Rookies

So, Dragic was given extended minutes last Friday because of Nash's suspension and I was hoping for a breakout game... so of course Drgaic had to disappoint. He had an unspectacular line of 5-4-4 on 28% shooting in 30 minutes against the Kings. I know it's early in the season, but I'm ready to declare him a bust. Physically, he's rather pedestrian, lacking speed, strength, and hops. His passing is unimaginative and his judgement is questionable. A lot of times he'll drive into the lane, only to get caught in the air, and try to dump a bad pass off in traffic. His shooting has been bad too, averaging 36.1% for the season. Shaq gave him TONS of open looks in the Sacto game when the Kings' defense collapsed into the paint and more often than not, Dragic would give up the shot and pass the ball around, burning both clock and excellent scoring opportunities. Though I don't really believe in PER (Player Efficiency Rating), it's never good to be last in anything, and according to ESPN's Hollinger, Dragic has the WORST PER of all NBA players per 100 minutes. That's just sad. At this point, Dragic's ceiling seems to be career backup at best, and most likely 3rd stringer/back to Europe when his rookie contract is up. It's amazing that Porter has played him so much thus far. If it was D'Antoni, Popovich, or Larry Brown, he'd be probably be permanently glued to the bench by now.

Of course Dragic's disappointing performance so far is only magnified by all the other excellent rookies around the league. Seriously, this is one of the strongest overall rookie classes (not necessarily draft class since some rooks are holdovers from previous drafts) I can remember. Rookie performances are naturally erratic, but promising rookies should at least show some flashes of brilliance every few games. So here's a compilation of some of the best single game rookie lines thus far this year.

Player	Team	Min	Pts	Reb	Ast	Stl	Blks
Derrick Rose	CHI	42:29	26	10	6	0	0
Anthony Morrow	GSW	41:54	37	11	1	0	0
OJ Mayo	MEM	44:16	33	3	5	3	0
Marc Gasol	MEM	35:42	27	16	1	1	3
Darrell Arthur	MEM	27:10	11	15	1	1	2
Michael Beasley	MIA	30:46	20	8	3	2	2
Mario Chalmers	MIA	30:32	17	7	8	0	0
Luc Richard Mbah a Moute	MIL	44:12	19	17	2	1	1
Kevin Love	MIN	30:13	20	8	2	1	0
Ryan Anderson	NJ	26:57	17	5	0	1	0
Brook Lopez	NJ	34:11	25	9	2	2	4
Russell Westbrook	OKC	27:37	19	10	6	1	1
Marreese Speights	PHI	20:00	17	7	1	0	1
Robin Lopez	PHX	30:19	14	7	0	0	2
Rudy Fernandez	POR	29:22	25	3	2	2	1
Greg Oden	POR	24:10	11	11	0	0	4
George Hill	SA	35:47	17	6	5	0	0
Jason Thompson	SAC	22:05	18	10	0	0	1
JaVale McGee	WAS	27:05	13	11	0	1	3

That's quite a list, 19 players altogether. Honorable mentions also go out to Kosta Koufos (UTH), Bobby Brown (SAC), Nicholas Batum (POR), Roy Hibbert (IND), and DJ Augustin (CHA) for earning minutes and playing good games, though none of their lines were notable enough to include in the above table.

Speaking of rookies, Oden has looked great in his last two games. He's only playing ~24 minutes a game, but he's avg. 12/9, 3.5 blks over his last two and is making a big difference on the defensive end. Once he gets up to 32-35 minutes and assuming he stays healthy, I think he will be making a legitimate run for ROY honors. So if you haven't yet, now's a good time to jump on the Greg Oden bandwagon. Image courtesy of Bust a Bucket.



And since it's Monday, it's time for more fantasy updates. In Yahoo, I went 1-2 for the week, though the two losses were 4-5 and 6-7, so at least I kept it competitive for the most part. Need to know info... Tyrus Thomas, Brandon Wright, and Kevin Love have all lost their starting jobs in the past week. I've dropped Thomas and Wright already and I'd suggest you to do the same if you have them. Their team's rotations are just too fickle to leave things up to chance. Love you might want to hang on to in deeper leagues if your bench can afford it, but in shallow leagues, go ahead and drop him.

Pickup wise, I don't have much new to report except to re-recommend Luc Richard Mbah a Moute and JaVale McGee. I've picked them up in 1 league each. Anthony Morrow also had a spectacular game this weekend (37 pts, 11 reb) in his first start for the Warriors. If he's still available, you can give him a try too. However, keep in mind A) he's a rookie, and B) he's playing for Nelson (notoriously fickle with his rotations). Morrow is not going to get 20 shots and shoot 75% every game, so don't feel too bad if you missed out on him. FWIW, he's been picked up in all of my fantasy leagues already though I fully expect him to be dropped from 4/6 of my leagues by next weekend ;-)

On the CBS front, I'm happy to report that I went 3-0 in my CBS leagues last week. Remember the scoring system at CBS is point based. You don't have to try and balance points and fg% or assists and blocks. All statistical categorical contributions are boiled down to just one number (fantasy points), so all player value decisions are fairly cut & dry. Either the new player has a higher fpts/game or he doesn't. Even schedule or games played doesn't really matter since fpts are averaged over the week so stats remain *fairly* even. Post draft, it almost feels like your team is running itself. While this is very easy and hassle free, IMHO, it also eliminates a lot of the skill/strategy and ongoing upkeep of fantasy basketball that makes fantasy fun and engaging. I don't know... regardless of how I do at CBS this year, I don't think I'll be reupping next season. I know my readership is small ;-), but if anybody knows of any money leagues with a more Yahoo like h2h setup, please let me know!