Who You Should've Picked Up This Week

Even though injuries occur often in the NBA, some of these injuries can be for a few games, some for a few weeks, some for the rest of the season. There were a few significant season-ending injuries that occurred over the last week, and even though it's Thursday, here are some players who got injured and who you should've picked up or handcuffed to replace them.

The most notorious injury has to be the torn rotator cuff (shoulder) of Kobe Bryant. As we all know, Kobe has stayed injured since late 2013 when he tore his Achilles. He tried to come back last season only to play six games. This season it looked like he was going to survive the whole season with him sitting out multiple games in a row in a preservation effort. This still didn't work because he's out for the season. When I found out about this injury, I immediately went hunting for Nick Young, who was available. Swaggy P currently is injured with a sprained ankle, and most people will probably take his recent benching as a red flag. I think you should ignore these two factors because Young will definitely benefit with Kobe being out. Young will be the #1 option offensively and being that he usually comes off the bench and is the second leading scorer on the Lakers, with him starting he should be a must start in all leagues.

Obviously the Lakers will miss Kobe Bryant, almost as much as the Charlotte Hornets will miss Kemba Walker. They're saying that he'll be out 6-8 weeks, but if you do the math that puts him back in the game late March or early to mid April. I was having a discussion with a fantasy basketball group on Facebook and while some people are just going to stash him, many are looking for a good trade. Just like the Lakers, the Hornets are near the bottom of the standings, and just like Kobe, Kemba is the team's leading scorer. The only difference is that unlike the Lakers, the Hornets do have reliable scoring options other than Kemba. Brian Roberts is replacing Kemba and his production should increase, but I expect for either Michael Kidd-Gilchrist or Lance Stephenson to pick up the slack and take advantage of Kemba's absence.

Crazy part of these injuries is these guys are all the leading scorers of their respective teams, including this last guy, Brandon Jennings. Yes, Brandon Jennings is the leading scorer on the Detroit Pistons, who is also near the bottom of the standings. Jennings is out for the season with a torn Achilles and it looks like D.J. Augustin is replacing him. This has the potential to be the sleeper pick up of the season if this is the same D.J. Augustin that we saw last year when he played for the Chicago Bulls. If you recall, Augustin replaced Derrick Rose last year when he got hurt for the season. He excelled as Rose's replacement and could've won the sixth man award. The Pistons also have Jodie Meeks who could see an increase in minutes and production, but if Augustin can provided a spark like he did for the Bulls last season, then he should be the player who benefits the most and the player who should be added to your roster.

Why Not?

I've been pretty quiet on that fantasy basketball steez, but I've still been somewhat active. I was going to shut down PhantasySteez only because I had a little bump in the road with my website. So I had cancelled the service and I had thought this would also shut down my domain and the www.phantasysteez.com. However, it's been like three weeks and my site is still up. I even called up the company to confirm that my services had been cancelled, and they told me that it had been cancelled and should be down after the 22nd. Well, today is the 23rd and phantasysteez.com is alive and well.

Back to basketball. This year I have three teams. I'm not going to get in depth with every player I have on each team, but I feel like two of my teams are above average. The team I have in my homeboy Big Mike's league, I have a fairly decent squad that shouldn't be slept on. But the other day I was setting up my lineup up I was noticing that my team was unbalanced. I was heavy at guard with Stephen Curry, Damian Lillard, Dwyane Wade, Elfrid Payton, and Rajon Rondo, but I was also light at center with just Amir Johnson and Rudy Goebert eligible for the position.

I figured I could come up with some kind of way to get a center and maybe even a shooting guard for one or more of my point guards. Everyone in this league has been quiet all season, so I didn't have any insight of how everyone else in the league was thinking. I looked at Big Mike's team and I noticed he had Jonas Valanciunas. I had Valanciunas on my squad last year and even though he is underrated in my opinion, I felt like he could help balance out my team. I also noticed Big Mike had James Harden and I figured I could probably scoop up both if I was crafty enough.

I decided I would send him a trade offer which on paper looked insane but when you really sit down and look at it, it makes a lot of sense. I offered Big Mike Damian Lillard, Dwyane Wade, and  Rudy Gay for Jonas Valanciunas and James Harden. Even I had thought to myself how could you trade away three players for two? The answer is quite simple as I feel as if Lillard for Harden is fair and I also feel as if Valanciunas for Gay is legit.  Throw in Dwyane Wade and it makes the deal sweeter for him while I get what I want plus I also get rid of a player who is often injured or just not playing.

A few days had passed and I had forgotten that I had even sent over a trade proposal when yesterday I was checking my e-mail and I saw the message about my proposal being rejected. There was another e-mail with a counter offer which was very similar to the original offer but had Corey Brewer instead of James Harden. I quickly rejected the offer with a reply of "are you serious?" I got a message about an hour later which went something like this:

So this morning I ended up resending him the original trade which he most graciously accepted. The trade doesn't go through until Tuesday, so I'll finish up the week and start next week's with these guys and then I'll have the two players I wanted. I think I might need to make one or two more trades to complete my team. I also think I could've probably used Elfrid Payton in that deal instead of Damian Lillard. What do you think? Let me know. Hit me up on Twitter @donofalldons. Google+ +Marcus Nickerson.