FanHouse Nick Collison

Who doesn't like a list, especially on a Monday morning when that's about all you can handle?

The news isn't good on the NBA officials' front. The league has locked the refs out and it appears they're ready to go the route of replacement refs. We think that's a bad idea, but if it's going to happen, here's offering some help to the new guys.

Keep your eyes out for these players, the top-five foulers in the NBA:

The market for restricted free agent Paul Millsap was expected to be robust in theory, if not in actuality. This is to say Millsap is a highly desired fellow, given his proclivity to rebound like a champ, score efficiently, and defend his tail off at the power forward position. However, as always, a limited pool of clubs will head into July with cap space for next season.

The Thunder is one team with space to sign a free agent like Millsap. The team currently falls about $15 million under the cap, and Millsap has been pegged to pull a starting salary around $7-8 million. Oklahoma City can certainly afford to get into that ballpark, should Sam Presti desire to. Ross Siler of the Salt Lake Tribune seems to believe OKC, in fact, desires Millsap.

When it comes to All-Star ballots, NBA teams are pretty shameless when it comes to encouraging fans to vote early and vote often, but the Oklahoma City Thunder have taken things to a new level.

During Wednesday's game against the Jazz, the Thunder rewarded three fans for their devoted ballot punching. Take a guess how many ballots the first-place winner completed. Several hundred? Ha. A few thousand? No, sir.

As Ross Siler of the Salt Lake Tribune witnessed, Kathy Kuck, perhaps the most devoted Thunder fan in the entire world, punched more than 22,000 ballots!

B-Ball, B-Fast is a weekdaily look at last night's NBA action from a fantasy perspective. Bookmark it and visit often.

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Consider yourselves lucky that you're getting this post today. I have made no secret of my mancrush, so my first inclination when I heard that Andrew Bynum would be out for eight freaking weeks was to end up hanging from the nearest ceiling fan by a guitar string. Then I realized the closest thing I own to said string is a fake plastic Gibson with five colored buttons. So I'm here. And Bynum is not. You can't drop him and keeper league teams out of contention should actually trade for him. He will miss eight weeks and in his fantasy stead will be erstwhile "phenom" Kwame Brown (seen here getting half-postered by the quite miniscule Earl Watson.)

Hot Cakes
Kwame posted 10 and 10 last night but it was in 38 minutes against the Sonics and everyone rebounds against them, so that's a misleading false sliver of hope. If he keeps up the decent play, I say sell, since he will not be scoring and Chris Mihm will probably reappear in three weeks for about a week or two (before getting hurt again) to steal playing time. Even if he doesn't, Chris Webber looms as a triangle offense passing presence/center option on the cheap for the Lakers who would be available in just around a fortnight. (Yeah, I rolled with fortnight and yeah, snatch him up if you need dimes and minimal boards.)

In that same game, Nick Collison registered a monsterous 24 points and 18 boards. Besides telling us that Collison is starting to heat up (add him if you can) while averaging over a dub-dub in January, this also tells us that Kwame cannot play defense. Suddenly, you want to start your centers against the Lakers in daily leagues. Did not want to do that when Bynum was in there. So there's that. Hurray tiny silver linings! Sigh.

B-Ball, B-Fast is a daily (9:00 a.m.) look at what happened the night before in the NBA from a fantasy perspective. Check back early and often, or just save yourself the trouble and bookmark it.

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Remember how we talked about Manu Ginobili's efficiency and production off the bench? Well, with Tim Duncan hurt, he started last night. And he started good. Like 37 points, six assists, four boards, two steals and a block kinda good. Is the going to be the norm? Not the actual numbers, no. But the production is, because as long as Tim-my! is down, Tony Parker and his Argentinian back court buddy are going to be in charge of all offensive production at the Alamo.

Hot Cakes
And Manu wasn't alone - a couple of guys in the Big Apple took advantage of injuries too: Jamal Crawford upped his scoring load with Stephon Marbury out going off for 29 points and seven dimes against the Nets. In more exciting news (depending on who you own), Zach Randolph got the starting nod at center for Eddy Curry, who was dealing with an ankle sprain he suffered in Wednesday's shootaround. And just like Curry, he didn't rebound or block anything worthwhile (seven and zero, "respectively"). But if Curry his misses time, Z-Bo's field goal percentage will increase dramatically and the potential for C eligibility is just gravy. Also notable is Fred Jones' start, even if the stat (15/3/3 in 40 minutes) weren't.

T.J. Ford came back, albeit off the bench, for the Raptors last night, scoring 27 points with four dimes in 24 minutes. Jose Calderon continued to start, scoring 14 with nine dimes in 32 minutes. It's just going to be a timeshare until Ford gets hurt again, but both should provide decent G3 totals.

Nick Young, a.k.a "The City", (don't let Mottram fool you, I came up with that) scored 14 points in just 19 minutes off the bench for the Wizards. He's instant offense and just one more injury away from being fantasy relevant, so deeper leagues probably want to scoop now if you have the bench room.

No one's really talking about Nick Collison. Probably because he missed three games after breaking his nose. He came back last night and pulled the old play-better-with-the-mask thing, scoring 18 points with 17 boards in just 33 minutes. He hasn't played superbly this season (eight points and seven boards per going in) so there's a chance he's floating on your wire -- the Sonics aren't trying to compete this season and he's definitely younger than Kurt Thomas, so take a gamble.

Nothing sums up Bonzi Wells' career quite like 24 points and seven boards in just 29 minutes against his old team; just patently vindictive. However, if you look at the box score (Tracy McGrady had a trip-dub, Yao Ming went off and even Luis Scola scored 16) you can tell just how fantasy friendly the 07-08 Grizzlies are going to be. Daily leagues should keep that in mind.

One day before USA Basketball kicks off its bid for the Olympics in the FIBA Tournament of the Americas, the roster was whittled to 12 with the cuts of Sonic teammates Kevin Durant and Nick Collison. Mike Miller, Michael Redd and Deron Williams all got the call to stay.

Add this to the statement coach Mike Krzyzewski made earlier this week -- that LeBron James, Kobe Bryant and Carmelo Anthony will likely start every game in the tourney -- and the rotation really takes shape. Expect Jason Kidd to get a large number of minutes at the point, and assume Amare Stoudemire gets the starting call at center. That's a tremendous lineup for any competition, let alone one where your top challenger consists almost entirely of Nene and Leandro Barbosa.

A week ago, I was prepared to beg Krzyzewski and Jerry Colangelo to keep Durant aboard; let him bask in the halo of greatness for a few weeks. Why? He's already the best player in Seattle. He'll always be the best player on the Sonics. Existing as the sole top dog won't stunt his growth... but being around players better than him, even for just a little while, would give him a mental boost, I think. I'm no psychologist, but isn't this why business folk go to seminars given by industry leaders? Isn't this why writers go to workshops, to soak up the awesomeness of those higher on the food chain? Durant could use that; Mickael Gelabale isn't going to teach KD a damn thing. Kobe? Yeah, he just might.

This makes four posts I've written on the USA Select Team, so I should probably stop calling it "the Scrimmage Thing." Anyway, NBA.com has a nice, stirring account of the scrimmage won by the young'uns. Most striking, though, is the dynamic feat pulled off by recently-added Senior Team member Nick Collison:

The players had been shooting around for just a few minutes when a everyone heard a loud bang from the corner of the gym. We all looked to where the noise came from, and we saw Nick Collison standing under one of the side baskets with the rim at his feet.

Several players started yelling, "Yeah Nick!"

For his part, Collison played it modest, figuring that "something must have been wrong with the rim, because he didn't dunk it that hard." However, LeBron definitely had the best reaction:

"I was hoping practice would be over," LeBron James told me afterwards. "I was hoping coach would say, 'Hey, practice is cancelled.' That's the first thing that came to my mind. The second thing is 'I hope he didn't shoot a jumper and the basket fell.'"

Ah, the life of a global icon. All concern for others and better things to do than basketball.

(via Supersonicsoul)

When Kirk Hinrich and Shane Battier withdrew from Team USA's training camp, it was widely assumed they did so knowing they were on the bubble of being cut. But today it seems that Team USA lost a valuable member of their roster due to a legitimate injury. From the AP:

Toronto forward Chris Bosh withdrew from U.S. training camp Wednesday because of a left foot injury.

Bosh has plantar fasciitis and will not play in the FIBA Americas tournament that starts next week, USA Basketball spokesman Craig Miller said.

The 6-foot-10, 230-pound Bosh will remain on the team and under consideration for a spot if the Americans qualify for the 2008 Olympics. His withdrawal leaves the Americans with 15 players.

Although NBA rosters can have 15 players, Team USA must trim their roster to 12 by the time the FIBA Americas Championship takes place later this month. It's still unclear which players will be going home.