Fantasy Basketball: Eric Gordon’s Return To Relevance
A nice story is developing in the fantasy basketball world along with actual hoops — New Orleans Pelicans guard Eric Gordon is having a surprising return to competence. Gordon played in the first 12 games of the season and averaged 9.5 points on 39.8 percent shooting with two assists, 2.3 rebounds and 1.2 steals.
It wasn’t ridiculous to think his days as a useful NBA player were over considering his extensive injury history. It was a fall for a once promising shooting guard.
Gordon went off for 21 points on 7-for-12 shooting with three from deep in 36 minutes versus the Boston Celtics on Monday night. He’s hit three threes in each of his last three games. During that stretch Gordon is putting up 16 points, 3.3 assists, two rebounds with 53/56/83 shooting splits.
I’d probably try to sell high on Gordon, but it’s fun to see him playing well and enjoy the production while you can if you can’t find a taker.
A concern no more: Houston Rockets forward Donatas Montiejunas
- With the acquisition of Josh Smith it looked Montiejunas could be headed to fantasy basketball irrelevance. In a nice twist of events this hasn’t happened. He got moved to the bench for four games, but has regained his starting spot and the production continues to be there. In the six games back with first five, Montienjunas is getting 31.7 minutes and averaging 14.5 points, 6.3 rebounds and two assists on 62 percent shooting. Smith is only playing 24 minutes a night. You can roll with Donatas with full confidence the rest of the season. Coach Kevin McHale seems to see he’s an integral part of the Rockets success.
Breakout Games: Toronto Raptors center Jonas Valanciunas and Orlando Magic guard Victor Oladipo
- Valanciunas and Oladipo both scored more than 30 points for the first time this season on Monday night. The Raptors center went off for 31 points on 14-of-15 shooting with 12 rebounds and a block. In his last four games Valanciunas is averaging 19.3 points on 67 percent
- shooting with 8.8 rebounds and 1.0 blocks. He was expected to be a breakout candidate last year and the same this season. It hasn’t exactly played out to that plan, but maybe we’ve finally reached the point where he is ready to take that next step.
- Oladipo missed the first nine games of the season with an injury and became a solid contributor right when he started playing. He’s scored in double figures in his last 10 games and at least 16 points in the last eight. The rebound, assist numbers have been solid for a guard and the shooting percentage is a little higher than I expected this season. Oladipo has dropped the turnovers down slightly, but they’re still too high (3.7 per 36 last season to 3.0 this year). When looking at his numbers by percentages versus raw numbers he’s actually down a little bit across the board, but that’s been mitigated by an extra two minutes a night this season. He’s also been slightly more efficient with his true shooting percentage (includes threes and free throws in the formula) up from .514 to .535.
Some other quick hitting notes from Monday night:
- Celtics guard Marcus Smart got 30 minutes off the bench — seven points, six assists and three rebounds. Nothing special, but keep an eye on him if he keeps getting run.
- Jrue Holiday got hurt and only played 16 minutes for the Pelicans. He didn’t play in the second half due to inflammation in right ankle. No idea how serious the situation is.
- Nets guard Bojan Bogdanovic has strung together two solid games. 13 points and five rebounds last night after 14 points the game before.