Sleepers are an important but dangerous part of any preparations for fantasy basketball drafts. After all, what fun is it strictly adhering to the automated or “expert-based” rankings you’re spoon-fed? Not only is taking that route lame, it can also blind you to players whose true value is hidden from lists too-heavily based on numbers or past performances. The hazard is getting caught up in the self- or media-generated hype for your sleeper picks and moving too early to grab them. All that said, here is a list of the Top 10 sleepers that you should keep an eye out for in the latter rounds of your drafts (with target rounds in 12-team leagues in brackets), in no particular order. Read More »

***EDITOR’S NOTE: We received a significant amount of backlash for this post, with angry readers calling us out for not being factually on point (the errant claim that Vince Carter was left out of the Raptors’ 15th Anniversary celebration), for not being thorough in our analysis and for being disingenuous in our motives for posting this piece. For the most part our critics are absolutely correct, this article is not up to our standards. Some of the judgment that went into this post was not great, starting with the misleading headline – we can admit that. And if we are going to make tough claims like the ones put forth in this piece, we need to back them up with a lot more facts and analysis than we did in this post.

A lot of other sites might have just taken the post down and buried it – we’re not going to do that. We are going to man up, admit our mistakes and promise to do better. You, our readers deserve that. Without you, we are nothing, and we will fight to win back anyone we lost with this type of sloppy work. It won’t happen again.

– Patrick Cassidy, Director of Content

Once again, the Toronto Raptors are in rebuilding mode. After two more highly-publicized bad breakups this summer — Chris Bosh leaving in free agency and Hedo Turkoglu forcing a trade — the Raptors are left with no big names or potential All-Stars (at least for 2011) on the roster. Having missed the playoffs again last season with Bosh and Hedo, the team is expected to finish way out of postseason contention this time around. Read More »

So the Wizards have the ball in the final minute of a close game, and their point guard is slowly dribbling the clock down, figuring out where and how to make his move. “That’s John Wall, right?” somebody asks. “Nah,” comes the answer. “It’s Lester Hudson.” And that’s how you know it’s still the NBA preseason … In the first Madison Square Garden appearance for Wall since he shook hands with The Commish, the No. 1 pick put up 19 points, 5 boards and 6 assists and might have left actual burn marks on Ray Felton‘s shorts. But when the game went down to the wire in the fourth, Wall was on the bench while the likes of Cartier Martin and Landry Fields logged the crunch-time minutes … Read More »

Thank you to the Toronto Raptors for providing the first, “It’s just preseason” moment of the new year. Embarking on Phase 1 the post-Chris Bosh era, during which everyone not being paid by the Raptors is convinced the team will stink worse than Randy Watson‘s shower cap, the Raptors nonetheless DESTROYED the Suns in their preseason opener, 129-78. In front of a Vancouver, B.C., crowd that gave Steve Nash some home-province love and got to pretend for a night that the Grizzlies never left, Linas Kleiza led T-Dot with 20 points in the rout. Read More »

As the NBA preseason gets underway, we preview the upcoming campaign with the “Highs and Lows” system — predicting the respective ceiling and basement for each team.

Added: Leandro Barbosa, Ed Davis, Linas Kleiza, Julian Wright, David Andersen, Solomon Alabi

Lost: Chris Bosh, Hedo Turkoglu, Antoine Wright, Marco Belinelli Read More »

And we’re back to no basketball. The day after the World Championship wrapped up, reality set in that we’re still a couple of weeks away from NBA training camp and even farther away from preseason action. (Question: What happens if the All-WC squad of Serbia’s Milos Teodosic, Turkey’s Hedo Turkoglu, Lithuania’s Linas Kleiza, Team USA’s Kevin Durant and Argentina’s Luis Scola played the Timberwolves’ starting five?) … This is the time when everyone is predicting who will have a breakout season, and while there are 100 candidates for which you could make a solid argument, definitely keep an eye on LaMarcus Aldridge. Read More »

Just when you began to wonder if Kevin Durant was getting too much hype this summer, he went out and proved he’s worth every bit of it. After dropping 33 points on Russia to lead Team USA to the World Championship semifinals, yesterday KD went off again on Lithuania, hanging 38 points (14-25 FG, 5 threes) and 9 boards on the previously-undefeated squad to lift the U.S. to the gold-medal game with another double-digit W … Durant (who wrote 9/11 messages on his shoes) was on fire early and carried the U.S. offense throughout. Read More »

We’re all the way to the Final Four of the World Championship, and it’s still not clear whether Team USA is simply way better than almost everybody, or if they’ve yet to get a truly tough test (beyond the Brazil game). After today’s semifinal there won’t be any doubt, though. Lithuania has been ballin’ in the WC, going undefeated and coming off a surprisingly easy smashing of Argentina. Linas Kleiza is playing out of his mind, averaging 19.1 points and 7.4 rebounds … Can Danny Granger get some PT today? Read More »

At least once during this World Championship tournament, Kevin Durant needed a game where he just went HAM on the comp and dropped ruthless buckets. Yesterday’s quarterfinal against Russia was that game. With “1972″ written on his sneakers — an ode to the ’72 USA Olympic squad that got famously screwed against Russia — Durant scored 33 points (11-19 FG) in another convincing win that was actually close for about a half until the U.S. broke it open and won by 10 to advance to the Final Four. Read More »

If you haven’t been paying attention for the last week and a half, it’s past time now to put Luis Scola on the short list of the best power forwards in the world. (“Not the NBA; the WORLD, Craig!”) The most beastly one-man run of international play we’ve seen since Michael Jordan took on the Monstars continued in yesterday’s battle at the World Championship between Argentina and Brazil, as Scola dropped 37 points (14-20 FG), grabbed 9 rebounds, and iced the game for Argentina down the stretch with one huge bucket after another … Read More »