OK, so the drama is probably over and it’s looking like Anderson Varejao is headed back to the Cavaliers, despite saying that he doesn’t want to play for them. Whatever. I’m not here to psycho-analyze. Instead, let’s get straight into the fantasy analysis and see what this means for the Cavs frontcourt:
Anderson Varejao
I gotta say, when I saw this comment on our arch-nemesis Rotoworld’s site, I was pretty surprised: “Either way, it’s time to grab Varejao if you have an open roster spot, just in case he ends up in Charlotte (or Cleveland).” I mean … really? When has Anderson Varejao been anything more than an absolute emergency fill-in center? He doesn’t even crack the top 150 on last year’s player rater, and that was easily his best season as a fantasy player. He’s an OK source of steals for a center and will rebound a bit, but doesn’t really bring anything else to the table and is a complete zero offensively. Yes, he leads the league in charges, but none of us play Duke Rules Fantasy Basketball, so that doesn’t help.
On top of that, it’s not like he’s a great candidate to make a major improvement this year. For one, I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess that Anderson isn’t exactly in playing shape right now. The only real report on what he’s been doing all season came from Chad Ford, who said he’d been “working on his jump hook and trying to stay in shape,” whatever that means. For two, he’s not exactly coming back with a great attitude, and for a guy whose main asset is the energy he brings to the floor, that can’t be good. Finally, while this is only his 4th season, he’s already 25, and he was on the international player plan, meaning he’s been playing ‘pro’ since he was 18. So it’s not like you can expect him to add some facet to his game out of the blue.
Drew Gooden
Gooden has been enjoying a banner year with the absence of Varejao - sort of like Brendan Haywood in the absence of Etan Thomas, only better. He’s been getting about 7 mpg more, and his averages have risen accordingly, staying in line with his traditional per-minute averages. Yes, he’s still pretty much Zach Randolph-lite, but with the extra minutes he’s cracked the top 100 on the APR, and he’s averaging a double-double. With Varejao coming back, though, things may get dicey for Gooden. His fantasy surge has pretty much exclusively been due to his rise in minutes and it’s not unreasonable to think that once Varejao gets into game shape, Gooden will fall back to the 28 mpg or so he’s been getting throughout his career in Cleveland. The one catch is if LeBron James misses an extended period of time, which would make Gooden the emergency ‘leading scorer’ of the Cavs, a horrifying situation for Cleveland but possibly pretty nice for Gooden owners. Even if that’s the case, though, the drop in FG% resulting from LeBron not being around would likely offset whatever raise Gooden sees in ppg.
Zydraunas Ilgauskas
This is probably bad news for Big Z in the short term, but good news in the long term. While generally you like to see guys play as many games as possible, that’s not necessarily the case with a 32 year old, 7-3 Center. And while you have to give Z all the credit in the world for coming back from his early-career knee issues, it’s still a little concerning to see him back to playing 33 mpg after two straight years of PT drops. On the other hand, he’s playing some of the best basketball of his career. His rebounding numbers are off the charts, leading the league in OREB’s and posting about 2.5 more DREB’s per game more than any other point in his career post-surgery.
And it’s for all these reasons it’s probably for the best that Ilgauskas gets a little more rest during games. If he’s able to keep up these astounding per-minute rebounding numbers, even the return to his normal minutes won’t prevent him from providing great return for his owners on the mid-late round pick that they spent on him. And what’s more, it makes it all the more likely that he’ll be around when you really need him in March and April. And isn’t that what really counts?
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