Title Chaste is the diary of Matt Snyder in his season a virgin fantasy basketball player.
Well, that didn't take long. Thanks to Mo Williams, Danny Granger, Amare Stoudemire, Brook Lopez, Jason Terry, Andrea Bargnani and Shawn Marion, I won my first career fantasy basketball game. I should also point out I owe the scheduling for the victory as well, because my team checked in as the sixth-highest scorer out of 12. Really, it could have gone either way. This victory was a sign that being lucky is just as worthwhile as being smart in fantasy basketball, just as I already knew in fantasy baseball and fantasy football. On the other hand, skill is still paramount -- as the top scorer for the week was, not surprisingly, Tom Lorenzo.
Now with his seventh NBA team, Drew Gooden has played a variety of roles in his much-traveled NBA career. He is about to have a new one -- starting center for a Western Conference contender, according to a radio report cited by DallasBasketball.com.
When Gooden was signed as a free agent this summer by the Dallas Mavericks, it was widely assumed that he was coming mostly to provide depth in the front court for a veteran team still hoping to make a final push before it starts to rebuild.
On Monday, Mavericks GM Donnie Nelson mentioned at a press event that incumbent starting center Erick Dampier could come off the bench this season. Eddie Sefko of the Dallas Morning News followed up to report that it's not a set-in-stone matter, and that Nelson was just generally speaking about the team's flexibility.
That got Matt Moore and I thinking -- err, talking -- about the Maverick rotation. Our discussion (with a somewhat relevant Magic-Cavs vignette) is after the jump.
What had been a tricky deal between Dallas, who is apparently in BUY! BUY! BUY! mode, and Toronto, who is attempting to maximize its Hedo Turkoglu cushion, turned into a four-way ballroom dance. Orlando reportedly jumped in to get a trade exception for the loss of Hedo and Memphis will provide its usual role as facilitator.
Turkoglu's agent Lon Babby admitted Saturday that Hedo made a verbal committment to the Blazers Friday before changing course. That might seem like bad pool, but that's one of the dangers of negotiating deals during the free agency moratorium the first week of July. Last-minute reversals have happened before, and they'll happen again. (It's also worth noting no one confirmed a Portland deal on the record during Friday's crazy hours. Everything was anonymously sourced.)
As teams get eliminated from the 2009 NBA playoff picture, Fork 'Em figures out what went wrong. "If the whole human race lay in one grave, the epitaph on its headstone might well be: 'It seemed a good idea at the time.'" -Rebecca West
Bryan Colangelo either laughs or weeps at this quote after the Raptors 2008-2009 season.
I mean, it DID seem like a good idea at the time, right? You're a playoff team, on the verge of contention. You have a legit superstar in Chris Bosh. You have an up and coming point guard in Jose Calderon, a core of veterans alongside sharpshooter Jason Kapono, and a young stud in Jamario Moon. All they needed was to jettison that black hole, T.J. Ford and minimize that bust Andrea Bargnani. And if they could do all that and upgrade their frontcourt with some muscle, that would be idea.
The Rotation is a weekly study on the NBA by one of our All-Star voices. In rotation this week is Brett Pollakoff.
With just six weeks left in the grind that is the NBA's regular season, it's time to start having the MVP conversation. LeBron James and Kobe Bryant will likely be the first two names mentioned when this hotly debated topic is brought up, but they shouldn't be -- not this season. If you've been paying attention, Dwyane Wade is the league's most valuable player, and it's really not even that close.
PHOENIX -- In the final segment of my interview with Chris Bosh, we discussed the important stuff: how his current season is going with the Raptors. Bosh is very candid in admitting that this isn't exactly how he imagined the season would play out, but with the recent trade that sent Jermaine O'Neal out of town to Miami for Shawn Marion, there might be time to turn it around.
Bosh also told me when he's planning on coming back from his knee injury (hint: soon), and answered one of the hot topics this season: Kobe or LeBron? Our conversation, after the jump.
PHOENIX -- With virtually the entire NBA descending on Phoenix for the beginning of All-Star weekend, the word of Friday's deal between the Heat and the Raptors came early and spread quickly to the hordes of people in attendance.
While everyone probably has an opinion about whether the trade will truly benefit either team, most of them are, quite frankly, irrelevant. One person's opinion that does matter however, is that of Heat superstar Dwyane Wade. And since he was part of the day's All-Star media availability, I got the chance to ask him about it.
Title Chaste is the diary of Matt Snyder in his season a virgin fantasy basketball player. 
Now with his seventh NBA team, 
On Monday, Mavericks GM 
The rumored sign-and-trade sending 
It seems 
As teams get eliminated from the 2009 NBA playoff picture, 
FanHouse is coming to you live from Phoenix, covering the 
