November 1 - Opening Day

Opening day for most of the NBA led to a lot of shakedowns for fantasy basketball. One of the biggest problems of newbie fantasy managers (and some seasoned vets as well) is making season-long decisions based on the first day of the season. There's months of fantasy basketball left, folks. Nevertheless, let's look at some of the key things to consider from last night's game:

TOs - Stern and Spaulding have changed the game with that new micro-fiber ball - and not necessarily for the better. Turnovers abound as even players who are pretty good at holding onto the ball are turning over the ball 3 or 4 times a game. One of the most overlooked cats in the fantasy system is TOs, but for those of you with efficiency squads, consider that this is apparently a league-wide problem. I know many players complained about the new ball, so we might see a switch back to the cowhide. Nevertheless, this could make players known for low TOs (like Shane Battier, who had none in 30 minutes of play) more equitable.

Minutes played - This is one of the stats you can look at for insight into the season - especially for your players who come into the season with question marks about health. One of the most notable marks is T-Mac, who played 42 minutes and had an excellent game, turning out 25 pts and 9 assists. Take this with a grain of salt, however - the best indication of how he will pan out as the season progresses is to see how many minutes he gets on the second game of a back-to-back series. On the other hand, Andrei Kirilenko only played 23 minutes and did not turn out a great game, and Sloan had questioned AK47's conditioning when he reported. Sloan is reportedly running a faster offense, which is problematic for someone so injury-prone as AK.
Minutes also show how position battles play - for instance, the 4 and 5 problems in Seattle. Collison, Wilcox and Petro all are fighting for minutes at these crowded positions, and it shook out to less than 24 minutes for any of them. Hard to consider anyone who only gets these sparing numbers.

PLAYERS OF THE GAME: I want to focus on three players here instead of just one:

MONTA ELLIS - First, Golden State is still trying to learn Don Nelson's offensive style and things may shake out big here for Monta Ellis. He is a quick, slick guard who can get to the basket and make big plays. One of the most impressive displays of scoring I had ever seen. With Nellie trashing Davis saying "he is slamming the ball too much" and calling Dunleavy a "disaster," we could definitely see a changing of the guard - definitely until Jason Richardson gets back to 100%

QUENTIN RICHARDSON - The Q in Q-Rich definitely stands for question mark, as many fantasy owners were burned by him when they drafted the 3 pt leader 2 years ago and were gravely disappointed as Isiah Thomas and Larry Brown made a mess of the Knicks. Most are quick to write this game off as a fluke, but let's look more carefully at the situation. Jalen Rose is gone, Jared Jeffries is hurt, and Balkman isn't ready for those kind of minutes. Q-rich won't deliver 10/13 FG every night, but he will be a good source of 3s and is the best current option at the 3.

ANTHONY PARKER - You mean Tony Parker? No, the shooting guard recently acquired from Maccabi Tel Aviv in Europe. He is an experienced player who has been playing in Europe for years and won 5 Israeli National Championships. Is that good? I don't know. What I do know is that Morris Peterson works better at SF than any of their other SFs (and by others, I mean Joey Graham), and Anthony Parker is apparently the next in line at SG, beating out my sleeper Fred Jones. I would actually look to see if Fred Jones gets more minutes before I hand Parker the position. Good scoring (9/17 FG, 2 3s), but not much else.