FanHouse Rajon Rondo

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

Surprisingly, the Timberwolves were able to make a game out of last night's contest against the Celtics. The C's pulled it off in the end, but the T-Wolves kept it close from the opening tip, and actually had the lead for most of the game.

The star of the game just so happened to be Oleksiy Pecherov, who I mentioned in Tuesday's post as a guy to add in deep leagues. Well, standard leagues, it's time to become acquainted with Mr. Pecherov. He posted a game high 24 points on 9-of-14 shooting with eight rebounds, one three-pointer and a steal. You won't see him lead the T-Wolves in scoring often, but he does have the ability to put up 15 points on a given night, adding some nice range for a big man.

The Celtics were led by Rajon Rondo who had 18 points, six assists and three steals. I'm standing by my claim that he's going to lead the league in steals. Kevin Garnett added 12 points, 11 rebounds, three blocks, a steal and a burning desire to win.

There were two lingering questions for the Celtics coming into this, a season where they are widely expected to contend for a championship. The first was the status of Kevin Garnett's knee which appears to be just fine. You can notice a very slight hobble by Garnett after an ill-advised dunk, but that could just be reverberations from the accompanying unnecessary screaming.

The other was the contract status of Rajon Rondo, who was working on an extension to avoid entering restricted free agency by remaining with the Celtics. Talks had slowed, and Rondo was making comments to the effect that it was possible he wouldn't end up in Boston.

Bad news for the rest of the league: he will end up in Boston. Early Monday after a fortunate extension from the league for all teams in negotiations, the Celtics and Rondo reached an agreement on a 5-year, $55 million extension, according to ESPN.

Chris Paul is the best point guard in the game today, and Rajon Rondo isn't too far behind at the position, probably in most people's top five. But besides being great at what they do, these guys have something else in common: they play the game with a noticeable chip on their shoulder.

So it shouldn't come as any surprise that when the two went head-to-head in Boston on Sunday, things got a little heated during the game, and words were exchanged on the court after the final buzzer had sounded.

Talks have ended and no contract extension is expected on Utah guard Ronnie Brewer by Monday's deadline, his agent told FanHouse on Friday.

"Kevin (O'Connor, Utah's general manager) and I have talked, but we have a different point of view (on contract figures),'' said agent Henry Thomas.

Barring the unexpected, Thomas said no more talks are expected to take place by Monday's deadline of players from the 2006 first round able to sign extensions that will kick in for the 2010-11 season. Thomas said the final talks with O'Connor were Friday.

Saturday is Halloween, but don't expect many NBA owners and general managers in this shaky economy to dress up as Bill Gates and throw money around.

Oct. 31 is the annual deadline for one-time first-round picks entering their fourth seasons to be eligible to sign extensions that would kick in for their fifth seasons. For stars, it's a chance to land their first really big contract.

But much is silent as the deadline approaches, meaning the overwhelming number of eligible players from the 2006 first round will become restricted free agents next summer. Three players from that draft -- Andrea Bargnani of Toronto and LaMarcus Aldridge and Brandon Roy of Portland -- have inked extensions, but not a lot more activity is expected.

I suppose you can say I own far too many fantasy basketball teams. I just finished drafting my eighth team, with three still pending and one currently in progress -- it's a 30-team experts league draft. Enough is enough, right?

I figure that if I talk the talk, I should at least walk the walk.

Recently I was a part of an experts league draft started up by fantasy guru Dave Gawron over at RotoCommunity.com. The league consisted of 12 fantasy experts, each from a different fantasy publication or Web site.

I had the 11th pick in the draft, which seems to be my lucky number. After the jump I'll let you in on what I was thinking as I drafted and show you how I put my strategy to work.

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

Okay, before we get started, I'm going to go ahead and take care of the handful of required played-out puns used by sportswriters in other media in this kind of scenario.

"Easy Peasy, Lemon Quisy, Daniels Ready to Contribute"

"Celtics Hope To Be 'Living on Quisy Street'"

"Quisy Come, Quisy Go: Celtics Turn To Daniels For Bench Support."

All right. Now that we have that unfortunate bit of business out of the way, we can begin.

Rajon Rondo's name has been appearing in some trade rumors recently, which, on the surface, seems somewhat odd. After all, he had somewhat of a coming out party in this year's playoffs, especially during the Celtics' epic series with the Bulls when he averaged close to a triple-double for the entire series.

Danny Ainge has gone back and forth on Rondo -- first denying the rumors completely, then letting some details about Rondo's attitude and behavior slip out, while suggesting that right now, his starting point guard isn't worthy of receiving a max contract.

Rondo's agent, as you might imagine, was not pleased with Ainge's comments, and he gave a response to The Boston Globe that was critical of the way Ainge has handled the entire situation.

There's a little NBA trading spice coming out of Woj's internet-making machine recently, in the form of (another?) rumor involving Ray Allen and Rajon Rondo. This time, they were reportedly offered to Detroit in a deal that would have sent Richard Hamilton, Tayshaun Prince and Rodney Stuckey to Beantown.

(Quick aside: Is it just me or is the NBA offseason easily the most fun of any sport?) Anyway, it appears, based on Woj's sources, that this rumor is likely to gain very little steam, primarily because Danny Ainge is dealing with "Bring in Rasheed Wallace to win a championship" Joe Dumars, as opposed to "Draft Darko, Trade Chauncey for Iverson" Joe Dumars.