Our 24/7 coverage of Kevin Love’s broken hand began with a Wednesday tweet by Jeff Nichols, continued through my update Thursday morning, led off Bruce Wrigley’s column on auction drafting yesterday and has since returned to Twitter.
My feeling is, Love will be fine, and if everyone else in your league overreacts to this unfortunate news, you should take advantage. Bruce cautions that an injury to the shooting hand can have lasting effects, so even if he returns sooner than the six-week estimate, don’t expect a 30-20 game right away. Asked exactly where he would now draft Love, Jeff says 10-12 in a keeper Roto league, 12-15 in a keeper H2H format, and slightly lower in redraft leagues: Roto 15-20, H2H 20-25. We now return you to our regular programming.
October 18 Games
NOH @ ATL: OK, it’s officially a trend. Devin Harris started again at SG and that may continue. The Hawks went very small, with DeShawn Stevenson at SF. Al Horford had his double-double early in the third quarter as the Hawks began the second half on a 21-1 run, and Josh Smith was outstanding. The only negative was Jeff Teague leaving early with an ankle injury; we don’t know yet how severe. Anthony Morrow (15 points) got plenty of run as Kyle Korver had the night off.
The Hornets would have lost by more than 30 if not for Anthony Davis. Take away the rookie’s 8-11 for 19 points, and they shot a sizzling 25.4% as a team. Ryan Anderson was 1-8 and in foul trouble; Greivis Vasquez is not playing as well as he did last spring and if Eric Gordon (knee) doesn’t return, rookie Austin Rivers may be overmatched as a starting SG in this league.
DET @ MIA: Here I was expecting the Heat to take it easy, or be out of sync, after that very long road trip to China, and with two more weeks to crank it up. Instead, Dwyane Wade was unstoppable — 21 PTS and 5 AST in 22:33 — and they were up 27 by halftime. Mario Chalmers (hamstring) is coming along slowly, so Norris Cole got another start at PG, but he won’t be a fantasy factor.