Tip-In Points: Randolph’s Tango
Anyone can suggest adds and drops for the NBA fantasy fans out there, but few make those suggestions from the gut. We’ve also sprinkled in tons of helpful stats for all fantasy formats too. Because that’s the kind of fantasy help you deserve.
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Zach Randolph, MEM More often than not, if things are going well for Zach Randolph, they must not be going well for whatever team happens to be rostering him at the moment. He doesn’t block shots, doesn’t pass the ball effectively and he whines. That’s not a quantifiable stat, but I’m working on it. Year after year, teams believe Randolph will make a difference for their team and year after year those teams have a losing record. so there’s your difference. He helps his teams toward losing records. Baffling. How does he remain in the league, you ask? (You didn’t ask) Because once every two weeks or so, just when I think he can’t get any dumber, he goes and plays a game like Tuesdays … and totally redeems himself. (Not really) He dropped 32 points on 10-for-19 shooting. He made all 11 of his free throws grabbed 14 boards, stole four basketballs, assisted twice, blocked once and only lost the ball on one occasion. He also became the first Grizzlie in franchise history with 30+ points, 10+ rebounds and 4 steals in a game. Memphis is in discussion of retiring his number.
Below are some more players with as good of a chance as Zach Randolph at having their numbers retired.
Kevin Love, MIN So we’ve got a little good news-bad news situation. Good news first: Kevin Love’s 18 / 7 was good enough to be the team’s top scorer and many people (mostly just me) are starting to discuss (blogging on Sidelines) Love as being the team’s best player. The bad news is, of course, that he may be the best player for the worst team in the Western Conference. Well if the pill’s too bitter, stop getting sick.
Hedo Turkoglu, TOR Hedo had 16 points off 11 shots. Everything’s fine. Ah-ha! Fooled you. He only made two of those shots. It was the 12-for-14 from the line that saved him. He was bogged down by his pregame DiGiorno.
Jarrett Jack, TOR Ding-dong. Who’s there? Cheap assists. Oh well, then come on in. Wonderful. I can’t stay long. Jose Calderon is set to be healthy any day now. I’ll leave when he gets here. So sad. Would you like a wine cooler while you wait? That would be splendid.
Gerald Wallace, CHA Multiplicity had 25 points and 16 rebounds against the Nuggets. He’s averaging 14.5 boards in December and a league-leading 12.4 rebounds per game this season. I take back everything I said about Geralds making for poor rebounders.
Tyson Chandler, CHA 1 point, 2 rebounds, 13 minutes on the court, foul trouble. Mix it all together and what do ya got? A sloppy bucket of yuck.
Andrew Bogut, MIL The Saucey Aussie had been playing like dingos had done something awful to his babies in his previous three games, but turned out season highs in defensive rebounds (10), points (25), assists (5) and turnovers (7). Um, let’s feed that last turnover stat to the dingos, so maybe they’ll stop messin’ with Bogut’s babies.
Rajon Rondo, BOS Scored 0 points through three quarters. That’s what he didn’t do. What he did do was become the first Celtic in at least 35 years to record 13 assists, 9 rebounds and 5 steals in the same game. Oh, and he scored 11 points in the fourth quarter. Ah-ha! Fooled you again.
Kevin Garnett, BOS 25/9 against the Bucks. I honestly didn’t think KG would be a very big ticket this year. His knees have staples in them. Knees aren’t supposed to have staples in them. Also bagels aren’t supposed to have nuts on them. Otherwise, what purpose do muffins serve? But I digress.
Carmelo Anthony, DEN 34 points off 14-for-27 shooting. He also picked up 7 rebounds, 2 assists and a block. More importantly, he turned the ball over seven times. I’m a glass – 1/10th – empty kind of guy.
Chauncey Billup, DEN Chauncey’s bizarro alter-ego, Flauncey Chillups, showed up on Tuesday to give Billups’ aged limbs a rest on the second game of Denver’s back-to-back schedule. The bad part is, Flauncey Chillups is not good at basketball. Not good like, 14 / 0 / 1 / 5 turnovers.
Josh Howard, DAL Howard made his second debut of the season after failing to make a solid debut in early November. This debut felt more like a real debut as he scored 20, rebounded 6 and stole 3. We won’t know how successful this debut is until we compare it to all the other debuts he’ll have later this season.
Erick Dampier, DAL Bucket o’ yuck for Dampier too. He played seven minutes, grabbed a rebound and never scored.
Channing Frye, PHO Frye’s got dem road-shootin’ blues. 2-for-7 on Sunday, 1-for-7 on Tuesday and for the first time all season, he failed to hit a three.
Brook Lopez, NJ The good Lopez brother has only failed to score in double digits in two games this season and last night … was not one of those nights. Ah-ha! Fooled you thrice! He scored 25 points, grabbed 10 boards stole two and blocked a guy (probably Luol Deng). He’s also second in FT% among centers this season.
Derrick Rose, CHI 27/ 7 / 10. Finally. Now he’s screwed ’cause we’ll expect this kind of performance everytime.
Joakim Noah, CHI The rebounding is still impressive, but what’s happening to the scoring? He averaged 12.1 points in his first 10 games and only nine points in his last nine.
Taj Gibson, CHI 20 pts / 6 rbds / 2 asts / 3 blks / 1 to. Not bad for the best blues trumpter in all Chicagoland!
Tyreke Evans, SAC It’s all I can do not to mention Evans’ 25 / 5 / 9, except that I just mentioned it. So now we’re in a pickle.
Jason Thompson, SAC Scored 20 and grabbed 9 rebounds. He’s dropped at least 20 points on his opponents six times this season, three of which happened in the last five games. He’s also had five-or-more fouls in 11 of his 20 games. If this kid manages to stay in games longer, he’d average 15 / 10 and a block. If “ifs” and “buts” were candy and nuts, we’d all be out of our basketball ruts.
Darren Collison, NO Chris Paul’s been back for two games and Collison has averaged 2.5 pts / 1.5 rbds / 3 asts in 16 mpg. Drop him from your team and never look back.
Dwight Howard, ORL He led his team in points, rebounds, assists, steals and led the world in blocks with seven. But it was his birthday, so I’m thinking both the Magic and the Clippers took it easy in honor of the occasion.
L I N E O F T H E N I G H T
LeBron James, CLE Extra Cavs basketball means extra LeBron. And that’s extra good if he’s on your fantasy team. He scored his season-high 43 points and grabbed his season-high 13 rebounds (only the second time he’s grabbed double-digit rebounds this season), while dishing out six assists, 1 block, 4 threes and 5 turnovers.
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Photos courtesy of Yahoo! Sports via Getty Images
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