FanHouse Caron Butler

Home Delivery is your morning roundup of last night's action in the NBA from a fantasy perspective.

It was the premiere matchup of the evening, Kobe Bryant versus Kevin Durant. It took an extra five minutes to decide the contest, but in the end it was Kobe and the Lakers coming out on top by a three-point margin. Bryant dropped 31 points on 9-of-22 shooting, while Durant scored 28 points on 10-of-24 shooting, missing all eight of his three-point attempts.

Andrew Bynum chipped in with 22 points and 10 rebounds, but the real story might have been Ron Artest finally putting it all together. He scored 20 points on 6-of-8 shooting and picked off five steals. It's about time!

Home sweet home. Well, for one night anyway. In front of a 42-inch big screen on opening night in the NBA. Let's go ahead and try to read too much into it ...

• You can't tell me the Cleveland Cavaliers aren't going to come knocking for Stephen Jackson at some point. Looks like LeBron James is going to need some more help.

Hard as this is to say, it doesn't seem like Shaquille O'Neal can even be your No. 2 option. Apparently, the Cavs are reluctant to give up Zydrunas Ilgauskas for Jackson because Cleveland doesn't want to get smaller.

Welcome to the first edition of Home Delivery, your comprehensive roundup of last night's NBA action from a fantasy perspective. Read along each morning as we bring the headline news to you in a format your grandpa would appreciate -- wait, what's a newspaper?

Man Ditches Agent Zero and Gets With Agent Hero

Gilbert Arenas returned to action Tuesday night against the Dallas Mavericks. As an Arenas owner, I'm a bit giddy over his performance -- 29 points, nine assists, 10-of-21 shooting from the floor and 8-of-9 from the free-throw line. It's easy to look at his performance and state that he's "officially back," but we need to contain ourselves and play it cool. At least for one day.

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Everyone knows preseason games don't count -- but considering the Wizards won a mere 19 games last season, it's hard not to be encouraged by their 4-3 record heading into Friday's finale.

In fact, Washington's record seems to confirm what many have suggested all summer: The Wizards should be one of the most improved teams in the league.

But before the Wizards turn the page, they re-visited their past, facing former coach Eddie Jordan, now with the 76ers, in a hard-fought win in Philadelphia on Tuesday night. Washington forward Caron Butler spoke to FanHouse on Wednesday about facing his friend and former coach, as well as his relief in seeing the locked-out referees return, his expectations for the season, the senseless tragedy at his alma mater and more.

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Value is in the eye of the beholder. Memphis owner Michael Heisley saw value in signing Allen Iverson to a one-year, $3 million contract much like some people see a 99-cent hamburger as great value. "I remember having a good hamburger at one point; it cost me five dollars at the time. This one is only 99 cents -- value!"

It goes both ways, though. In one hand you have a fist full of diamonds. In the other, a hand full of mud.

Using the data collected by the hard-working guys over at Mock Draft Central, I'm going to identify 10 guys in the top 100 who are being overvalued in mock drafts. It's for your own good.

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FanHouse previews a player to watch from each NBA team in advance of the 2009-10 season.

Last fall, I sang the hymn of fandom. Caron Butler's Wizards responded with their worst season in a while, a true wire-to-wire disaster of incontinence, misfortuned struggle and self-imposed blurriness. Butler still had a Butler-like season: 21 points, six rebounds, four assists, 1.5 steals -- but there's no self-promoting allowed when there are only 19 wins in the ledger.

So the song remains the same: Butler is one of the most bizarrely solid players this league has, worthy of our attention and appreciation. Luckily, as the Wizards around him improve -- through addition of the previously injured (Gilbert Arenas, Brendan Haywood) and previously exiled in Minnesota (Mike Miller, Randy Foye) -- we'll get to see Butler's glow more frequently.

FanHouse previews all 30 NBA teams in advance of the 2009-10 season.

The Wizards are hoping that a healthy roster, a few new additions and a new head coach will help the team get back to relevance and into the fairly stacked upper echelon of the Eastern Conference. But reconstructing a group that won just 19 games a year ago might be a project that will take longer than a single campaign to complete.

The good news is the Wizards have plenty of positives going for them as they head into the season.

Caron Butler's last four seasons have mirrored those of his team, the Washington Wizards -- on the cusp of excellence, but never quite getting there and held back by an aggravating string of injuries.

The 6-foot-7 forward has made the All-Star team the last two years and averaged more than 20 points, six rebounds and four assists in those seasons, a feat matched only by LeBron James. And while colorful, explosive-scoring teammate Gilbert Arenas has been the face of the Wizards, Butler (nicknamed "Tough Juice'') has been the heart. But the Wizards got knocked out in the first round in each of his first three seasons by James' Cleveland Cavaliers every time. Last year, wracked by injuries, the Wizards changed coaches, bottomed out at 19-63 and changed coaches again.

Now, the 29-year-old Butler feels inspired enough to claim, as have Flip Saunders and many of his teammates, that the Wizards will make the leap to serious Finals contender. Part of this inspiration -- as he points out in this FanHouse Q&A after his team's 101-92 win over Memphis in its preseason opener in Richmond, Va. -- comes from the real face of the franchise dating back to its Baltimore days, Hall of Famer Wes Unseld.

Bouncin' Around is NBA FanHouse's weekly insider notebook.

This is not good for forward Michael Beasley. And it's REALLY not good if you're the Miami Heat trying to convince Dwyane Wade that they are serious about building a championship team around him.

No, this is real bad.

Beasley, who checked himself into a rehab clinic last week because of depression and substance-abuse issues, suddenly looks like the elephant in the franchise room as Wade ponders where his future will be.

Michael Lee of the Washington Post followed up recent Wizards rumors in a piece this morning on the No. 5 pick and Caron Butler. Lee said the 'Zards and Suns discussed an Amar'e Stoudemire trade, but D.C. balked when Butler became a requirement from Phoenix's end.

Washington GM Ernie Grunfeld famously has little interest in keeping No. 5. Phoenix needs to do two things in short order: get younger, and get rid of its (spiritual) question marks up front (Stoudemire and Shaquille O'Neal), one way or the other. So can the Wizards and Suns arrange a deal without involving Butler, Gilbert Arenas or Antawn Jamison?