In order to make things easier for our readers we have decided to split the weekly planner into a weekly review to be published on Saturday and weekly preview on Sunday. For Saturdays, we are replacing our lessons from the Week That Was with an expanded review of roster changes including injuries and rotation updates in addition to our Depth Chart. Come back tomorrow and we will preview the Upcoming Schedule and make our picks of Sits and Starts.
Today’s column includes a more in depth look at the return to relevance for Chauncey Billups, Derek Fisher, Mikael Pietrus and Jerry Stackhouse, each of whom struggles to shoot even 40% from the floor.
Injury Updates
Returnees
This big news from the week is the return of Chauncey Billups from tearing his achilles heel. Billups has been out since early February and will need some time to shake-off the rust. Last year he contributed 2 3PM, 4 AST and 15 PTS but temper your expectations. He is 36 years old and coming off major surgery. He is also a reputed FG% killer. Last year in his best month, he could only make 36.8% of his shots. Even if you look at his whole storied career, he is only a 41.2% shooter.
The Clippers are also a much deeper team especially at guard after getting Eric Bledsoe back and adding Jamal Crawford and Willie Green. Bledsoe and Crawford have been playing very well this year and at this point are better players than Billups. I will be surprised if they lose a minute of playing time or if Big Shot averages more than 20 minutes a game. I am avoiding him even in deep leagues.
If you rostered Green, you can follow Vinny Del Negro’s lead, who cut him entirely from his rotation. Caron Butler and Matt Barnes will also lose some shots especially threes.
Jeff, it’s great that you’re writing twice as many columns each week.
I could have argued about the John Henson omission but am happy just to own him in Roto Elim. Let’s give Ersan Ilyasova one more week as the #1 PF, hoping that Scott Skiles stops playing head games with him. Next Saturday could see Sanders at PF1 and Henson at PF2. Only Skiles could completely “forget” Drew Gooden this long while playing two inferior centers; he’s coaching like a man who can’t wait to get fired.