Backup Centers Ready to Fantasy JAM! Is it Goga, BBall Paul Time? What of Thybulle?

Every team, every topic, everywhere, this is believed.

Guys, I am, I am so stupid.

I recorded this entire podcast with my mixer unplugged, embarrassing.

I'm Dan Baspers.

This is Old Man Squad, fantasy basketball presented by Fandule.

It was going to be about a 25 minute pod, but I'll be totally honest with you guys.

When I record the same thing two times in a row, the second one is going to be quicker.

I just can't say all the same stuff twice.

It makes my brain explode.

So first thing I wanted to do was welcome you to the show.

Second thing is, and I don't know how many of you guys are still thinking about responding

or replying or putting comments or anything like that.

I'd like to know, because again, we go all off season long, and so there will be opportunities

for us to communicate throughout the off season, but I'd love for you guys to tell me many

of you commented on how much you like the streaming, like 10 to 15 minute chunks we do during

the fantasy play-offs.

I'd love to know if that's the thing you guys would like me to do starting a little earlier

in the season.

Not at the very beginning.

There's no point in streaming right out of the gate.

At that point, we'd be doing work for no reason, because you're looking for rest of season

high upside guys, but like, I don't know, eight weeks in, something like that.

When you kind of add an idea of who everybody is, should we start doing streaming shows in

like December?

Let me know.

Throw it in the comments section.

Reply on Twitter at Dan Vespris, whatever is the easy one, et cetera.

So again, we're going to go through this a little quicker here, because I don't want to repeat.

I don't want to do it twice, and I can consolidate my thoughts a little bit better.

Nick Speed the Hawks, 108, 105, Jalen Brunson at a huge fourth quarter to bring the

Nick's back for this victory.

Mitchell Robinson has proven to be a solid, specialist level play, and nothing else for

the Nick's really matters from this ballgame.

I spent a few moments talking about Josh Hart on my first pass, he had two, five, and three,

which is a really bad, bad fantasy game.

But he's right in the, he's in the 80s, which is, you guys remember the, the, the Josh

Hart craziness this season, this draft season?

He opened up at like number 45, and then fell all the way to 107.

I honestly can't remember a starter level guy that moved that far down during the draft

season.

He ended up going around pick 100 at that point.

I was like, yeah, this seems like a perfectly reasonable spot.

And it's been, you know, by all accounts, a relatively reasonable spot.

I have no thoughts on the Atlanta Hawks, they were just bad at shooting in this ballgame.

Another great one from Nikhilogs and Walker, who, you know, he's number 30 in nine cat

this year.

And he's probably going to get drafted in the third or fourth round next season.

Can he replicate what he's done?

Uh, maybe.

I think anybody's coming for his job on this club.

He's just really become like a much higher usage guy than I think anybody ever expected.

All right, that's that one Detroit at Orlando, uh, no Tobias Harris, no Duncan Robinson,

no Kate Cunningham.

The pistons are pretty well locked into that, that top seed.

I don't think the Celtics can actually catch them anymore.

So you're going to see rest days basketball monster.

You can see on your screen, uh, YouTubers, they've got Jalen During listed as questionable

for injury maintenance.

Basically, they think he might rest the next ballgame, uh, presumably Tobias Harris will

be back by the next one, dealing with a knee contusion, um, Kate Cunningham is actually

questionable, but I don't think he's going to play during the regular season.

Isaiah Stewart is dealing with a calf strain, Duncan Robinson has a hip thing going on.

And a lot of old man type of stuff happening here.

The one thing to keep in mind is you look at Detroit's next ballgame, which again, it's

hard to know exactly what to do because they played a morrow.

And I don't think we're going to get an update on any of these guys until tomorrow.

But if Duncan Robinson misses another ballgame, Kevin Herder was a really good play here.

He had 17 points, three boards, five assists and four steals with three, three pointers.

And he's always been a pretty good fantasy play if he's actually gotten like a dozen shots

or more.

They're just haven't been that times that many times that Herder's gotten a dozen shots.

Uh, Paul Reed started at power forward, but the Reed during front court wasn't really

working.

So Detroit pivoted to Javante Green at power forward for a lot of the ballgame.

And Green actually has excellent fantasy game.

But I'm not that interested actually in Javante Green because I think Tobias Harris probably

comes back for the next ballgame.

I'm more interested in Paul Reed if we think Jalen Duren actually gets the next one off.

Because if Reed slides up to play center and let's say there's still no Isaiah Stewart,

he's put up some huge lines as a full time backup center.

When he gets the spot start.

So do we want to kind of get out in front and grab Paul Reed?

I'm thinking about it.

I'm thinking about it for sure.

Uh, because I have a couple of spots where I'm trying to make up a couple games against

the games cap.

And for those, you know, I have two or three guys on my team on pretty much every club

right now that I don't really care about all that much.

I'll drop one of those dudes for Paul Reed for tomorrow.

Hope that Duren sits and that if he doesn't, then I just won't use Reed against the games

cap.

Of course, you keep playing Dennis Jenkins as long as Kate is out.

I think that's probably as much as I wanted to say about the peace dons.

So let's go over to the Orlando side.

France Wagner was out for this ballgame as they were came back into the mix.

He's expected to play in their next one.

This was a rest game for France.

I picked him up where he was dropped.

I know it's only a couple of ballgame.

There's three games left.

This was a tail end of a back-to-back for the magic.

The rest of their games are not back-to-backs.

I think they'd like to try to inch France up into the mid-20s in minutes before the regular

season is done.

And if he can get up into that 24 minute range, he's inside the top 100 in fantasy basketball

because he'll also go kind of heavy on usage in the lower minutes.

Orlando has a tough schedule other than the Chicago game.

That'll be an easy one to put up some numbers.

They got Minnesota was pretty good defensively even if they're sort of out of whack overall

and then Boston to finish things out, but probably going to see some rest days in that ballgame.

So I think I would make sure to play France the rest of the way.

Palo was more efficient here.

Sugs was good.

Bain was good.

The other little two pieces of note, pieces of note, pieces of news for Orlando is that

Wendell Carter Jr suffered a bit of a neck thing in the fourth quarter.

I think they're calling it an X-Spring meaning, well, first of all, he also had some foul

trouble early, but that wasn't the big reason here.

Goga Batazze played 24 minutes.

And if Wendell Carter Jr has to miss a game, then you could get this sort of goga plug

and play much like what we just talked about with Paul Reed.

Goga's a guy that has in over the years, mostly with Orlando, put up pretty good numbers

when he gets a spot start.

Thing is that Wendell Carter Jr has been extraordinarily healthy this year.

I think he's only missed four games the entire season or something really low like that.

So we don't have the same body of work as, say, last season.

You guys might remember that Wendell Carter Jr missed what, 14, 15 games last year, year

before that.

He missed, I think, 25 games, something.

So Goga, and you can't look at the entire year, but if you just look at the games when

Batazze was filling in for Wendell Carter Jr, he was a top 100 guy because he was giving

you good rebounds, blocks, and field goal percent.

And enough of those to counterbalance the fact that his other stuff was not all that good.

So, now, between Goga and Paul Reed, Paul Reed has the better fantasy game, but between

Goga and Paul Reed, I'd argue Goga probably has the better shot to start tomorrow because

Wendell Carter Jr. looks like he's now actually dealing with an injury and Jalen Durin.

It's more of a like, we think he might get a day off because the pistons are locked in

and it's a game against the tanking Milwaukee team.

So there's a little more guesswork on the piston side.

Are you going to sit?

Are you going to rest?

Will you play, I don't know for sure, and that's tough, honestly, I don't know which

way to tell you to go because this time of year, it's all just a frickin coin flip.

Could you add both and play whichever one actually starts maybe, or maybe both?

Can it be both?

Anthony Black also came back for the magic.

He had 14 points, a couple of steals.

And only 15 and a half minutes, and that of course is the big issue there.

They're going to kid glove him a bit, just like they're doing with Franz.

And Franz at least is, you know, five, six minutes per game ahead of Anthony Black right

now, although they may ramp Black up quicker.

I added Anthony Black in one or two spots in the hopes that maybe that last game of the

regular season, could he get a nice chunk of minutes?

I'm also fully ready to have added him and not play him at all.

Cleveland is another interesting one.

They rested their main dudes here, back court, main back court dudes, no streus, no hardened,

no Donovan Mitchell.

So Keon Ellis, Sam Merrill and Dennis Schroeder, all had huge ball games against the tank

and Grizzlies team.

Jared Allen and Evan Mobley got what they could before this game got out of hand.

If you're trying to figure out what's up with the cabs because like, these are big ball

games.

Keon Ellis, 19 points, eight assists, Dennis Schroeder, 22 and 11.

Sam Merrill, 21 points, 43s, three steals.

The issue of course is, the calves are still jockeying with the nicks for the three four

spot.

This was an Indiana Memphis back-to-back for Cleveland.

So they knew they could rest half of their club in each of those two games and win it because

if they accidentally fell behind by a couple of points, the Grizzlies would do something

to give the game back.

It was a very easy thing to plan out.

Cleveland's got Atlanta Wednesday and Friday and the Hawks are still playing hard.

And that means Cleveland's probably going to have to play their main guys for those ball

games.

Meaning you probably see Ellis, Merrill and Schroeder all back on the bench.

I would guess for both of those, both of those contests.

Now on Sunday, excuse me, the calves have the wizards.

This is the voice goes when I have to do the same stupid podcast twice, until mad at

myself.

The wizards on Sunday is where you'll see everybody get the day off for Cleveland because

they'll win that game regardless.

And so maybe that's the one you kind of plan ahead Saturday.

You can pick up Keon Ellis or Schroeder or both of them or something like that.

But in the meantime, and we talked about this in our Sunday recap show yesterday, I was

like, we know they're going to rest half and half, was there enough time to do anything

about it?

I don't maybe depends what kind of league you're in.

Anywho.

Again, this is one where you're kind of planning ahead a few days and you can, if you want,

I guess, but also like between Tuesday and Saturday, I don't know that you have a whole

lot to do.

And you're not going to hold these other guys through those next two ball games because

you want to be hunting for dudes that are going to go big.

And I wish I could tell you that any of those dudes were on the Memphis Grizzlies, but

the Grizzlies are supremely annoying.

I went through this long winding explanation on my first try on this podcast, but I'm

just going to give you the answer to the pop quiz, which is drop them all.

I want zero Grizzlies on my fantasy team right now.

I want none.

They are so annoying to roster Memphis is the one tanking team left ab Brooklyn to that

still screw in with everybody.

Half the team is out for the year, but like the number of players, look at this.

Look at the Grizzlies full season tab for how many people have actually played for them.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen,

fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty, twenty two, Grizzlies have rostered

twenty two different guys.

And you can look at the game total to see which ones have popped up lately.

Adama ball, Derek Whitehead, Lucas Williamson, Taj Gibson's played eight freaking games for

this team.

Toby O'Connie.

Who?

Yeah.

Exactly.

And the issue two is that as we switch back over to the box score for YouTubers, Gigi Jackson

has had some pretty good games lately, but he played 18 minutes here.

Olivia Maxson's prosperous at a few good games lately.

He only played 19 minutes, although he did have 24 points.

Sandra Coward is a guy.

We know the Grizzlies are pretty excited about, but he played 17 and a half minutes.

Walter Clayton doubled doubled in 25 minutes, ten points, eleven assists.

Cam Spencer at nine points and nine assists, but he only played 21 minutes.

And that was with Hendrix, Javon Small, both sitting out half of this back to back.

So I don't know, I don't want anything to do with these guys.

I want nothing to do with them.

There's a handful of Grizzlies that over the last two weeks do have rankings inside the

top 100.

Maxson's prosper because he's been shooting almost 70% in 21 minutes a game.

Ryan Rupert, because he's got two steals a game, but he didn't play in this one.

So sorry.

Cam Spencer is sitting right around the edge of the top 100 because he's at nine points

and eight assists with two three pointers a game, but he's also stuck in the low 20s

and minutes.

There's literally no one you can trust on the Grizzlies anymore to actually play in

every ball game and to get enough minutes when they play in every ball game to be a consistent

fantasy producer.

So if you wanted to, you'd probably find some specialist level guys here.

If you can figure out who's going to play on what day, GG Jackson for points and rebounds

and maybe a little block and field goal percent.

Jaylen Wells, by the way, has also been out for the last little bit.

Should he pop back up?

He was a pretty good source of points.

Walter Clayton, when he plays, not a bad source of assists.

Cam Spencer, assists and threes Clayton, I guess, is more like assists and steals usually.

Olivia Maxson's prosper, like kind of a smattering of a few things, but really the easy answer

to that question is there are 29 other teams.

All of them have some sort of shenanigans going on.

So let's just deal with those shenanigans and not the Grizzlies extra turbo mode annoying

version of it.

The other side of that ball game, we're talking about Cleveland and playoff positioning.

We're about to talk about the Philadelphia 76ers over at Fandall and the Fandall Sports

Book.

I was looking at one of the props available.

And the one that kind of caught my eye was like teams to make the play in tournament.

And I thought, man, I bet we could figure something out with the Eastern Conference teams.

And then I looked at it and I was like, damn it, somebody's already figured this out.

So here's what's going on in the Eastern Conference play in situation.

The Raptors are the sixth seed, a half game up on the Sixers, Hornets and Magic.

So there are four teams within a half game of that of escaping the play in.

And I thought, all right, well, we'll look at the schedules.

And then I did that and I was like, well, the Hornets have the worst schedule of those teams.

They play some good clubs the rest of the way, but damn it.

They're minus one 750 minus 750 to make the play in tournament.

So you're like, well, odds are they're going to not win as many games as the other teams coming

out, but I can't spend 50 to get on that.

The teams that have the better odds or the less chalky odds are the Raptors and the 76ers.

Raptors at minus 186ers of minus 160 between those two teams.

The sixers have the easier schedule, but they've already lost a 36th game that the Raptors haven't played yet.

Toronto's got Miami twice.

Philly doesn't play today or tomorrow.

And so you'll probably have a better idea of what those odds will look like after this Toronto Miami game tonight.

But the odds are also going to shift considerably.

So I looked at that and I became really sad because I was like, I bet we can find something to an angle here because the sixers have the easiest schedule.

But they're a half game back.

So they have to outplay the Raptors and they're in a whole lot of time to do it.

So anyway, that's over at Fandall the Fandall Sportsbook.

If you want to check that out, they've got the Western conference play in situation floating around as well.

It's fun to at least look at even if you don't get down.

Yeah, get down on it.

Speaking of Philly, they have all their guys right now, but they have a back to back coming up at Houston on Thursday at Indiana on Friday.

You bet your butt, Joel, I'm beat and probably Paul George are going to sit out the second half of that back to back against the tanking Pacers team.

If you wanted to try to go plug in play mode, Kelly Ubrei probably will go big in that Friday game.

And then I don't know if it's going to be a demo or Andre Drummond.

But if you badly need rebounds, Drummond probably a reason we'll play in that Friday game as well.

Again, I know we're looking ahead a couple of days, but this is the time of year where against the games cap.

You want to make sure that you've got everything kind of lined up in advance.

Because you're going to be rotating a few guys in and out of your roster.

It's it's kind of streaming time in roto also because you're specialist hunting category hunting with specialists.

And you want to make sure that you get the perfect fit.

So like the guy on your team who's top 90, who gives you a little bit of everything, you probably doesn't really help you that much right now.

So there should legitimately be like three to five guys on your roster that you don't really need when you're going category hunting.

I mean, to bury the leader anything, but the big news from yesterday is that Victor Wemondyama got himself a little rib contusion, tried to play through it a little bit in the second quarter as head coach said that he was okay, but they didn't want to push it.

I think he probably misses a ballgame. And the reason that that's notable is because the spurs as we've talked about for 24 and a half weeks now this year.

Have about five guys that sit right on the cut line.

And jump over it when a big usage guy is out.

Whether that's Wembee, who's the highest usage guy on the team or stuff on castle or deer and fox who, uh,

I guess they've each missed a few ball games.

When those guys are out, Devon Vassel gets an extra two to three shots per game, Julian champagne, he gets a couple extra shots per game.

Luke Cornette gets a bunch of playing time. That's the big jump for him. It's not about shots. Kelvin Johnson gets more shots. Dylan Harper gets more shots.

Again, we're specialist hunting. So each one of those guys individually has kind of a different value proposition to your team.

But I think Wembee gets a day off. And so if you need some big man stats, you go Cornette. If you need threes, uh, free throws and

a little bit of scoring and rebounding go champagne. If you need points threes, assists, steals, you go Devon Vassel.

If you need just points and rebounds, you go Kelvin Johnson, but he's to me, he's like much farther out of the pecking order.

If you need points and some steals on a better field goal percent, well, uh, so maybe some assists, you can go Dylan Harper.

Those guys, again, those last two Johnson and Harper are probably a tier lower. But like Vassel, champagne,

loop, cornette, all of those guys could be really interesting for the spurs in their next ballgame because I do

Like try though they might. I don't think the spurs are catching the thunder for the one seed. I don't know how much it really matters to them anyway.

Uh, I think Wembee misses that game against Portland tomorrow. And I think you're going to get some of these streamers popping up with better value.

Does Wembee miss any additional games? I mean, I don't even know if he's definitely going to miss the Wednesday game. I just think he will. I think he will.

And then we'll kind of reassess try to read the tea leaves a little bit like how close to tip off before he gets scratched or something.

Uh, do we look at that last one? Portland Denver, uh, Blazers had a chance to steal one here and they biffed it.

They had the nuggets on the ropes, man. Uh, but this is kind of a big loss because the Blazers now a half game back of the clippers to avoid the dubious.

You got to win two chunk of the play in tournament.

Sons and clippers are in the two to win one Blazers and warriors are in the two to win two.

Department and so I have two a couple of things to talk about with Portland. First Jeremy Grant has out. So if you're wondering why

Some of the numbers are a little bit goofy from a playing time standpoint. Jeremy Grant is the big reason obviously shade and sharp. He's been out for a long time, but Grant

A little bit shorter on the injury totem pole and that's why I want to talk about my teeth thibal scoot Henderson into money. Camara

Camara is not so much tied to Jeremy Grant, although the uptick and usage certainly doesn't hurt him. My Camara stuff is more of

I don't know whether to be

Happy that it seems like we're finally right

Or mad because it took

Three months for him to get there. I think I'm more mad than happy because by

Basically, any team where I drafted Camara, I had probably dropped him. He was top 150

For the first three months this year and he's been top 75 the last two months top 50 the last one month top 20 the last two weeks

Took him the whole god for second season to finally be good and now he's finally good and I got to admit

I don't really know what to do with this

Going towards next year. We have a whole offseason to him and hob about it on the podcast, but what the hell Camara

Why couldn't you be decent the first two and a half three months

Made me look like an idiot. I don't need any help looking like an idiot

Anyway, it does seem like he's maybe better than those first two and a half months indicated, but also is this just like

End of season he woke up kind of run

I'll have to see who the blazers what what they do in the offseason, but

Ah grumble as far as scoot Anderson goes. I don't really I don't really buy into his fantasy game

I think there are some some leagues where he makes sense punt fuel goal formats one of them

Uh eight cat he'll be better than nine cat

The issue for scoot is that he's not a point guard on this team it's playing point guard

But he's not the point guard true holiday is and denny obvia is the other one

If scoot had five assists instead of three it'd be a very different world for him

And maybe there's a place where that happens

But it's not this last week. Maybe it's next year. Maybe it's the year after that the good news is he looks more like a more competent NBA player

This year than he has in seasons past and so he'll probably end up on some

Weird head-to-head roster builds next season

But I don't I don't really want to deal with it right now

And then Matisse thible who might be the sneakiest ad in all of fantasy basketball right now his minutes have jumped

fast

I mean dude barely broke 20 minutes at all prior to like two weeks ago

And then he squeezed in a 25 minute game

Also interestingly against Denver and a couple games later he played 23 minutes against Milwaukee

And then it was back down to 16 and 19

And then against the Clippers he played 24 and then 31 against the pells and now 33 and over time against the nuggets

And he has 10 steals over his last three ball games and that's the thing about thible

If he plays high 20s in minutes

He's got Dyson Daniel steals numbers written all over like he's a between two and three steals per game guy

The issues that he doesn't do anything else

He's hit some three pointers lately that's kept him afloat

And I mean three three steals a game as we saw with Dyson Danes

You don't have to do a lot else to have big fantasy value if you're that far out in front of the pack

in one statistical category

I mean three plus steals per game is basically tripling the average

It's like somebody averaging 48 points per game or you know 21 rebounds per game

These are unheard of kind of things

We don't really think about it that way because deals is such a small number game

It's a little different, but you know fuzzy mapping and tiny bit

So if you need steals and frankly threes for any reason at all here down the stretch

But he's thible is the sneakiest

Most interesting super sneaky steals ad floating around in fantasy circles and he should probably be more rostered than he is

And finally the nuggets, I mean over time helped

But basically all five starters have been playable lately

Uh

Aaron Gordon to me is probably more s and again

Honestly anybody besides Yokeach and Murray has a little bit more of a specialist level angle on them

Aaron Gordon is more points boards assists. He's kind of turned himself into that decent percentages guy

Christian Brown is more rebound steals and field goal percent

Cam Johnson is points threes

steals on pretty good percentages, which is useful

Uh

Again, I don't know if they'll keep it up the rest of the way

You look at the schedule and you try to figure out where you know the the easier games might be they got Memphis on Wednesday

So those guys probably should all put up some pretty good numbers

But then thunder and spurs for the nuggets to finish out the year. Yikes

Those are games where you might see brown

Cam Johnson maybe even Aaron Gordon take a little bit of a hit

uh

But here's the thing and I kind of went back and forth on these guys even on the first recording I did

This time of year

And I'll give you those guys have actually put up really good numbers

Over the last couple of weeks Cam Johnson's top 40 over the last two weeks

But he's been top 40 by being a super efficient

two and a half three pointer per game guy

He's basically league average in every category

But good percentages over the last two weeks 14 points four and a half boards three assists two and a half threes one steel point seven blocks

5292 splits we talked before about how if you're league average and everything you're like a top 70 guy

He's league average and everything with slightly superior free throw turnover in threes

That's great if it was December

Right now I don't know that that line helps anybody

Because odds are rodo head to head whatever

You're gunning for four or five specific categories maybe less than that and most of my rodo leagues

I'm gunning for two or three categories

And cam Johnson is not giving you

Positive momentum in anything. He's just not hurting you anywhere

Similar story with Christian Brown frankly they have almost the same fantasy lines over the last couple of weeks

But cam Johnson's beating him by a three ball and a half and half a steel and four tenths of a block

They've basically been the same guy which is why I'm kind of like

At least Aaron Gordon is at 15 points and six rebounds

That's a little bit more

Not specialisty, but like points and boards have been more reliable for Gordon

Even if the free throw has been kind of bad for him

But again, like you're looking for specific categories none of those three guys has been that great in any one specific category where you're like

Like honest to goodness

There may be more reason to roster thibal right now than cam Johnson even if cam has been top 40 over the last two weeks

I think I'd rather look for guys that are you know one and a half times better than league average in a specific category

I might rather look at a guy like a Paul Reed

If Jayland Durin sits

I might look at a guy like goga batadze

If window card or junior has to miss a game because at least those guys I'm like well

odds are they're gonna give me like eight or nine rebounds one to two blocks good fuel goal percent

I'm hunting categories. I'm hunting big man stats or little man stats

Even hunting threes is a little bit iffy and I know cam Johnson

Generally is a big time three pointers guy, but lately he and you know two and a half is good, but it's not

You can find more out there

So that's why I've been hemming and hauling over the nuggets normally. I'd be like yeah great line like roster

And but this time a year to me. It's very much whether you need it or not for most of these guys

And here I am saying I was gonna do a second version of this show that was shorter than the first

And it went longer. I'm Dan Bespriss for old man squad fantasy basketball

Thanks for tuning into our recap show everybody. We'll get you an injury board one last injury board show

That's what's next here on the channel

Please hang with us. We're with you the whole offseason

Four to five shows a week instead of like eight to twelve because there's no point doing that many shows in the offseason

But hang with us. That's where we get better at playing fantasy basketball

We're not in the thick of it every day and you can step back and you could say okay

Like how do I get better at this game? What changed in the league? What stuff is real? What's not

We're not looking at the what we're looking at the how and the why

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