We’ll round out the tiers today and run through some final overall rankings next week. First, some quick thoughts on the preseason. Not on specific players, mind you, just in general. Here are my basic thoughts on interpreting preseason performance:

–For the love of god, don’t let a few games in October dramatically change your outlook on someone. Mike Dunleavy put up 32 points with some nice other numbers the other night. Who cares? He’s still Mike Dunleavy.

–Don’t sweat the minor injuries. We’ve long stressed the myth of the day-to-day injury here on FBB, but it’s different in the preseason, especially with established stars. Most of these guys are ready for the season start and don’t feel like playing at ¾ speed and risking an actual injury.

–The circumstances in which you should pay attention to performance and injuries is when it directly impacts playing time to start the season.

OK, now that we got that out of the way, onto the centers. There’s actually a fairly deep pool of quality centers this year, meaning you have little reason not to have two solid starters. And you should, because once you get past the top 25 or so, the dropoff is steep.

Tier 1
Yao Ming, Chris Bosh, Tim Duncan, Jermaine O’Neal

These are the top guys in the middle and all should be gone within the first two rounds. They all have injury questions, as all except the old man of the bunch missed large chunks of time last year. That said, only O’Neal can really be given the tag of injury prone, but he’s a virtual lock for 20/10/2 and has improved his FG% dramatically over the past couple of seasons.

Tier 2
Brad Miller, Amare Stoudemire, Marcus Camby, Boris Diaw, Ben Wallace, Mehmet Okur, Zydrunas Ilgauskas, Carlos Boozer

All of these guys except for Stoudemire finished in the top 42 on the player rater last year. And all of them are guys you can pretty easily talk yourself into taking or at the same time talk yourself out of taking. Miller’s been very consistent and offers a great advantage in assists, but could age in a hurry. Amare’s pros and cons go without saying, as do Camby’s. Ben Wallace might continue his slight decline or be rejuvenated in a new setting. Okur is coming off a career year, which can be a good thing or a bad thing. Ilgauskas seems to be over his injury problems, but barely managed 30 mpg last year. Boozer was as a stud when he came back last year, but he can do it for 82 games and not get into Jerry Sloan’s doghouse?

Tier 3
Chris Kaman, Shaquille O’Neal, Samuel Dalembert, Emeka Okafor

If you play in a weekly H2H league, then Shaq can obviously be a lot higher. In traditional roto leagues, though, it’s just about impossible to have him around. Kaman could find himself in upper tier if he continues to improve on last season’s numbers, but he might just hold steady. Is this the year that Dalembert finally plays strong the whole season? How the hell should we know? As for Okafor, I remain skeptical of his ability to take it to another and stay healthy.

Tier 4
Andrew Bogut, Joel Przybilla, Nenad Krstic, Channing Frye, Tyson Chandler, Kendrick Perkins, Eddy Curry, Chris Wilcox, Darko Milicic, Pau Gasol

A long of younguns in this tier. We probably would have put Bogut in the above tier were it not for his injury. A lot of upside here, but at the same time a lot of potential for disappointment. Some favorites of mine in this tier are Channing Frye and Kendrick Perkins. Darko’s the real question mark here – even if he doesn’t fully develop this year he can still be a massive force in blocks if he fights his way into the starting lineup. Gasol is an obvious x-factor. There are going to be very solid players available through eight rounds, so it’ll be hard to take Gasol before that.

Tier 5
Ike Diogu, Kwame Brown, Zaza Pachulia, Kurt Thomas, Mark Blount, Brendan Haywood, Eddie Griffin, Nazr Mohammed

There are 25 guys listed above, not counting Gasol, so that means these guys should be viewed as bench material in almost all leagues. There’s not too much to like here. Diogu has nice upside but needs to work his way into the rotation. Kwame’s Kwame, and now he’s hurt. Blount, Haywood, Thomas, Mohammed – you only want them for fill-ins. We put Griffin on here for fun. Which of course means the opposite of fun.