As draft day nears it's important to know where to find the best value. Once you've built your foundation early on in the draft, your next step is to fill in categories and find players who complement your core guys. If your team is built around bigs with high field-goal percentages, rebound rates and shot-blocking abilities, you might want to exploit that by adding another value big man later in the draft. In head-to-head leagues your goal is to win each week, whether it be 5-3 or 6-3 or 8-0. Just win.
At the same right you don't want to leave the draft without depth at any position. Today I'm going to give you five late-round value sleepers at the power forward position who should outperform their average draft position. I used Mock Draft Central (MDC) and Yahoo! Sports (Y!) as a reference point.
The undermanned Rockets were able to battle their way into a Game 7 with the heavily-favored Lakers, and this turn of events left much of the NBA world doubting L.A.'s championship aspirations.
On Sunday, however, there was absolutely no doubt who would be advancing to the Western Conference Finals. Behind huge games from Pau Gasol and Andrew Bynum (and a not-so-great one from Kobe Bryant), the Lakers finally completed their expected elimination of the Rockets.
HOUSTON -- Let's be honest: This wasn't supposed to be this difficult for the Los Angeles Lakers.
Add up talent level, star power and experience and the Western Conference's top team should have taken the Houston Rockets out in five, maybe six games tops. But here we are staring at an upcoming winner-moves-on Game 7 after the Rockets put forth an astounding performance at home Thursday night to prevail 95-80 in Game 6 of their semifinal matchup with the Lakers.
The series unexpectedly moves back to Los Angeles tied 3-3 Sunday with the winner moving on to face the Denver Nuggets in the Western Conference finals.
"For the last two days all I've heard is that we weren't going back to L.A. and guys in our locker room didn't believe that," said Rockets coach Rick Adelman.
It's time to give Rockets coach Rick Adelman some credit before it's too late. After all, who knows what's going to happen Sunday? But it must be noted that he's doing quite the job on the bench this postseason, like he's done time and time before.
The mere fact that Adelman has been able to guide the Rockets to two victories over the L.A. Lakers since Yao Ming went down makes Houston's coach the MVP of this series right now.
It was one thing to shock the Lakers in Game 4 on Sunday, the first game without Yao. It's quite another to handle the Lakers again in Game 6 on Thursday -- by a score of 95-80 -- to force an anything-can-happen Game 7 back in L.A.
Rockets 95, Lakers 80: Recap | Box Score Series Tied 3-3 | Next Game: Sunday @ Los Angeles, 3:30 PM ET
If it's true the two most important positions in basketball are the point guard and the center, than the L.A. Lakers are going to be in for a doozy of a Western Conference final.
OK, so technically the Lakers haven't quite advanced that far yet. But after their 118-78 Game 5 blowout win over the Rockets, is it really going out on a limb to say L.A. is going to get there? Ditto for the Denver Nuggets, who lead the Mavericks 3-1 in the conference semifinals and have two cracks at putting them away on their home floor to close out the series.
The Houston Rockets didn't win Game 2 against the Lakers on Wednesday night in L.A. And they might not win their Western Conference semifinal series against them, either.
But they know they can now. Which is more than they knew when they entered the series. Even with the Lakers' 111-98 victory that evened the best-of-seven series at 1-1, the Rockets should be heading back to Houston with something they didn't leave with: Confidence.
Lakers 111, Rockets 98: Recap | Box Score | Artest vs. Kobe Series Tied 1-1 | Next Game: Friday @ Houston, 9:30 PM ET
The Blazers and the Rockets are both playoff teams that have their share of obvious flaws. In fact, neither one of them have any business getting out of the first round this season. But thanks to the way the seedings shook out, one of them will advance by default.
Unfortunately for Portland fans, that team is going to be the Rockets, and the reason is rather simple: This Blazers team is just not built for the playoffs.
If Carl Landry is sincere -- and there's no reason to believe he's not -- he's going to turn into a hell of a player. Not that Landry isn't already making an important contribution to the Houston Rockets, but you get the sense a little bit of rededication is taking place.
How can it not?
A little more than three weeks ago, Landry was shot in what police are calling a failed robbery attempt. After returning to Houston from a road game, Landry's SUV was sideswiped by another car, and then hit again, causing it to hit a wooden utility pole and stop.
Take a look at that picture. See that man? That's Carl Landry grabbing a rebound. Ordinarily there would be nothing surprising about that picture -- making hustle plays is what Carl Landry does.
But that picture was taken Tuesday night against the Magic -- or just three weeks to the day after Landry was shot in the leg during a random act of violence. Most people would milk the whole "victim of a drive-by" angle for as much time off work as possible, but most people aren't Carl Landry.
He didn't just make a token appearance off the bench on Tuesday either; he played 20 minutes off the bench, scoring eight points, grabbing five boards and blocking two shots, helping the Rockets to their 50th win of the season.
The Rockets made the short flight from New Orleans to Houston following a Monday night win over the Hornets. After getting home, forward Carl Landry apparently went back out to pick up some fast food. According to the Houston Chronicle, attackers side-swiped Landry's car, then followed by firing two shots into the vehicle. One hit Landry.
The team has confirmed Landry suffered a flesh wound, and he's expected to miss 1-2 weeks of action. No word if this was a random attack; NBA players have recently been specifically targetedandvictims of random violence.
As draft day nears it's important to know where to find the best value. Once you've built your foundation early on in the draft, your next step is to fill in categories and find players who complement your core guys. If your team is built around bigs with high field-goal percentages, rebound rates and shot-blocking abilities, you might want to exploit that by adding another value big man later in the draft. In head-to-head leagues your goal is to win each week, whether it be 5-3 or 6-3 or 8-0. Just win. 
The undermanned Rockets were able to battle their way into a Game 7 with the heavily-favored Lakers, and this turn of events left much of the NBA world doubting L.A.'s championship aspirations.
HOUSTON -- Let's be honest: This wasn't supposed to be this difficult for the Los Angeles Lakers.
It's time to give Rockets coach 
The Houston Rockets didn't win Game 2 against the Lakers on Wednesday night in L.A. And they might not win their Western Conference semifinal series against them, either.
If 
Take a look at that picture. See that man? That's 
The Rockets made the short flight from New Orleans to Houston following a Monday night win over the Hornets. After getting home, forward 
