Beast of the Night: Elton Brand finally emerged and put up 19 points, 11 boards, 2 assists, 3 steals, 6 blocks and just 1 turnover while shooting 47 percent (8-17) from the field and 75 percent (3-4) from the line. This was vintage Brand and owners who have remained patient or bought low on him have to be giggling with joy right now. He’s not out of the woods just yet, but things look are looking way up for Brand and his owners today. Read More »

Buy Low: Al Jefferson will miss the next two games to tend to a family illness, but it’ll give him some time to rest, too. He’s shown glimpses of life and his steady uphill path to recovery should reach its peak by the beginning of December.

Andre Miller is starting alongside Steve Blake, but the chances for him taking over as the sole starting point guard are getting better. Read More »

Erick Dampier was almost the headline photo for today’s Smack. Seriously. In the late stages of the fourth quarter of Mavs/Hornets, Damp (16 pts, 14 rebs, 3 blks) was the most clutch player in the building, getting a putback off a Dirk Nowitzki miss to break a tie, catching an alley-oop from Jason Kidd on the next possession, then scoring on another tip-in with 16 seconds left. That should’ve been the dagger, but Dallas killed themselves at the free-throw line in the final seconds: Jason Terry missed one after Chris Paul got T’d up for arguing a push-off call (CP had pushed off on J.J. Barea like 3-4 times in the fourth, but didn’t get called for it until what looked like N.O.’s last-chance possession), then Barea missed two freebies to keep the Hornets alive. Read More »

Beast of the Night: Kevin Martin finished with 48 points on 52 percent (14-27) shooting from the field and 72 percent (13-18) from the free throw line, hitting 7 threes and adding 5 rebounds, 4 assists, 4 steals, 1 block and 3 turnovers. He was toying with O.J. Mayo during parts of the game, hitting a variety of difficult shots over his outstretched hand. K-Mart’s picking up right where he left off last season and the only major limitation to his value is his health. Read More »

The worst part about preseason polls is that voters adopt a loyalty to those pre-determined spots even after the season shows us some of those picks were just wrong. College football gets it the worst, but the same often applies for the NBA; the only saving grace is that, at the end of the day, voter opinion doesn’t matter because the NBA has a playoff.

That said, we ignored making a preseason NBA Hit List power ranking, so as not to influence this first week’s edition. Counting down from worst to first… Read More »

Weekend Wonder: Chris Bosh is furiously putting up drool-worthy lines so far this season, including two gems on Friday (37 points, 1 three, 12 rebounds, 4 assists, 1 steal, 2 blocks, 1 turnover) and Sunday (35 points, 2 threes, 16 rebounds, 1 assist, 1 block, 3 turnovers). He shot 51 percent (23-45) from the field and 70 percent (23-33) from the line in those two games, while also hitting all three of his three-point attempts. If he continues to hit threes, Bosh could be vaulting himself into a higher tier of fantasy stardom. Read More »

After the first few days of NBA action, it’s time to take a gander at players who might have already frustrated impatient fantasy owners enough to make them amenable to low-ball offers, and those that have performed especially well and will get you more than they deserve in return.

It’s a bit early to even discuss this, but there are very impatient owners out there and so long as they’re flustered or overly optimistic, there are opportunities for you to jump on. Read More »

Last year we debuted the “Highs and Lows” system — previewing the NBA season by predicting the respective ceiling and basement for each team. Same theme, different season…

Added: Jonny Flynn, Ramon Sessions, Wayne Ellington, Ryan Hollins, Damien Wilkins, Sasha Pavlovic, Antonio Daniels, Oleksiy Pecherov, Jason Hart, Nathan Jawai, Mark Blount, Henk Norel

Lost: Randy Foye, Mike Miller, Sebastian Telfair, Craig Smith, Rodney Carney, Mark Madsen, Kevin Ollie, Jason Collins, Shelden Williams, Bobby Brown Read More »

One sequence defined last night’s Lakers/Nuggets national TV preseason game: In the second half, after Kobe Bryant had already come out of the locker room with That Look in his eye, he pulled off his new favorite move on Kenyon Martin; getting him in the air with a pump fake and spinning a quick 360 to his left, dropping a jumper as K-Mart harmlessly floated back to Earth. Then on the Nuggets’ ensuing possession, Kobe jumped a passing lane and finished with a breakway one-hander, slapping on the bottom-teeth snarl as an exclamation point … Read More »

When Kevin Love went down with a hand injury this preseason, Minnesota’s frontcourt of Love and Al Jefferson was cut in half. That’s why it made complete sense for them to find a good, young and cheap replacement in the meantime. Enter Nathan Jawai. Read More »