What can Charlie V. tell us about Danny G?

So I’m going through my usual morning repertoire today, emailing out a couple guys in the league for trade feelers. You know, send the first email with a line like ‘Hey what’s up bro, looks like I have this league locked up already! Can’t believe Paz (another manager in my league) snagged Bosh in that last deal, what’d you think of it?’. Then he replies, we chat, and two or three emails down the road I drop in ‘You looking to make any more trades? Selling anyone or looking to add a particular stat line?’. Gotta know where he stands. But anyway, one of the guys boasts how psyched he is Danny Granger is due back soon. That excitement prompted me to give my opinion on the Danny G situation, using Charlie V to explain.

Charlie Villanueva injured his foot December 18^th against the Thunder and has battled Plantar Fasciitis since. In the preseason of this year, many of us had Charlie V. pretty high on the draft board, somewhere in the top 75. Some even had him higher than that, factoring in his breakout potential and the opportunity to take over as lead man in Detroit. Early in the season this looked like a great call and Charlie paid huge dividends. Then came the injury, and then came the scoring drought. Since the injury December 18^th, Charlie V has topped out at 10 points in a game.

This is what you can expect from a player with Plantar. Here’s the deal, it’s a sharp throbbing pain in your heel. The more you run on it, the more it hurts. In basketball, this leads to a player moving a little slower, and importantly, cutting to the hoop or driving the lane less and pulling up for jumpers or taking spot jumpers more. Two things here: first, those are much tougher shots to hit, and second, the defender knows this is the case and thus guards you tighter. He’s not really concerned about you blowing past him and driving the lane. So now you’re taking tougher shots with a hand in your face. Since the injury, Charlie V’s FG percentage is BELOW 20%.

Here’s another guy for you, Andres Nocioni. Back in the 2006 – 2007 season, Nocioni also battled plantar fasciitis. I know it’s hard to believe, but he was actually a pretty darned good fantasy player prior to the injury. In fact, in the 05-06 playoffs Noc was averaging about 20 points and 10 boards. After the injury he became largely ineffective and relegated to fantasy basketball wasteland. He missed a third of the 06 season, then had some start and stops in 07, then relapsed and missed more time in 2008.

Oh, one more thing, neither Nocioni nor Charlie V had the same severity of injury as Danny G, which required surgery.

Could Danny Granger come back and be a superstar again immediately? Yup, anything is possible. Please, re-read that, I’m telling you anything is possible. Am I going to bet any part of my current fantasy season on that? Nope, why risk it? Look if you’re sitting in last place right now, and feeling totally desperate, I can see you making the move to get Danny on the cheap. But if you’re like me, sitting anywhere within striking distance of the leader, trading away a reliable player for Danny is a huge potentially season ending risk to take.

On the flip side, if you’re holding Granger and sitting at the bottom of your league, I totally understand hanging onto him. It’s like sitting on a lottery ticket, who knows you just might win. But if you’re at the top or within striking distance of the top and someone comes along offering you a Carlos Boozer or Gerald Wallace or Antawn Jamison or heck even Kevin Martin, I don’t see why you wouldn’t remove the risk you have with Granger and take something a little more sure back in return.

That’s right, I said Kevin Martin. Totally different scenario there. Kevin Martin shattered his wrist and has to get surgery to fix it. Why am I confident Martin will come back and be effective? Because the night AFTER he shattered his wrist, he was back on the floor and dropped 25 points in the game. Yeah, something tells me it didn’t affect his stroke too much. Again, could he come back and be ineffective? Sure, anything is possible. But in my estimation of risk and reward, I’m banking that Danny G is a higher risk than Kevin Martin by a landslide and that the reward is pretty even.

Let someone else hold the lottery ticket. So long as you play your cards right, work that 2-1 deal, you’re going to get value in return for Granger (especially with him close to returning) and it’s not going to matter how well he does or doesn’t do. It’s someone else’s problem and you’re locked in for the top slot.