FanHouse Luol Deng

The Bulls went into Cleveland on Thursday and pulled out a hard-fought win over the Cavaliers. It was a low-scoring, defensive struggle, as neither team shot the ball very well, so it's not surprising that the game came down to the final play.

LeBron James drove to the basket with three seconds left and his team trailing by one, and was met by two defenders when he got there -- Luol Deng, who was guarding him from the play's outset, and Joakim Noah, who came over to help at the last second. James appeared to jump into Noah, and there was definitely contact. But somewhat incredibly, the refs swallowed their whistles, and the Bulls won the game.

Was it the right call? Read on and judge for yourself.

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!

With just two games on the schedule last night, Home Delivery might have to start jinxing a can down the street. I suppose it's helpful to get out of the house every once in a while.

And On the Third Day, D. Rose

Derrick Rose returned to action after missing most of the preseason due to a sore ankle. At times, on Thursday, he played as if he was at or near 100-percent. Rose logged 33 minutes scoring 13 points and picking up seven rebounds and seven assists, along with one steal and just one turnover. This is good news for Rose owners, especially since he's not 100-percent as of yet. Things should only get better from here.

Luol Deng looked "Deng good" as he led the Bulls with 17 points on 8-of-13 shooting and nine rebounds. He's starting to look like a nice value pick for a 10th-rounder. Hopefully he can continue to improve and stay healthy this season. John Salmons had an 'off' night shooting 3-of-15 from the field and just 1-of 9 from beyond the arc. He scored just 10 points, but made his performance a little easier to swallow with his three steals.

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

The 2008 Bulls, hopefully, won't be remembered for defining mediocrity at 41-41. Instead, they'll likely be remembered for a thrilling first round series against the Boston Celtics in which were able to only do so much (it's italicized because it's a shoddy theme, y'all!) before heading home for the offseason.

And that offseason saw them very quickly lose -- even if it was expected -- their top scorer from last year. Ben Gordon's explosive, albeit one-dimensional, game will be missed a team that was already middle of the pack in terms of offensive efficiency last year. And John Salmons, a trade-deadline addition along with Brad Miller, will help counter Gordon's loss, but, guess what? He can only do so much.

In continuing with my sleepers theme, I'm going to give you the lowdown on five small forwards whose value exceeds their average draft position (ADP). The position itself houses three of the top five players in fantasy hoops -- LeBron James, Kevin Durant and Danny Granger. As you'd imagine it's a little top-heavy. That's not to say, however, there's no value to be had.

Many of these swingmen have dual eligibility at either shooting guard or power forward. For this exercise I am going to use the player's "true" position, which in this case is small forward. As a reference I used the ADP's from Mock Draft Central (MDC) and Yahoo! Sports (Y!).

Several NBA players missed significant parts of last season because of injury. Here's a quick rundown of how some of them are doing with training camps set to begin next week for most teams:

Gilbert Arenas, Washington (knee): He's had three surgeries on his knee in a year and a half, but Arenas said he'll be ready for the start of training camp. Of course, he took things a step further by saying that had he continued to rehab in Washington, instead of working with trainer Tim Grover in Chicago, he wouldn't have made it back as fast.

In 2007, Rockets star Tracy McGrady traveled to Darfur refugee camps in Chad in order to educate himself about the crisis and film a documentary. Since then, he has also presented a plan to build schools to facilitate the education of the refugees. He has been been a constant advocate for aid to Darfur, and has inspired other NBA stars to speak out as well. McGrady even changed his jersey number from No. 1 to No. 3 to promote the cause.

The hour-long documentary, Three Points, has now been released on Hulu. Hulu's Rebecca Harper also has an interview with McGrady, where he reveals that seeing a public service announcement on Darfur featuring Sudanese Bulls forward Luol Deng provided the final impetus to take up this project.

Every Tuesday this offseason, two of our NBA experts will go at it on a topic. We came up with the catchy title, Debate in the Paint. This week: Would you rather have a No. 1 pick or cap space?

Salary Cap space is for dreamers who live in the fantasy world. The No. 1 pick in the NBA Draft is for builders – and winners.

If given the choice of the two, it's really no choice at all. Take the pick every time.

Perfect example:

In the summer of 2003, the Cleveland Cavaliers had the No. 1 pick and took LeBron James directly from high school. The same summer, the Washington Wizards cleared a ton of space to give Golden State free agent Gilbert Arenas a six-year, $65 million contract.

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Who doesn't like a list, especially on a Monday morning when that's about all you can handle? From now till the regular season starts, we're going to throw our own Top Fives at you.

Since this is the first one, and it's the middle of the offseason, how about five players who look a lot better in August than they do in December, a lot better in the summertime than in winter? Here are five players who have had better offseasons than regular seasons in their NBA careers.

Overrated might be too strong a word here -- but it's time for these guys to start earning earning their money.

You knew it would come to this eventually: the Bulls, who agreed to pay Luol Deng a handsome sum of money through 2014, have decided the player, who missed several months of 2008-09 action with a leg injury, is not healthy enough to play with Great Britain's national team this summer. The Daily Mirror reports the Bulls won a struggle to keep Deng off the nation's roster for the Eurobasket 2009 tournament.

It also may effectively end Great Britain's chances to field a team at the 2012 Olympics in London. Host nations are typically granted automatic bids, but that supposes a reasonable level of competitiveness in the sport. The Queen's roster is not exactly loaded without Deng (Pops Mensah-Bonsu is the top player remaining), and Great Britain sits in a tough group at Eurobasket in September, one featuring Olympic runner-up Spain, talented Slovenia and Serbia. Without Deng, a good showing here -- and momentum for a 2010 FIBA Worlds berth -- seems unlikely.