Each Sunday, I'll highlight some of the league's transactions and look forward to the coming week's NBA schedule.
This week's NBA trade deadline ignited some trade spirit in our own league, but like the Tyson Chandler-to-OKC trade, the big trade this week was scuttled by a failed physical. Dominique Moceanu and the Black Prezodents had agreed to terms on a trade sending Amar'e Stoudemire and Jeff Green to Brooklyn in exchange for franchise faces Rasheed Wallace and Baron Davis, as well as disappointing rookie Michael Beasley. Black Prez team trainers, however, identified a sleepy eye on Stoudemire and called off the deal. In reality, I wasn't sure how to deal with this situation, since we had already agreed on the deal, but the two-day voting period hadn't elapsed. I attempted to talk it over with Billy this weekend, but he would not hear a word of it and insisted on retaining the injured Stoudemire. I salute him for his honorable nature, and thank him for leaving only one crippled superstar (Danny Granger) on my roster and not two.
Even with the trade negated, it was still an incredibly active week on the waiver wire, somewhat owing to all the changing depth charts league-wide thanks to injuries and the trade deadline. Will Shoaf dropped Juan Jose Barea, or possibly Jose Juan Barea, but either way an utterly worthless player, to pick up Kelenna Azubuike, who is also worthless. He then turned him around for Marquis Daniels, who is also pretty worthless, but may have some value in the wake of injuries to Granger and Mike Dunleavy, Jr. Dunleavy, by the way, was dropped for Erick Dampier, who can't really be fantasy-worthy, can he? Probably the biggest pick-up for Will this week was Rafer Alston, who I'm pretty surprised was a free agent, and should rack up the assists throwing it in to Dwight Howard or kicking it out to the Magic's shooters.
Fear the Turtle proclaimed their Terrapin loyalty by picking up Chris Wilcox, and although he didn't know that's where he was headed at the time, Dev may find himself happy that Wilcox landed in New York with Mike D'Antoni.
Dominique Moceanu said farewell to the injured Andrew Bogut and said hello to Fred Jones, who I hope is doing nothing special with the Clippers as that would probably mean something bad about my Clippers boys B Diddy and Gordybear.
I had picked up Matt Barnes a few weeks ago in the assumption of an increased role once Amar'e got traded, but when all the (reality) trade rumors around Stoudemire died down, I dropped him in a drug-induced fancy of picking up Anthony Randolph. I quickly turned Randolph into Von Wafer, calling him up from the BP's D-League squad under the assumption that he'd have a big role once again with the trading of Skip to My Lou and the injury to Tracy McGrady. Bardois, meanwhile, had the same thought as I did in relation to Barnes, except this time in the case of injury rather than trade, and dumped the disappointing Monta Ellis for him. He also definitively answered last week's question of how patient he'd be on Luke Ridnour: not very. He dropped him for the timeless suckitude of Larry Hughes.
Dekker dropped one white guy to pick up another white guy. And then he dropped another white guy to pick up Chris Kaman, who's coming back in a couple weeks and can, at full strength, be beastly. Do I think he'll be at full strength? No. Do I think he'll be motivated to play for an awful Clippers team? No. Am I thinking of picking up Rudy Fernandez, who was one of the players Dekker dropped, so that I can have a Blazer on my squad, even though he's not exactly Black? Yes.
Bernier never makes any fucking moves. Can you believe it? He's obviously into the league, but he hates doing free agents. Weird.
Black Ice made some fucking moves! Of course, he dropped players that should have been dropped months ago, including one (the afore-mentioned Kaman) that, at this point, he probably should have held onto. But since he picked up BPC candidate Javale McGee, I'll let him slide.
That was a lot of moves. I'm exhausted, but I'll soldier on and pick the League Pass games of the week:
Monday: Celtics vs. Nuggets. RondOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! Bardey, I love you for showing me this:
Tuesday: Mavericks vs. Spurs. I pretty much hate the Texas teams, and never watch them. But when they play each other, I get a little interested for some reason. And I've barely watched the Mavs at all this year. I don't even know what they look like.
Wednesday: Hawks vs. Nuggets. Two Nuggest games in the first three days of the week! They might be making the return to the Top 5 that Dekker so desires.
Thursday: Suns vs. Lakers. Only two games on, and only one on after I get home from book club. I really gotta quit this book club.
Friday: Bobcats vs. Warriors. Should be a fun game. Plus I'm going to the Virginia Wine Expo with my mom (Christmas present) so it's got to be a late game.
Saturday: Thunder vs. Grizzlies. Hmmm.... Interesting.
Sunday: Cavs vs. Hawks. Would love to see the Hawks make a statement on national TV. It's not gonna happen, but I'd love it to.
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I do like my Rafer pickup, but I might be just as excited about Marquis Daniels. With Granger out for short term and Dunleavey out for the year (prob), I agree with you that he could make some noise. But, he put up decent stats with Dunleavy out at the beginning of year (playing alongside granger). so I might have a temporarty SG/SF until Jet is back from his broken hand (now at 6 weeks out).
ReplyDeleteWhy does Beb hate free agents? You would think he would be active...but he always has 3 or 4 injured players on his bench that he refuses to drop (because they have value when healthy). As he told me last night, "I really only have one bench player."
What's the video? Youtube is blocked at work.
will is right. it's not that i hate free agents, i just have guys on my bench that all have value. i scan the wire constantly but i haven't seen anybody with more value than the guys i currently have lately, especially since a couple of them were just traded and might see increased production on their new teams. keep in mind also that two of my current starters were early season free agent pickups - westbrook and thompson. and all you guys that make tons of moves are just picking up and dropping the same guys half the time. seriously i think azubukie has been added 17 times this season so far and started maybe 1 week. i also think will accounts for 8 of the azubukie adds.
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ReplyDeleteI do love some bukie. However, I'm not sure I've ever started him.
ReplyDeleteAnother interesting thing I noticed last week. A while ago, I traded Spencer Hawes to Dekker in exchange for Beno Udrih. Now, after the trade, both of them played like garbage. Eventually, I dropped Beno. I just noticed Dekker picked him up (because he started to play like the beno of last year). So now Dekker has the player I traded to him...as well as the player he traded to me. I'd say he won that trade. Would this be perhaps the worst trade of the year?
Will, I'd like to do some type of analysis of Beno in my starting lineup vs Beno on my bench. I think he averages about 18 and 8 assists on the bench while I don't think he's scored more than 12 in a game that counted. As he just tore it up last week (on my bench of course) I inserted him into the lineup this week. First game ... 5 points, .33 fgp, 1 for 2 from the line, 2 assists, 3 boards. awesome.
ReplyDeleteSo my point is ... maybe it could be argued that you won the trade
Marquis Daniels is no Andrew Bogut, the true "Marquis" of the Cluj.
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