For those of you who are left out there still reading this site, we appreciate it. Obviously the updates have been lacking, and there have been several trades over the past few weeks involving major fantasy players (Gasol, Kidd, etc.) that we have not commented on. By now, not only are the affects of the trade observable, but other sites have covered these transactions ad nauseum. We’ll skip trying to get caught up with old news but will hopefully be back on a more consistent basis, as we usually do, with giving you a fresh fantasy perspective. Now for the big news of the day:

Injury Updates:

Yao Ming (Hou, C): Yao was having a fantastic season, averaging nearly 22/11/2 with 2 blocks per game and, as always, great percentages. As it turns out, he has a stress fracture in his left foot and will be out for the rest of the season. If I owned him, I might wait until they determine how they will treat the injury before dropping him, but it seems like he’ll be out the rest of the season to ensure that he’s healthy for the Beijing Olympics. Obviously this is a catastrophic loss on the hottest team in the NBA right now. This leaves Houston with a major problem at center; the only players on the roster that have adequate size are Dikembe Mutombo and Steve Novak. Mutombo had a good stint filling in for an injured Yao last year, pulling down large amounts of rebounds, but he has barely played all year; Novak isn’t really a low-post presence. It will be interesting to see where the Rockets go with this turn of events. If they elect to play a smaller lineup of Luis Scola and Carl Landry, whom they really like, then expect both of their numbers to go up. This injury is difficult, as Yao makes his teammates (including guards) better by taking offensive and defensive pressure off of them. I expect that watching the next Houston game will provide much insight about who will gain value from this situation. If you have space, pick up Landry on speculation.

A more pressing issue is where to draft Yao next year. He’s a first-round talent when healthy, but the key word is when. After playing nearly every game in his first three years, Yao has averaged only 53 games per season over the last three. While his injured are not related, the fact is that as a 7′6″ big man with limited athleticism, he’ll probably struggle with injuries off and on throughout his career. It’ll be interesting to see how it ends up impacting his draft stock next year.

Elton Brand (LAC, FC): Obviously Brand has been out all year, but word is that he’ll be returning sometime soon. If you had Yao, I would recommend picking up Brand (if he’s still available) as he could reproduce the 1st round value that was lost with Yao. I don’t understand why the Clippers would let him play, but if he wants to see the floor, he will…and word is that he’s hungry. When he returns, expect Chris Kaman’s production to decrease.