Elton Brand seriously injured - out till 2008?

Always sad when a first round fantasy player gets injured even before the season starts. The news this morning is that he ruptured his left Achilles' tendon on Friday during his daily workout.

The 28-year-old will undergo surgery but plans for the operation have not been finalized yet, the Clippers said. With Livingston out next season and possibly Elton Brand out for most of the year, who will pick up the slack for the Clippers?

Will the team go into rebuilding mode, tank the season and go for the nr. 1 pick at the 2008 draft? Last year they signed Tim Thomas as a free agent in one of the worst deals during last years offseason, he played mainly SF last season and I don´t see them giving him these Brand minutes as this team is going nowhere with Cassell as their only point guard and without Brand this team scares no one. Al Thornton should start at PF and the 14th pick of this years draft could be a surprise rookie of the year if everything goes well.

NBA Schedule 2007-2008

Created the cheatsheet for those who want to have a complete, one excel sheet for all teams, all games. I play in a daily roto league on Yahoo and it´s crucial in a competetive league with that format to pick players who can play on days when there aren´t a lot of games so.

No huge surprises in the schedule this year compared to the last. The lakers, Spurs, Dallas, Phoenix are up there as usual but Chicago is a surprise nr. 3 on the list when looking at days when there are 6 games or less. Portland is feeling the Oden effect by jumping all the way up to nr. 8th place on the list while Cleveland, Miami and Sacramento fall down the list from previous years. For the excel sheet go to

http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pamBwq29Za8LG3Nnhu8czaQ

Please comment on this and if you know of something similar out there let me know.

Breakout player - Rajon Rando

This guy will rock next season both due to new additions, Ray allen and KG as well as no more D. West or Telfair to steal his minutes. I expect him to be playing 30 plus minutes a game. His strengths will be a lot of steals, assists, hell he could even lead the league in steals in a couple of years. His rookie season he had 128 steals in limited minutes and actually led the whole league in steals per 48 minutes and was 10th overall in total steals. He needs work on his shooting and he had poor stats in the FG and FT% categories (42 and 65%), he doesn´t shoot threes (he won´t have to with Ray Allen and Paul Pierce by his side next season). He won´t score a lot but should rebound more than average for a PG. Where do you pick this guy? If assists and steals are what your looking for then this guy should be a great backup PG, perhaps even more than that. I would say look for him to go in rounds 8-10 (in a 10 team league), also depending on how sleeper hungry your opponents are.