The Blazers, the Thompson Twins, Keyonte George, GG Jackson, Tre Mann, Damian Lillard and Tyrese Haliburton all made it into the Dr. A Mailbag column this week. Keep the questions coming at @docktora! Let's go.
Have to drop two players: Amen Thompson, Santi Aldama, Simone Fontecchio, Dereck Lively, 9-cat head-to-head. - KCHoosier (@jswinner09)
It obviously depends on your depth at center, but the two players I'm most interested in letting go from this group are the two big men. Lively is going to take a hit playing behind and with Daniel Gafford and Aldama is going to be stymied by GG Jackson. Therefore, if you can do it, I'd keep Thompson and Fontecchio. If you need to keep a center, I think I'd keep Lively simply for the blocks and I'd probably drop Fontecchio.
Who should I drop to get Fred VanVleet back in my lineup? - Hector "Bad Guy" Hernandez (@HectorH64389052)
The roster he sent me includes Vince Williams, Draymond Green, Marvin Bagley and Tre Mann and it would be one of those four for me. And given that Williams, Bagley and Mann should all be getting scooped up right now, I think the answer is probably Draymond Green and his nightly triple-singles. It might feel weird to drop him, but I think that's the move in order to get FVV back in your lineup. However, you might just want to hang out for a minute, leave FVV
The Blazers, the Thompson Twins, Keyonte George, GG Jackson, Tre Mann, Damian Lillard and Tyrese Haliburton all made it into the Dr. A Mailbag column this week. Keep the questions coming at @docktora! Let's go.
Have to drop two players: Amen Thompson, Santi Aldama, Simone Fontecchio, Dereck Lively, 9-cat head-to-head. - KCHoosier (@jswinner09)
It obviously depends on your depth at center, but the two players I'm most interested in letting go from this group are the two big men. Lively is going to take a hit playing behind and with Daniel Gafford and Aldama is going to be stymied by GG Jackson. Therefore, if you can do it, I'd keep Thompson and Fontecchio. If you need to keep a center, I think I'd keep Lively simply for the blocks and I'd probably drop Fontecchio.
Who should I drop to get Fred VanVleet back in my lineup? - Hector "Bad Guy" Hernandez (@HectorH64389052)
The roster he sent me includes Vince Williams, Draymond Green, Marvin Bagley and Tre Mann and it would be one of those four for me. And given that Williams, Bagley and Mann should all be getting scooped up right now, I think the answer is probably Draymond Green and his nightly triple-singles. It might feel weird to drop him, but I think that's the move in order to get FVV back in your lineup. However, you might just want to hang out for a minute, leave FVV on your IR for as long as you can and make sure that he's getting big/regular minutes for Houston before you officially make a move.
Hi Doc! Do you think Anfernee Simons is a shutdown candidate? What about Deandre Ayton? They're young but on a Blazers team going nowhere. We didn't expect POR to be competitive and yet were still high on these two coming in to the season. - Rafa Lam (@Skyrocketmamba)
The Blazers are 15-39 so anyone who has served time in the league is a candidate to be shut down, including Simons and Ayton. I would rank the Blazer shutdown guys as 1. Jerami Grant, 2. Ayton, 3. Simons. Having said that, all three of these guys have been pretty hot and playing heavy minutes, so I think it would be prudent to sit tight and just be ready to act, if or when it happens. The Blazers are 0-5 in February and it's possible they start resting the veterans at any time the rest of the way, but there's probably not a reason to dump any of them until they actually start missing games. Just stay diligent and keep a close eye on playing time and the rotations in Portland going forward.
The silliest of all silly season teams? Does Jordan Goodwin or Ziaire Williams have more staying power in Memphis? - Robert Leahy (@165Goals)
Flip a coin, man. Goodwin is starting at point guard and Williams is playing well off the bench on most nights. Jacob Gilyard will be floating in and out of the GLeague, which works in Goodwin's favor. Williams is coming off a big 27-point game with a full stat line and Goodwin had 11 points, seven rebounds, three assists, two steals and a three-pointer in his last game. It's going to be a fluid silly season for all of the Grizzlies but if I had to pick one of these guys to sit on, it would be Williams, simply because he's the one who has been getting the most consistent minutes thus far. We've really only seen Goodwin emerge over his last two games, but he's clearly worth keeping a close eye on, as well.
What are the Top 3 waiver wire pickups of the season? - Illgobbo (@Illgobbo)
Jalen Johnson, Grayson Allen and Mike Conley.
Tyrese Haliburton for Damian Lillard for the rest of the season, good deal? - YoursTrully (@swaggerpandora)
It's tough to tell which side you're getting from the question, but my answer is a pretty simple one. Lillard won the three-point contest and both players were up for All-Star MVP, with Lillard narrowly taking home the hardware over the home-town hero, Haliburton. However, Lillard didn't even mention teammate Giannis Antetokounmpo as one of his favorite All-Stars and Haliburton is healthy and has been running circles around Dame Time all season. Haliburton has, in fact, been a Top 10 fantasy player this year while Lillard is more like a Top 20 guy. And as long as Lillard is playing in the shadow of Giannis, Haliburton is the guy who should continue to go off the rest of the way. The schedules are always worth looking at and here's how they finish:
Haliburton: 4-3-3-4-3-4-3
Lillard: 3-4-3-3-3-4-4
If that very last four-game week will impact your league's Championship finale, Lillard might be worth a look, but in a vacuum, they both play 24 games and I'd simply rather have Haliburton the rest of the way.
Rank the rookies the rest of the way. - Ilgobbo (@Illgobbo)
- Victor Wembanyama
- Chet Holmgren
- Brandin Podziemski
- Brandon Williams
- Jaime Jaquez
- Keyonte George
- Scoot Henderson
- Ausar Thompson
- Amen Thompson
- Jordan Hawkins
- Cam Whitmore
- Bilal Coulibaly
- Duop Reath
- Toumani Camara
- Cason Wallace
Ausar Thompson or Keyonte George for the rest of season in nine cat. A general rest of season ranking for Keyonte, Amen, Ausar Thompson, Tre Mann and GG Jackson would be fire. - Flyin' J (@Quanophysics)
This is the big one and trying to rank these guys is not easy. But I'll give it a shot.
Ausar Thompson - I think Detroit is set to turn him loose the rest of the way.
Tre Mann - He's getting minutes and putting up nice numbers for a team that is going to baby LaMelo Ball the rest of the way.
GG Jackson - The Jaren Jackson shutdown is coming, whether we like it or not, and GGJ will be the big winner.
Keyonte George - I'm swayed by that big 33 points, six assists game just before the break.
Amen Thompson - The Rockets still have toys to play with and the return of Tari Eason could hurt him.
But the bottom line is I want shares of all of these guys in fantasy the rest of the way. And the rankings are very close. Just because I listed Amen T last doesn't mean he should be forgotten or left sitting on waivers. He has just as good a chance as any of them to go off down the stretch, and the same goes for all five players on the list.
Which Blazers should I be collecting for my deeper league stretch run? - Bdub (@HiddenUpside)
That's how I'd rank them but as I said above, we need to wait and see if and when the Blazers start shutting guys down and who they are. If Deandre Ayton ends up being the first guy shut down, Reath could jump up the list. If its' Anfernee Simons, Henderson and Banton get a boost. If it's Jerami Grant, maybe Walker takes off. Just keep a close eye on what's happening in Portland from night to night and be ready to make a move.
