Day 11: The rusty Derrick Rose, the rising Bargs, and Bullygate

(Illustration courtesy of Kumail Rivzi)

Oh, criminy, you're thinking. Not another wannabe sportswriter yapping incessantly about this Miami Dolphins bullying story. I mean, god. Does everyone need to be writing about this right now? Well, I gotta be honest, I don't like your attitude right now, imaginary strawman reader. But yes, I suppose a lot of people have been writing about the Dolphins lately. And yes, I'm now going to add to that pile of commentary, knowing full that this post will be just another drop of water in the ocean of articles that are about Richie Incognito and Jonathan Martin. But, it'll be quick.

Okay, here goes.

To me, there are two types of men in this world. There are men, who do the normal mundane things that men are expected to do, like raise a family and cook dinner and change a diaper and take out the trash and tell a kid a bedtime story. You know, good ole responsible, civilized behavior. And then... there are the posturers. There exists in this society a section of men who believe that the only way to be considered a true man is to be MANLY all 24 MAN-HOURS of the MAN-DAY, seven MAN-DAYS a MAN-WEEK, 52 MAN-WEEKS a MAN-YEAR. These are the troglodytes who'll mock you if you admit to being afraid of a horror movie, who'll scold you if you show compassion, who would rather solve a problem by beating the crap out someone rather than having a polite conversation. These are the people who look at the word "gay" as the ultimate insult, who make a picture of their abs their Facebook avatar, who are so insulated in their man-ness that they actively try to keep women out of as many aspects of their lives as possible.

Jonathan Martin is the first type of man, Richie Incognito is the latter. I'm not a fan of the latter.

Jonathan Martin is being a labeled a softy by a lot of former football analysts (most prominently Mike Ditka), whose opinions can best be summarized as: "Hey, Martin should have fought back. He was weak. He was a coward. He's a pussy. Incognito did nothing wrong." But you know what? Jonathan Martin is actually the brave man in this story. Jonathan Martin had the balls to stand up for himself and make himself a pariah amongst his peers; he did what he did because he wanted to be happy, which I think is pretty understandable. Incognito, meanwhile, was an asshole to Martin, and a racist, and a bully. There's nothing manly or brave or respectable about targeting someone who doesn't want to retaliate. That's actually pretty spineless.

Honestly, I don't have a lot of great insight into this situation, other than that I'm not a fan of assholes and am rather amazed at the support Incognito has managed to collect. But what can I say? There are a lot of horribly insecure men in this world who aren't comfortable unless their masculinity is on full display at all times, to the degree that in this rather clear case of a guy being bullied and a guy being a bully, some men are inclined to side with the bully because yelling and cursing and inflicting distress is a MANLY thing to MAN-DO in the MAN-LOCKER ROOM. Ugh.

Okay, enough commentary. (See, that wasn't so bad... I think.)

Now, it's time to turn our attention to fantasy basketball. And you may be surprised to learn that today's edition of The Dailies is brought to you by FanDuel: "The Leader in One-Week Fantasy Sports For Real Money." Yes, I actually did get compensated to write that. Yes, I am a sellout. But what can I say? How else can I fulfill my life-long dream of becoming a crack addict if I can't even afford to buy the crack in the first place? Right now, I'm just a lowly ramen-addict, which is far less romantic.

So, anyway... FanDuel. Go there, and tell 'em Reetae sent ya!

Okay, so with that bit of business out of the way, let's dive into some fantasy bball.

• With Tyson Chandler unable to play, Andrea Bargnani stepped in and played like a boss, scoring 25 points on 11-25 shooting with 8 rebounds, 3 three's and even 5 blocks. Bargs, as many are wont to call him, is a gotta-add fantasy player right now; that he was even allowed to put up 25 shot attempts shows how large his role is on the Knicks now that Chandler is out. However, this performance came against the pitiful Charlotte Bobcats, and with J.R. Smith slated to return this weekend, it's going to be much harder for him to come by 25 shots. And as for the 5 blocks... well, that's just a miracle. All that being said, Bargs is still going to get enough of a run with Chandler out that he needs to be picked up pronto. Just... don't expect him to block 5 shots in a game any time soon. Or, ever again.
• Derrick Rose continues to struggle out of the gate. Yesterday, the ex-MVP went 3-8 from the floor and finished with 12 points and 5 assists. Rose is shooting a pathetic 32% this year and hasn't made over half of his shots in even one of his games thus far. Right now, patience is a virtue with Rose, and all his owners can do is wait for him to get at full-strength. I'd say he's a buy-low candidate, but it's pretty damn hard to make a trade for someone of Rose's caliber. Still, if you can pull it off, Rose should be a substantially better fantasy player by the end of the year than he is right now.
• Luol Deng came within an assist of triple-double against the Jazz: 19 points, 11 rebounds and 9 assists to go along with 5 steals. Even though Deng has made just one three-pointer in 15 attempts and didn't attempt a single one yesterday, he remains a rock solid fantasy commodity, now averaging 15 points, 6 rebounds and 5 assists on the year.
• Paul George continued his amazing start to the season, posting 23 points, 8 rebounds and 6 assists in yet another Pacers win. Indiana is 6-0 to start the year and George has scored at least 20 and grabbed at least 6 rebounds in all six games. If he keeps up this pace (and there's absolutely no reason to think he won't), a legitimate argument could be made that George is the best fantasy shooting guard in the NBA.
• Stephen Curry, who I'd currently label the best two-guard in fantasy, sat out Friday's game with an ankle injury, allowing Toney Douglas to score 21 points and hit 5 three's in a spot start. Douglas' ownability will last as long as it is that Curry is out, which probably won't be for very long. Still, he's temporarily a decent source of three's and assists, considering the Warriors don't have a real backup point guard to take minutes from him. Douglas is a very good play tonight, when the Warriors take on the Grizzlies.
• Trevor Ariza had a bad game against the Nets, producing just 5 points, 3 assists and 3 steals. However, it was an excusably bad outing because he still played 43 minutes for the Wizards in their overtime win over Brooklyn. So long as he continues to get this much playing time, he's going to be very, very valuable. And the same goes for the Wizards' other starters: John Wall, Bradley Beal, Marcin Gortat and Nene -- all of whom are getting a ton of floor time in Randy Whitman's desperate attempt to extract wins from this lineup.
• Andrew Nicholson had 11 rebounds and 6 points in not even 21 minutes for Orlando. Nicholson has been a very consistent contributor so far, and is on the doorstep of being a must-own 10-and-10 guy if he can ever get into the starting lineup and play 30 minutes a night. However, in a fit of madness, coach Jacque Vaughn is currently starting Jason Maxiell at power forward, and Maxiell has actually played more minutes this year than Nicholson -- which is sheer lunacy. Nicholson isn't a bad snatch off the waiver wire right now, just because at some point, someone is going to whisper in Vaughn's ear and order him to give Nicholson more playing time. Still, his production might be somewhat underwhelming until said assertion into the starting lineup occurs.
• Markieff Morris had a second straight great outing for Phoenix, collecting 28 points, 10 rebounds and 3 steals in 34 minutes off the bench for the Suns. Morris is now averaging 16 points and 7 rebounds on the year, and while there's something of a logjam at the forward and center spots in Phoenix, Morris is playing well enough that he should be owned at this point.
• Channing Frye had 7 points and 9 rebounds. I mean, that's not horrible, but come on, Frye. I believed in you, and this is how you repay me?
• Kevin Martin's spectacular shooting season continued on Friday, with K-Mart hitting 10 of 19 shot attempts for 32 points, 5 rebounds and 2 assists. No, he doesn't do a whole lot besides score, but it doesn't really matter when he's playing this well. Martin has scored 23 points in five of six games this year and is absolutely flourishing in this offense helmed by Ricky Rubio.
• Thor: The Dark World was released in theaters yesterday. Is anyone else confused why the word "dark" is suddenly in the title of all these movies? In just a short period of time, there's been this Thor movie, Star Trek Into Darkness, The Dark Knight Rises, Zero Dark Thirty, Transformers: Dark of the Moon, Dark Skies, and 30 Days of Night: Dark Days. Like, what's going on, Hollywood? Is the word "dark" really that big a buzz word right now?
• Also, is anyone else bugged by the new Yahoo! sports page layout? I liked the old layout.
• Blogger doesn't recognize "criminy" as a correctly-spelled word. This saddens me.