OK, now today I’m going to talk about the Raptors, but before I do I’ve got a question - related to the Raptors.  Did anyone watch the Colbert Report last night and see the video clip of the Raptors mascot, who after poking Steagle Colbeagle the Eagle, promptly walked backstage and fell on his ass?  It was hilarious.  I’m looking for that clip.  Anyone got a link?

Anyhow, on to more important matters, the one thing we’re looking for these days is minutes, and a whole bunch of them opened up in Toronto.  Andrea Bargnani is out for the regular season after an appendectomy, and Jorge Garbajosa - who was picking up a lot of Bargnani’s minutes - is done too after breaking his ankle.  Between the two of them there’s now about 53 minutes per game opening up for other guys on the roster.  Now, this is a bit of a different situation from the ones that PR discussed yesterday, where studs are sitting and so the young guys are going to get a chance.  Instead, this is a team that is getting ready for the playoffs, so these minutes are going to go exclusively to guys who can really help the team - sorry, Kris Humphries, you don’t need to apply.

Anyhow, there are a couple of tempting options here.  Let’s consider:

Morris Peterson
OK, we’ll admit that we, across the board, fell for Mo-Pete here.  I said he was a “very solid mid-round selection,” PR was “delighted” as he drafted him in the 8th round of our draft, and DM said it was “hard to see Peterson coming off the bench all season.”  But the problem is that last year, Peterson really exploded after the All-Star Break and that mostly had to do with the Raptors losing essentially all of their players to injury.  Unfortunately, this year they’ve had better luck with injuries and so Peterson has struggled for playing time - until now.  Probably.

The one thing when can learn from last year’s explosion is that when minutes and shots are available, Peterson will take them - especially from the arc.  His fascination with the long ball has really been in effect this year as over half of his shots have been from deep, and that probably won’t change much.  He’s been borderline usable this year despite his inconsistency in minutes (he’s only averaged 22 over the year).  But if he sees a bump to, say, 35 mpg, which is not at all unreasonable, he’ll be a great source of threes down the stretch.  He’s also probably more valuable than the next guy we’re going to discuss because he can provide some rebounding help.  He’s worth picking up right now for teams that need that help.

Juan Dixon
Standard disclaimer - we are all Terp graduates here at FBB and Dixon’s title run occured during my final year at UMD (DM and PR needed a little extra time, so I’ll rub that in here), so I won’t claim to be totally unbiased.  That said, I’m not sure that Dixon has much to gain from these injuries.  He’s been terrific for the Raptors since being dealt from Portland, but statistically he’s not been all that spectacular and he’s already seeing 26 mpg.  He’s never shown that he can really be a 30-35 mpg kinda guy and those are the kind of numbers he’s going to need to be effective from a fantasy standpoint.  Add in the fact that he’s a scrawny 6-3 and the guys who have been injured are 6-9 and 6-10, and I’m just not convinced that Juan is really going to benefit here.

Rasho Nesterovic
Hear me out here.  Some people are going to tell you that Joey Graham or the earlier-joked-about Kris Humpheries are going to see a bump in value, but that bump would be from “no value” to “maybe a tiny bit of value.”  Nesterovic is in the “maybe a tiny bit of value” category already and so a bump for him would put him into the “yeah, he worth a roster spot” category, if for no other reason than his blocks and center eligibility.  He could be in line for a bump in minutes up from about 20 to about 28 or 30 or so, and that would make him worth owning and possibly worht starting.  Sam Mitchell may turn to him if for no other reason than a) he can rebound and b) he’s got significant playoff experience, which is more than can be said for most of the guys on this roster.  Think of Nesterovic as a poor man’s Brian Skinner over the final few weeks, a nice source of blocks who also should help a bit on the boards.