgery for an injury he sustained in a bar fight. A bar fight! Sanders could be a decent source of blocks in the second half of the year, but that breakout season some anticipated he'd have is now an absolute long shot. And while the argument could be made that he's worth stashing, his puny averages of 2.7 points and 3.7 rebounds so far lend little evidence that he's going to be anything but a role player when he returns. If you're in a really competitive league, as tough as this may be to do, it's probably for the best if you cut ties with him. Meanwhile, Zaza Pachulia gets to remain a valuable fantasy commodity, although John Henson has an outside shot to say something about that.
• Lance Stephenson had a triple-double of 13 points, 11 rebounds and 12 assists for the surging, undefeated Indiana Pacers. Stephenson has been tremendous so far and is contributing in every category but steals and blocks. Danny Granger is supposedly close to returning, but Stephenson has more than secured his starting spot on the Pacers and should continue to be a sneaky good fantasy option the rest of the way -- especially since Granger is as injury-riddled as anyone in the NBA.
• Kawhi Leonard put up 13 points and 8 rebounds for San Antonio in their blowout W against the Sixers. Leonard is by no means a terrible player, but he's not even close to living up to his preseason ranking on Yahoo!, where he was listed more than twenty spots ahead of Roy Hibbert. (D'oh!) 13-and-8 is actually about what I think he can contribute on a nightly basis. If you lower your expectations, that's not terrible by any means, but it's also not at all the return that his owners were likely expecting when they took him so early in the draft.
• Nikola Pekovic had a good game for the T'Wolves, scoring 25 points and adding 10 rebounds. He doesn't block a lot of shots and he's constantly injured, by Pek is a proven contributor and is going to do good things for whoever owns him... at least until he gets hurt again.
• Kevin Martin scored 30 and hit 4 three's against the Clippers. This is getting absurd. Martin is averaging over 23 a game and hasn't been this prolific a shooter/scorer since 2007, back when he was with the Sacramento Kings. He's scored 23 points in all but one game this year and is redefining himself as a basketball player in this high-octane Wolves lineup. Owners who took a chance on the oft-injured guard are getting an enormous return for their faith, especially since Martin has small forward eligibility now.
• Andre Drummond came to life against the Blazers, grabbing 16 board and scoring just as many points. It was good to see after a pair of dud performances which had a few fantasy owners nervous. Drummond's somewhat pedestrian averages belie what a rebounding machine he is, and if it's all possible to steal him in a trade with a fantasy owner, I cannot recommend it enough. Short of Kevin Love (grrr!!) and Dwight Howard, there might not be a better rebounder in the entire league.
• Oh, and speaking of Dwight Howard, my fantasy lovechild did good things for me in the Rockets' double-overtime win, scoring 18 points, pulling down 24 rebounds and blocking 5 shots. That's a statline he never looked capable of producing with the Lakers last year, but he's completely recovered from his back ailments and is hauling in rebounds like he was doing in Orlando. Though his scoring won't mirror what it was with the Magic, Howard is still the best shot-blocker/rebounder in the entire league.
• Jeremy Lin was awesome off the bench for Houston, scoring 31 points on 3 three's with 5 rebounds and 2 steals. Patrick Beverley, meanwhile, got into foul trouble and did almost nothing (1 point, 0 assists). Lin is simply a better offensive player than Beverley, and while Beverley is the better defender, it's only marginally so, as Lin is a good producer of steals as well. Beverley will hold significant value so long as he's starting, and his presence is going to prevent Lin when reaching a statistical apex (which is why I'm currently shopping him around in the league I'm in). That being said, I'll reaffirm what I've previously said, which is that Lin is the better player to own in fantasy, though the discrepency between them will almost never be as drastic as it was last night.
• It'd be an understatement to say that Rudy Gay was a ball-stopper last night. In the Raptors' double-OT loss to Houston, Gay hoisted an insane 37 shot attempts and made just 11 of them, which is a ratio that had to hurt the field-goal percentage of anyone who owned him. Gay finished with 29 points, 10 rebounds, 4 steals and a block. That's not a bad night of work, but it's woefully less than what he could have/should have done with 37 shot attempts.
• Kenneth Faried made the most out of JaVale McGee's extended absence, scoring 15 points and adding 13 rebounds on Monday. Meanwhile, J.J. Hickson started at center and finished with 14 points and 9 rebounds. Faried is the lone big on the Nuggets who absolutely needs to be owned; if anything, McGee's departure could provide the spark Faried needed to start putting up 10-and-10 numbers again. Hickson, meanwhile, is capable of putting up similar numbers and should be owned, as he's also a pretty good shot-blocker. The only question mark with Hickson is if he'll continue to get regular minutes, as Nuggets coach Brian Shaw seems willing to completely rearrange his rotation at the drop of a dime. Anthony Randolph, who had 6 points and 6 rebounds an 12 minutes, is on the outside looking in for the time being and can be safely disregarded until further notice.
• Gordon Hayward had a nice night for the Jazz, who have yet to win a basketball game two weeks into the season. Hayward scored 22 points and added a three, 3 rebounds, 2 assists, a steal and 2 blocks. As the only guard worth a damn on this wretched Jazz squadron, Hayward carries immense value and is averaging 19 points, 6 rebounds and 4 assists on the year. With no one remotely capable of taking looks away from him, Hayward should remain a great fantasy contributor the rest of the way -- even if it won't actually help the team he plays for win a game.
• Derrick Rose left last night's game against the Cavaliers in the fourth quarter and did not return. Afterwards, Rose downplayed the severity of the malady, saying, "It's just a minor sprain. Nothing bad," which should be enormously reassuring to his fantasy owners. Rose has still yet to make half of his shots in a single game and might be day-to-day for the next few games. But he's still too talented to be too worried about him.
• Mike Brown did something interesting on Monday, elevating Andrew Bynum to the starting center spot for the first time all year, which forced Anderson Varejao to the bench. Bynum finished with 11 points, 6 rebounds and 2 blocks in 21 minutes, and all of a sudden is an intriguing fantasy option again. Varejao is still going to out-play him in terms of minutes and will almost always be on the floor at the end of the game. However, the fact that Brown even did this was in a small way a tacit endorsement of Bynum's improving health. And sure enough, Bynum had his best game of the year by far. At the moment, Bynum is just a walking-talking question mark. But... if he can actually get close to 30 minutes a night, he could be a must-own fantasy commodity. I won't make any predictions about Bynum, whose injury woes are not to be taken lightly. However, if he's available in your league and you're in the mood to take a purely speculative chance, Bynum could be a worthwhile player for you at some point this season.
• Al Horford carried the load for a slouching Paul Millsap, scoring 24 points and adding 5 rebounds and 4 assists in the Hawks' road win in Charlotte. Horford's numbers are almost all up from what he averaged a year, which is impressive considering he has to fend off Millsap to put do anything these days. Horford is averaging 19 points, 10 rebounds, 2 steals, 2 blocks, and is shooting 52% from the floor. He's off to a less-than-amazing start at the line (shooting just 63%), but that's likely to rise, and when he's hitting his freebies, Horford is one of the only centers in the entire league who won't hurt you in any one category. (Except three's, of course. But really, Kevin Love is the only guy with center eligibility who's going to consistently help you in that, which is why Love is such a monster.)
• Al Jefferson played his first game for the Bobcats in two weeks, putting up 10 points, 7 rebounds and 3 assists and 27 minutes. Health permitting, Jefferson should settle in as a fantastic fantasy option for the woeful Bobcats.
• I'm almost caught up on The Walking Dead, so expect a post about it sometime in the relative future.
• By the way, I wanna give another thank you to FanDuel for sponsoring a post of mine a few days ago. They came through on their end of the bargain, which is why I'm in a good enough mood to give them a bonus plug. FanDuel: it's a fantasy site and they gave me money, so you should totally go there.
• Comments are totally welcome, by the way. If you have any fantasy questions or anything you'd like to ask/comment on (even if it has NOTHING to do with fantasy basketball), feel free to leave a message and I'll get back to you as soon as I can... unless I get abducted by aliens or something, in which case, who knows when I'll get back to you. But I'm not anticipating that happening.