I’ve returned, if you even noticed I was gone. Many thanks to BV and PR for picking up all the slack while I had to be away; it wasn’t that I just got sick of basketball as baseball season neared, circumstances way out of my control. Anyway, we’re down to the final two weeks of the regular season and if you’re still paying attention it means that you are scouring the waiver wire for last second pickups or just going with what you’ve got. There’s not much advice we can give you from here on out – we will continue to do so, though, don’t worry – so I’m going to switch it up and start what might be the first of some “look back” columns. I always like to do so towards the end of the season because by the time it gets to next October’s draft prep we can still see the numbers, but maybe not how those numbers came to be, which can be very important when determining where to draft a guy. So today we’ll look at three PF/C who had big question marks coming into the season, and how they resoundingly answered those questions.

Carlos Boozer
Boozer was one of the more difficult players to peg coming into the season. After missing almost an entire season’s worth of games over the end of the 04-05 and beginning of 05-06 seasons, his durability was a major question mark, as was his production level. When he finally returned it looked as if he never missed a beat and put up the best rate statistics of his career. We had him and Mehmet Okur ranked right next to each other as late-fourth rounders, which could still be considered a risk for a player who didn’t seem to want to play for an entire year and had never averaged more than 18 ppg. Needless to say Boozer came through big time this season. The most impressive thing in my eyes is that he suffered a semi-serious injury but didn’t let it derail his entire season. He was expected to miss 4-to-5 weeks with a fractured leg and there were surely owners who were expecting the worst. But he ended up missing just over three weeks and only eight games and came back as strong as ever. His March numbers of 20.2/12.2/2.5 on 54% shooting are right in line with his season numbers and were an impressive bounceback from what could have been a devastating injury. If Boozer plays out the schedule he’ll appear in 74 games, which is the best you can reasonably hope for from just about any player. He currently sits at #27 on the average rater and has established himself as a realistic third round pick who can serve as an anchor in FG% and rebounds.

Amare Stoudemire
If Boozer was a tough read coming into the season, then Amare was near impossible. We basically admitted as much; I had him listed as one of the top candidates for comeback player of the year and also not-so comeback player of the year. Microfracture knee surgery is about as bad it gets, especially for an explosive player like Stoudemire, but there was a chance that his youth and general freakishness would allow him to overcome the many obstacles. Still, the season he’s turned in has defied all but the most outrageous of expectations. It certainly didn’t start that way, as Stoudemire came off the bench for the first four games and didn’t top 25 minutes in the first five. He looked tentative and unhappy but in retrospect the Suns braintrust must be given credit for knowing how to handle the big man. After averaging just 15.7/8.2 with 1.1 blocks in November, Stoudemire has been consistently excellent. No, he hasn’t quite been at the level of his 04-05 season, but all the skills he showed are still present. The Suns simply have a deeper team and have kept Stoudemire’s minutes down for precautionary reasons. The fact that Amare is one of the few players in the league to appear in every game this season is simply amazing. That’s a bet few people would have taken back in October. His FGA are down to 12.7 per game from 16.7 in 04-05, but he’s established a new career high with 59% shooting, 9.8 rebounds per game and a mighty impressive 79% from the line on 7 attempts per game, great numbers for a center. He ranks 11/23 on the player rater right now and has greatly rewarded owners that took a chance on him. We can’t completely rule out a recurrence of his injury but he’s done everything humanly possible to win back the trust of fantasy players. He was seen as a consensus top 10 pick after his 04-05 campaign and while it might be a bit too risky to have him as your first rounder, there’s no way he makes it out of the second round next year, and with good reason.

Al Jefferson
It’s only his third season, but it seems like Jefferson’s been a sleeper favorite for more years than that. In the past I had been skeptical of the big man, mostly due to his raw skills, inability to stay healthy, lack of clear opportunity and penchant for foul trouble. But fantasy is all about value and perceived value, so this was the year that Jefferson finally became a worthwhile target. He began the season coming off the bench and then missed a couple of weeks with an appendectomy, but we said he was worth grabbing and stashing if he was dropped because it was clear that the Celtics would have no choice but to loosen the reigns and let him go later in the season. He came off the bench for six games after returning from his injury but has been a fixture in the starting lineup since Dec. 9 and has been one of the great revelations of the fantasy season since then. Not only has he stayed completely healthy since then, but he’s been borderline dominant from the center position as a starter, averaging 16.8/11.6/1.4 with 1.6 blocks on 51% shooting in 35 mpg. Those are clear #1 center numbers and he’s only gotten better as the season goes on, averaging 19.5/11.6/1.8 with 1.1 steals, 1.7 blocks and 55% shooting since the all-star break. Had he put up that line before the all-star break he might not have had much of an all-star break. Young players putting up big numbers late in the season on a bad team can sometimes be a bit misleading, and Jefferson might not have quite the same opportunity to dominate at the beginning of next year when the Celtics are theoretically healthy and a bit reloaded, but as least we finally know for sure that he’s as talented as many people wanted him to be. He’s up to 56/53 on the player rater and is at #21 in the past 30 days. He’s not going to be a second round pick, but it’s not out of the question that you might have to spend a third rounder to make sure you get him next year.