Give and Go: What went down? - Fantasy

Subject: Give and Go

Date: February 23, 2009 9:27 AM PDT

For weeks – maybe months – we’ve been talking about what might happen at the deadline.

Now, we finally get a chance to talk about what did.

The Knicks: Hard not to like what the Knicks did. They’ve been perilously thin ever since the trades of Jamal Crawford and Zach Randolph. They gave up more guys than they got back, but Tim Thomas was the only player they gave up who was actually getting any playing time. Chris Wilcox isn’t an ideal Mike D’Antoni big man – he doesn’t have the jump shot – but he does have the ability to get up and down the floor and put a body on the Tim Duncans and Kevin Garnetts of the world. Larry Hughes isn’t an ideal player – I worry about having a chucker like Hughes on the floor with Al Harrington and Nate Robinson. But if you compare Hughes to Crawford – the guy he’s really replacing – it looks a little more palatable. The biggest question here is, if Wilcox and Hughes are in, who’s out? (Yesterday it was Danilo Gallinari getting the DNP, but I’m not optimistic about Quentin Richardson’s short-term prospects.)

The Bulls: I can’t shake the idea that the Bulls had one more trade they were planning to make. Moving Hughes and Thabo Sefolosha would have relieved the logjam on the wing, but then they brought in John Salmons. And to me, Brad Miller would have made a lot more sense for a team that’s closer to competing for a title. I guess this positions Chicago to make a deal involving Kirk Hinrich or Ben Gordon – via sign-and-trade – this summer. I still see too many players for not enough minutes here – don’t have a good sense of which players to target.

The Kings: Moving Miller removed any reason not to plug Spencer Hawes and Jason Thompson into the starting lineup and see what they can do … on a team as bad as this one, that makes a lot of sense. And they get a free look at Rashad McCants as a potential replacement for Salmons – McCants could be a nice fantasy player in March and April. I don’t hate the moves – but I have a nagging feeling that they should have gotten more for Miller.

The Magic: They got a player they needed in Rafer Alston, which solidifies their position as the third-best team in the East … with an outside shot of moving up to number two if Kevin Garnett’s injury turns out to be serious. I imagine “Skip-to-my-Lou” is the Magic point guard to own for the rest of this year.

The Rockets: As soon as I heard about the Alston trade I put in a claim on Aaron Brooks. The acquisition of Kyle Lowry doesn’t dampen my enthusiasm for Brooks – though I like Lowry a lot. I think they’ll both be productive players down the stretch, especially with Tracy McGrady apparently done for the year.

The other big story of the week is the injuries to Kevin Garnett and Amare Stoudemire. I suspect that, when ABC put Celtics/Suns on the prime-time schedule for Sunday, they weren’t expecting quite so much of Louis Amundson, Jared Dudley, Brian Scalabrine and Gabe Pruitt. What’s your take on Phoenix for the rest of this year? Seems like the coaching change has been very friendly to the Suns’ offensive numbers … but the loss of Stoudemire is troubling. (Do you think Gentry is really going to play Grant Hill at the four? I know he’s been healthy this season – he’s actually the only Phoenix player to appear in every game this season – but that strikes me as asking for trouble.)

via Give and Go: What went down? – Fantasy – Yahoo! Sports.