After playing 13 great minutes in Mondays contest against the Minnesota Timberwolves, starting San Antonio Spurs shooting guard Manu Ginobili broke a bone in his left hand and would not return to the game. The DFS.org crew was as upset as anyone in this debacle because he was a member of our team and while we may not have won win with him anyway, once he was gone their was little chance of anything coming together. But I digress. The issue now becomes, who’s value will increase the most with the absence of Gino in San Antonio. Below we’ve featured three players that we feel stand to gain quite a bit from his absence. You’ll notice that we did not include Tim Duncan in this piece and that is by design, although he MAY start to shoot a bit more with Manu out. Regardless, lets look at those players that we know will go up in value.
James Anderson
According to the ESPN.com depth chart for the Spurs, Anderson is the #2 while Gary Neal is listed as the next backup. Whats troubling for Neal however is that he’s with the D-league at the moment, so for all intents and purposes this job should become Andersons. Realistically however this is a Spurs team thats pretty deep and likes to use a ton of their bench in every game, so don’t be shocked if Anderson starts but doesn’t see extended minutes. As an example, he only played 22 minutes after Manu left the game, which is right in line with what he had been playing before. I think we can expect perhaps a bit of extended run time here, and maybe a few more shots but I’m not sure how much this is going to bolster Andersons value in both the short and long term.
Daniel Green
If you’re a fan of my super duper sleeper picks then you’ll love Green. Up until last night he’s minutes were 1, 4, 12 and 9 and while he performed half way decent inside of those minutes it was nothing to write home about. Last night however he set his season high for minutes at 17, presumably because of the absence of Gino in the lineup. He managed 9 points, 3 boards, 1 block and a turnover. Again, nothing spectacular but he’ll be a guy to keep an eye on for sure, especially in the next few games as we try to figure out how many minutes he is going to be playing on a nightly basis. I wouldn’t recommend that you take him on wednesday against Golden State, but should he get 20 or more minutes and produce he might be worth a look after that.
Tony Parker
In my opinion, Parker stands to gain the most from the absence of Manu, that is of course if he decides to actually shoot the ball. In the first five games of the season he has shot the ball; 16, 9, 15, 10 and 11 times respectively. If he stays around the 15 shot per game mark for the duration of Manu’s absence then he becomes a much more serviceable point guard, than if he sticks to the lower number because without the possibility of scoring 20+ he isn’t generally producing enough elsewhere to warrant his $7,000+ salary on FanDuel. The obvious downside is that if he shoots more, his assist numbers will go down (although he hasn’t broken 10 yet this season, so it won’t be much of a regression) but i’d still take my chances.
Who do you think stands to benefit the most from the indefinite absence of Manu Ginobili for the San Antonio Spurs? If you can answer questions like this, then you’ll love playing at a site like FanDuel where your knowledge of the game is the key to you making money every single night with daily fantasy sports.
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Be advised that Gary Neal was recalled from the D-league and should start tonight for the Spurs deeming most of what was said above moot.
Neal looks to be the biggest beneficiary of Manus absence.