RANDOM FANTASY BASKETBALL THOUGHTS

CENTERS

I'd take Bosh by a hair over Yao as the #1 center. Yao had ridiculous numbers in the second half last year, but he just doesn't mesh well with McGrady (a trait he shares with "everyone else"). I mean, he'll still be at 20-10 with 1.5 blocks, which along with his excellent percentages make him a great fantasy center, but I still like Bosh better. Mike James is a solid player, but TJ Ford is a much better distributor and I think Bosh will be the beneficiary there. I'd look for him to be around 24-10-3-50%-80%.

I don't know where in the draft I'm going to look for Diaw. On the one hand, he's such a skilled & versatile player that it seems like he can be productive with Amare on the floor. On the other, a lot of his value comes from taking big men off the dribble and going to the rim or passing. If Amare & Marion are on the floor, that means Diaw is being defended by a small forward. Diaw struggled in that one game Amare played and scored 20 points, but who knows what one game means. Also I wonder if he'll lose his C eligibility if Amare is healthy and plays 30 minutes a game. Seems like they don't take away eligibility all that often--some jagoff in my Yahoo FFL league has Marques fucking Colston at *tight end*.

If Dwight Howard has center eligibility, I'd put him right there behind Bosh & Yao in the Duncan/O'Neal tier. He was just a beast in the Olympics--I can't believe how fucking huge he is. I can see him at 18-13 with 1.5 blocks and a monster FG%.

RANDOM STUFF

I think Joe Johnson is pretty much going to do what he did last year, maybe assists down a bit with Speedy Claxton on board, but he'll still have the ball in his hands most of the time. He's just a really, really good player, I think he'll be around 20-4-5 with good percentages.

As for Josh Smith, I'm not too worried he'll regress like he did at the beginning of last season, they seem to finally have figured out you just have to throw him out there for 35 minutes a night and let him do his thing.

I wonder what Marvin Williams will do--after the all-star break, he averaged a respectable 11 and 5 in 28 minutes and shot .470. But even if he gets that to 14 and 7, he doesn't really do much else than sorta score and sorta rebound--that's not real valuable in fantasy basketball. But he could obviously get *way* better in a short time.

I think Stojakovic is going to be exactly as good as you'd expect him to be playing alongside Chris Paul. He just couldn't have found a better situation.

As for Paul, I'm going to go against the grain here and predict that he doesn't quite make the jump into the fantasy elite this year. I watched him in the Olympics and was pretty disappointed by his ability to finish inside. I mean, obviously he's a *good* finisher, but he's not on the level with Iverson/Wade--or even Nash, with all his crazy moves and shots in the lane. And his outside shooting is still below average, so I don't see his FG% climbing much. On the other hand, he should be good for like 18-4-9-2.5 with low turnovers, so it's not like he's chopped liver as a fantasy player. I just think he'll be a better real life player than fantasy player this year, with the big jump to fantasy superstardom coming later.

Like everyone else, I think Ray Felton is poised for a breakout. After the all-star break last year, he was damn near as good as Paul (on a fantasy level)--16.7-3.4-7.6 with 2 threes & only 2.6 TOs per game. Those are really great numbers for a rookie PG. His FG% sucked at .412, but he hit .387 from three and .784 from the line, so it's not like he can't shoot the ball. Felton's the future, no way is Brevin Knight going to steal big minutes from him. And with Morrison joining the team and Okafor & May back healthy, he also has more scoring options than last year.

Guys playing for contracts: Pierce, Billups, Bibby, Nowitzki, Carter, Lewis, Jamison, G. Wallace. Out of those, the only ones I think would be really affected by a contract year are Vince and Rashard Lewis, two guys who can tend towards playing soft. I'd have no qualms about taking Vince in the second round this year, and we might see a bump in Lewis' already solid numbers, especially if he plays some goddamn defense for once.

THE ROOKIES

I like Brandon Roy a lot, and he's in a position where he could instantly be the main perimeter option on that team (although I've heard good things about Martell Webster). Same with Foye--good player, good situation with McCants out until at least January. I think they'll both put up solid numbers, with Roy maybe having a slight edge.

Rondo had 11-5-8 with 4 steals in 22 minutes in Boston's first preseason game, and then followed that up with 29-4-5 with 3 steals. I usually think preseason means little, but that's impressive. I think he'll end up getting the big minutes there over Telfair. He's like a poor man's Chris Paul--he can't shoot, but he can go to the basket at will and that's what NBA basketball is all about.

I don't love Rudy Gay's game, and I don't like his situation in Memphis. He has 12-minutes-per-game written all over him. Same with Tyrus Thomas. I love his game, but I don't see him getting huge minutes this year with the logjam Chicago has at forward.

Adam Morrison is a very good player in a great situation, but I don't think he can do anything on the NBA level other than score. And I don't know if he's going to hit a ton of threes, that's the key for his fantasy value. He can be at 15-4-2 & .465, but the difference between him making 1.7 threes and 0.7 threes determines whether he's a solid fantasy player or not. In Charlotte's first preseason game, he went 2-2 with 19 points in 24 minutes, so that bodes well. He also had 1 rebound and 0 assists, which doesn't.

I don't love any of the big men--I think it'll take Bargnani, Aldridge and Shelden Williams a year or two before they're productive. Bargnani shot 2-2 from three in the first game, but followed that up with 0-5. Still, looks like he's going to be a really interesting player, I'm definitely going to keep my eye on him.