Picks and Roles provides all the vital information you need in making those tough lineup decisions for the week ahead.
This week we have four teams -- Kings, Bucks, Pacers, and Wizards -- who play just two times. Aside from the obvious guys like Danny Granger, Gilbert Arenas and Caron Butler, I would only consider Tyreke Evans and Andrew Bogut as players to slot into your lineup. Obviously, since most of us play in a "two center" league, if you have to start Roy Hibbert I could see you making the case.
Jason Thompson is another guy on the fringe this week. He's starting to look more and more like a top 50 fantasy baller this year. Brandon Jennings would be another guy you could consider. Though if it comes down to a point guard who plays four times and Jennings, you have to take the four games. Same can be said about Thompson and the other fantasy fringe players. Maximize your games played, it's Fantasy 101.
Warriors haymaker Stephen Jackson is againtalking to Yahoo!'s Marc Spears about the injustice of it all, in which "it all" is a $30-million extension from a bad team who has apparently broke its promise to stop sucking. Clearly, in the grand scheme of the Golden State's familiar foray into bleakness, Stephen Jackson is the victim, according to Stephen Jackson.
But he's also a cause, and not because of this latest impetuousness. The very fact that Jackson is considered the Most Valuable Warrior -- or even a valuable Warrior -- helped get Golden State into this mess.
The optimists around the Bay Area like to say that the Warriors' 29-win season in 2008-09 was primarily the result of too many injuries and a very young roster.
The pessimists say that last year's significant step-back-- from 48 wins the season before -- was mostly the result of poor management decisions that yielded a mismatched roster with too much overlap on the perimeter and not enough bulk on the interior.
The goal in 2009-10 is to figure out which side was right.
The Warriors surprisingly took Stephen Curry at No. 7, leaving supposed heartthrob Jordan Hill on the board. (Hill went one pick later to New York.) Curry had refused to work out for Golden State during the workout season, and the hubbub followed that the Warriors would avoid a point guard to avoid angering Monta Ellis, who fancies himself a modern day Cousy.
The 2004 NBA Draft marked the biggest influx of high school entries in league history, which resulted in a series of busts, unexpected gems and troublesome stories. Five years ago, the Orlando Magic agonized over the No. 1 pick with high school product Dwight Howard competing with UConn's Emeka Okafor over Orlando's affections. Howard was a rather unknown entity with an amazing body while Okafor just led the Huskies to the NCAA title and had established himself as the most dominant force in college basketball.
Whomever the Magic passed up would land in the lap of a new NBA team, the Charlotte Bobcats. Those two players appeared to be the only sure things in this draft. It was littered with early entries, unproven players and talented youngsters who might have bolted college a year too early. And making decisions more difficult was a slew of high school players who were years away from making an impact.
Every night there are some stupendous, silly, stupid, or downright outlandish individual lines from around the "lig." Doing Lines lets you know which one tops the list.
Suddenly, Dallas' offense is clicking like a metronome. That bountiful output to (virtually) eliminate Phoenix on Sunday hardly shocked -- it was Phoenix -- but pitching two 60-point halves on Utah ... even away from Salt Lake ... name me impressed. The Mavs racked up 130 points. The Jazz, only 101.
Dirk Nowitzki and Jason Terry did the damage, with 31 and 21 points respectively. Deron Williams tried to shoot the Jazz back into it, but 5-14 from the field didn't quite cut it. Josh Howard is still struggling with consistency on offense, but seven steals always help. Always!
Jamal Crawford will be a spectator tonight, watching from the bench as the Warriors host the Bobcats. Is he injured? Not at all. Suspended? Hardly. Instead, he's the victim one of Don Nelson's whims.
Despite the fact that Golden State's backcourt is already short-handed -- Monta Ellis (ankle) has already missed one game and will likely miss several more -- Nelson decided that tonight is a good time to begin randomly benching veterans in order to give younger players more playing time. C.J. Watson is expected to start, and Anthony Morrow and Marco Bellinelli should see a few more minutes, as well.
Shaquille O'Neal is a distant second behind Yao Ming in All-Star voting among Western Conference centers, and there's virtually no chance that he'll catch him before the final results are revealed on January 22nd. But unlike last season, when Shaq's streak of 14 consecutive All-Star appearances came to an end largely because he was battling through injuries (and also because frankly, he just wasn't playing very well), the voters won't be able to keep him out of the game this time.
Shaq is having a resurgence of sorts, playing at a level we've not seen from him in years. Friday night against the Dallas Mavericks, for example, he was dominant from the very start, and put on a show that was reminiscent of his days in Los Angeles.
Biedrins is still trying to get a contract out of the Warriors, and while he hasn't actively pursued any European opportunities, Rade Filipovich, one of his agents, told Sporting News last night that at least three Russian teams have been in contact with him. And let's face it, if push comes to shove and the Warriors balk at giving Biedrins a Monta Ellis-sized contract, returning to his home continent wouldn't be very hard at all for the Latvian native:
"Russia is not far for him," Filipovich said. "The language, all of that. It would almost be like going home for him."
Given the recent wave of NBA players cashing in their dollars for Euros, it'd be foolish for the Warriors to take a hardline attitude with Biedrins during negotiations. At the very least, the team ought to consider a sign-and-trade, since merely holding onto his rights after he leaves for Europe wouldn't be a cap-friendly decision, either.
Most likely, all of this talk will be for nothing as I fully expect the Warriors to man up and give Biedrins a fair market offer -- it's just that the "market" for NBA-caliber players has greatly expanded over the last several weeks.
Picks and Roles provides all the vital information you need in making those tough lineup decisions for the week ahead. 
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The Warriors surprisingly took 
FanHouse fixes a decade of draft-day blunders in 
Every night there are some stupendous, silly, stupid, or downright outlandish individual lines from around the "lig." 
You know that 
