If you think this sort of column looks familiar, it’s because I’ve been doing an assload of them lately.  And I’m doing an assload of them because it’s going to be the difference maker for fantasy teams as just about everyone still in contention is going to be looking for pickups.  I mean everybody.  Just the other day we saw Caron Butler, Michael Redd, and Paul Pierce join the list of studs who aren’t going to be reliable for the rest of the year, and all of them could/should be sitting for awhile.  So let’s take a look at who’s got a lot of games left and who’s got any reason to show up for them:

Most Games Remaining:
Milwaukee, Washington, Sacramento, and Denver - 10 games each.

Whaddya know - two of the guys who got hurt on Sunday are on teams that have a bunch of games left.  We discussed the Bucks last week after they shut down Andrew Bogut and Charlie Villanueva, and now that Redd is out indefinitely guys like Mo Williams, Charlie Bell and Ruben Patterson will be leading the way in scoring for Milwaukee.  That won’t help you, though - those guys are probably already owned.  However, if you’ve got a hankering for Ersan Ilyasova, this may be the only time in your life that you will be able to start him on your fantasy team and not get laughed out of your league.

As for the Wizards, I picked up DeShawn Stevenson yesterday but I’m going to be keeping a much closer eye on Darius Songaila, who will be counted on for major minutes in the playoffs and could be a decent 15/7 guy with good percentages over the rest of the year.  Jarvis Hayes, if he gets hot, could be a factor, but we’ve been saying that about Jarvis for three years now.  Meanwhile, the incompetence and poor attitude of Brendan Haywood has unfortunately made the revolving center spot at the Wizards too unpredictable to use, for now.  That’s a development to watch, though, particularly with Calvin Booth.

Least Games Remaining
Memphis and Chicago - 7
Only 7 more games for Stromile Swift and his amazing fantasy sea…um, nevermind.

Motivation Update
On Friday I discussed three teams that were on the verge of shutting it down.  Sacramento had the worst weekend possible, losing both of their games while the Clippers won both of theirs, and the Kings are now 5.5 games out of the 8 spot in the West and it’s probably just a matter of days before Ron Artest and Mike Bibby call it quits.  Minnesota, meanwhile, got a last-second win against Orlando on Sunday, but got trampled by Miami on Friday and needed some hlp from the Clippers - but didn’t get it.  They, too, could start going into shut-down mode any day now.  Meanwhile, Indiana somehow beat San Antonio despite not playing Jermaine O’Neal, and that combined with Orlando’s aforementioned loss to Minnesota probably keeps them theoretically in the hunt for another couple of games.

Next up on the list of teams falling out of contention are the Knicks and Hornets, and also keep an eye on the standings as teams get locked into their playoff spots - of particular concern here is the Spurs, who may look to get some rest for their studs (particularly Tim Duncan) if they get locked into that 3 spot in the west, and Dallas, who has already all but locked up the top spot.