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Wednesday saw Shaquille O’Neal’s return to Miami, a battle of streaking Western playoff teams, a battle for Texas, and two teams clinch playoff spots.  Yep, it’s March, and it’s exciting.

Wednesday’s best:  Of course it was Dwyane Wade.  I think his name is permanently in this spot now.  Seriously, dude is unreal.  It seems every team with a star guard torches the Suns like this.  Wade had 35 points, 6 rebounds, 16 dimes, a steal, a block, and a couple threes.  Nice.  Oh yeah, the Heat won too.

Wednesday’s worst:  Luke Ridnour.  0-7 from the field?  That’s enough to land you in this section.  No wonder the Bucks lost by 18.

Keep an eye on:  Daequan Cook.  He erupted for 27 points on 6 threes.  Performances like this might earn him more minutes.  He randomly got 36 in this game, and with more minutes, he might be worth looking at for some threes in deep leagues.  Just not yet though.

What to watch for Thursday:  It’s the worst day of the week for basketball, but at least it’s two decent games.  The Hornets take on Dallas in Big D, and the Blazers travel to the Mile High City to face Denver.  Of course, the best part of Thursday nights is the TNT show, we all know that.


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On Tuesday, the Pistons kept their hot streak going, as Chauncey Billups returned to The Palace, dropped 34, and still lost.  Don’t look now…

Tuesday’s best:  Not a whole lot of overly-impressive lines Tuesday night, but Troy Murphy takes home today’s award.  His line: 23 points, 10 rebounds, 6 assists, 4 threes, 2 steals, 2 blocks as he led the Pacers to a win over the Kings.

Tuesday’s worst:  John Salmons.  Dude, Luol Deng is hurt.  You’re supposed to go back to being that fantasy stud you used to be.  This scrub played 33 minutes in the Bulls’ loss to Charlotte and scored 9 points on 4-13 shooting.  SCRUB!!

Keep an eye on:  The East playoff race.  The 15th team (Toronto) is only 5.5 games back, and two teams (Indiana and Charlotte) look awfully good right now and keep climbing the standings.  It’s gonna be a fun month.

What to watch for Wednesday: Cleveland hosts Milwaukee (remember what LeBron James did to the Deer the last time they played), Dwyane Wade lights up Phoenix (like every other team, just bigger), San Antonio plays Dallas on ESPN (and probably runs them out of the arena), and last but NOT least… the Grizzlies play the Clippers!


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Well, look at that.  A few upsets.  WE HAVE PARITY IN THE LEAGUE!  Toronto beat San Antonio, Utah beat the Lakers.  Denver also beat Orlando at home, and was up pretty big at one point.  And that battle of up-and-coming teams we alluded to yesterday?  The better team in the current won quite easily.  But let’s jump into some lines.

Wednesday’s best: Mo Williams: 44 points, 7 assists, 4 rebounds, 4 steals, and 600 three-pointers made.  Ok, only 7.  Yeah, he must have heard some people STILL complaining about his All-Star credentials and decided he’d go nuts.  I saw this game, and he was making some incredible shots.  And this folks, is why the Cleveland Cavaliers will win the Larry O’Brien Trophy.  Did I just say that?  In February?  Yep.  You heard it here first.

Honorable mention to Ramon Sessions and his 17 dimes.  Wow.

Wednesday’s worst: Mike Bibby and his whopping 5 points and 4 dimes on top of 3 turnovers.  Somehow the Hawks still topple the Pistons.  Things are bad in Detroit.

Keep an eye on: The Phoenix Suns.  They lost to the Cavs tonight in their last game before their break, and probably their last game with this roster.  Keep an eye on things because here’s something scary: Steve Nash sat out.  It was various aches and pains, and whatever else.  Yeah, yeah.  What worries me is that he didn’t sit on the bench.  Apparently he was in the locker room.  Implosion pending…

What to watch for tomorrow: I wonder if anyone will actually try tomorrow.  What a tough day to be a coach, when half your team is double-checking its tee times or RSVPing for parties in Phoenix.  Good thing there’s only three games, but two are semi-interesting.  The Celtics stop in Dallas on their way to the All-Star Game, and Portland takes on Golden State.  That second game would be fun to watch, but somehow it’s not the TNT game.  Oh well.


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Only four games last night, and to be honest, four pretty crappy games. Not too surprising to see New Orleans fall without David West or Chris Paul in the lineup and the same goes for Phoenix losing to Philadelphia, because well… Terry Porter is still coaching the Suns.  But let’s jump into it.

Monday’s best: OJ Mayo: 22 points, 16 rebounds, 5 assists, one three, 7-17 FG, 6 TO.  Yeah the turnovers suck for sure, but wow, who knew he had 16 boards in him?  He also went 7-8 from the line.  Honorable mention goes to Emeka Okafor and his 19 points, 16 rebounds, and three blocks in a win over the Clippers.

Monday’s worst: Tracy McGrady: 3 points, 3 rebounds, 5 assists, on 1-9 shooting from the field and 1-3 from the line.  Yuck.  Good thing Luis Scola and Aaron Brooks stepped up, even though the Rockets still managed to lose to the Bucks.  Really?  Don’t you just pound it into Yao every trip down without Andrew Bogut down there?  Guess not.  (He had 7 points.)

Keep an eye on: Marreese Speights.  I saw this game live and Amare Stoudemire probably played his worst defensive game all year.  Spieghts went off for 24 and 7, including 2 blocks.  He looks like the real deal.  Reggie Evans got the minutes in Elton Brand’s first game out, but Speights has now pieced together two nice games.  He’s worth some consideration at least.


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So of course right after my injury bug post goes up, we get another lovely injury.  It’s Luke Ridnour.  But then again, maybe people were actually HAPPY to see him go down, because of all this Ramon Session man-love fantasy owners tend to have.

Well hopefully you either kept him all this time, or grabbed him when you heard about Michael Redd because he just went nuts.  How nuts you say?  Big nuts.  Chuck-Norris-potato-sack-nuts. His final line:

44 points, 12 assists, 5 rebounds, 13-18 FG, 18-21 FT.

Holy crap.  He was hot with Redd out, and now he may be scary hot with Ridnour out.


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It’s that time of year again!  No, not Single’s Awareness Day.  No, not the All-Star Break.  It’s that magical time that inevitable occurs every year when seemingly every relevant baller gets hurt.  It’s here in full effect, and let me tell ya, it sucks.  Here we go again…

Elton Brand
This just broke this afternoon.  This morning, it was a day-to-day sprained shoulder.  Now, it’s season-ending surgery.  Sweeeeet.  Yesterday ESPN reported that an MRI showed it was healing, too.  So who steps up?  Reggie Evans baby.  He’s long been a favorite of mine in fantasy, and with even 25 minutes we could see double digit rebounds often.  Go grab him now before everyone else catches on.  Marreese Speights should get a little extra burn too, and could be worth a look if you’re desperate.  Brand is probably safe to cut, but it might be smart to wait another day or two to make sure this is all definite.

Catch the rest of the recent injuries after the jump!

The Fig Cap: Yeah… how’s that working out for ya?

Click to continue reading Injury Bug Bites, And It Hurts


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Happy belated new year! Yours truly is way overdue for a post. Drive safely if you leave in a snowy region today.

I took a peak at the standings in the paper today. The season has just passed the one-third mark and there are some intriguing playoff scenarios. Obviously a lot of ball still needs to be played, but check out the match-ups if the playoffs started today. Like last year, on paper the match-ups in the West sizzle, while the East still looks top-heavy.

Click to continue reading Current Playoff Scenarios


Dropping Dimes is trying out a new feature. Fantasy 30 intends to rank all of the NBA teams in terms of fantasy power. A list like this tends to lead to a lot of disagreement and discussion, but the hope is that these rankings will be fluid and updated as the year goes on. Thanks to Ron Chow for the assist. In addition to publishing updates on the Fantasy 30, once in a while we hope to produce sister articles that focus on a specific team and its roster.

#1: Los Angeles Lakers: Kobe Bryant ranks as a top four fantasy player this year. The Lakers employ two fantasy-worthy starters for center in Pau Gasol and Andrew Bynum. Lamar Odom has played well coming off the bench. Jordan Farmar has sleeper point guard potential, and the team also employs three-point threats like Derek Fisher and Vlad Radmanovic. All of this adds up to the Lakers being top dog early in the year.

Click to continue reading Fantasy 30, Version 1


Andrew Bogut
Our experts league draft was held on Wednesday, October 22, 2008. Ron and I were lucky enough to land the first overall pick. We went fanboy and drafted Chris Paul, even though our mock draft here has picked LeBron James for three years running, and we both think LBJ has an awesome season ahead of him.

The league has 14 teams, so after we pick, 26 players come off the board. Amare went third, ahead of Kobe. Ron and I hoped to land a reliable center, siince this league has two center spots in its starting roster. Elton Brand went sixth. Dwight Howard led off the second round. Chris Bosh went right after him. Then Al Jefferson. We were hoping for Tim Duncan…

Click to continue reading Dropping Dimes Mock Draft: Round 4, Pick 12 - Andrew Bogut


Michael Redd vs Dirk Nowitzki
The talent pool must not have gone shallow yet if 20 point-per-game Olympians remain available in the fourth round. Adding this player to a team that has Dirk Nowitzki would have made for very sound strategy, but Dirk’s team picks next. On this particular team, he fills a glaring need.

Round 4, Pick 5: Michael Redd, SG/SF, Milwaukee Bucks

Click to continue reading Dropping Dimes Mock Draft: Round 4, Pick 5 - Michael Redd


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