FanHouse Jameer Nelson

ORLANDO -- Veteran point guard Jason Williams takes over the reins of the Orlando Magic Wednesday night, drawing his own comparison to the Miami Heat team he piloted four seasons ago to the NBA title.

"I've said if from the day I got here: this team is more talented than the championship team I played on in '06,'' Williams said Wednesday morning after a morning practice. "There are more weapons here."

Williams, who turned 34 on Wednesday, is replacing Jameer Nelson, who had arthroscopic surgery on his left knee Wednesday morning. Nelson is expected to be out from four to six weeks, leaving the team in the hands of Williams and journeyman Anthony Johnson.

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

The first thing I thought of while watching the Warriors-Cavs game was: The Seven Samurai. And the tag-line for the film is nearly perfect -- "The Seven Warriors Who Became the Seven National Heroes of a Small Town." OK, so maybe we can take out "national heroes of a small town" and replace those words with "fantasy contributors for one evening."

Last night the Warriors went into Cleveland with just seven active players. Each, however, posted double-digit point totals, with Monta Ellis leading the way -- 23 points, eight assists, and three steals. Anthony Morrow looked pretty good himself, dropping 18 points and hitting four of his seven three-point attempts. All in all, you can't go wrong this week adding Morrow, Anthony Randolph, Stephen Curry or Corey Maggette. I'm still not sold on Mikki Moore or Vladimir Radmanovic, but I'm sure that will change over time.

This is where good depth can really come in handy.

Veteran Jason Williams, the point guard on Miami's NBA Championship team of 2006, will become a starter once again with a serious contender. The Orlando Magic announced Tuesday that All-Star Jameer Nelson will undergo arthroscopic surgery to repair a torn meniscus in his left knee. He is expected to be out for 4-6 weeks.

Nelson was injured in the fourth quarter of Monday night's victory over Charlotte. Williams sat out last season after retiring prematurely, then signed as a free agent for the veteran's minimum in Orlando, where he already had a home.

I was working on a Hoops Heist post to give you a few players to target on the trade market, but I had to switch gears as the injury news this afternoon started to pile up.

Jameer Nelson underwent an MRI this morning and we're now hit with the news that he needs to have arthroscopic surgery on his left knee. It is estimated that Nelson will miss four-to-six weeks. Now what? Well, if you're a Nelson owner it would be in your best interest to pick up point guard Jason Williams, then stand back and reassess.

Jason Williams propped up his fantasy profile in the season opener against the 76ers with 15 points, five assists, and three treys. Since then it's been a mixed bag. Williams' minutes have declined to the point where he hasn't hit the 20-minute mark in any of the previous five games. Now, however, it would seem that he's a lock for at least 25-plus minutes, with Anthony Johnson willing and able to fill in as the back-up. But what should you expect from Williams as your newly acquired point guard?

ORLANDO -- Mike Brown made like an emcee for a lounge act.

With his pregame interview Wednesday night running out of steam, the Cleveland coach suddenly saw his point guard, Mo Williams, walk by. Brown yelled for Williams to come over and say a few words to the assembled media.

Williams rolled out some early material about how his alma mater, Alabama, was going to continue to do some damage on the gridiron. Then he got to the good stuff.

"You all ready for a show tonight?'' he said. "Because I'm going to give you all one tonight.''

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ORLANDO -- When the Orlando Magic signed out-of-work Jason Williams this summer to a one-year, minimum wage contract, they made it sound like he was coming merely to be an insurance policy, giving them a past-his-prime, third point guard in case the bottom fell out on the other two.

He's obviously going to be more, a lot more for a real good team.

Williams, 33, is no longer the flashy, wrap-around-passing entertainer he was earlier in his career in Sacramento, but he looks refreshed and ready to play at a high level once again, adding another strong weapon to the defending Eastern Conference champs.

A year off certainly did him well.

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

Two of the most frequent questions through this Player to Watch series have been "Is he real?" and "Is he back?" That stands to reason: so many teams rely on internal improvement, especially with the league's financial situation restarting a leaguewide thaw on superstar trades (Shaquille O'Neal aside). Fans need to know whether they can count on improving players to keep on going, and whether injured stars can be expected to return to form.

You'd think Magic point guard Jameer Nelson would be facing the latter query -- has Jam's separated shoulder healed well enough to recreate Orlando's awesome starting five? But to me the real question is whether the pre-injury Nelson was even real, or just a short-lived mirage of elite play ready to fall back to Earth.

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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The headline of this story might not be all that original, but what Jameer Nelson tries to do with his teammates during the offseason certainly is.

For the past four years, Nelson has hosted a week of team-bonding activities in his hometown of Philadelphia, where he and his mates engage in various activities which attempt to build chemistry among the players away from the basketball court.

The fun this summer ranged from paintball to baseball, and before the Phillies game that the guys attended, Nelson got in a little batting practice -- where he hit at least one of the pitches hard enough to send it sailing over the wall in left-center.

It's not easy to reach the NBA Finals as the Eastern Conference champs, bolster the roster with another All-Star, and still open training camp next month talking about being overlooked.

Magic coach Stan Van Gundy is going to try.

Van Gundy intended to talk Thursday about the recent addition of veteran point guard Jason Williams, but he couldn't help veering into the perceived slights his team has received this summer as it got overshadowed by the Boston Celtics and Cleveland Cavaliers.