Gabe Vincent Roundup

I present, this week’s Gabe Vincent Best Free Agents Available (a deeper dive than usual)

1.     Jae’Sean Tate – As a 27-year-old on Houston he’s pretty much Father Time and I love it. All I ever hear is that the Rockets need veteran leadership. Well hey, here’s a guy who can try it out. Not to mention that tonight, in an absolute track meet against Sac Town, KPJ is out. Tate’s expected to hop into the starting lineup, and even if he doesn’t, he’s put up three straight games of 28, 14, and 20 fantasy points since coming back from injury. Frankly, this is one of my kinder moments as Commish because this guy checks every box I’m looking for. In his three games back he’s thrown 2, 4, and 5 assists and gotten 2, 1, and 2 steals in less than 20 minutes per game. The Rockets need a guy like him in the worst way. I’m giving ya’ll til 5 PM and he’s mine

2.     Chris Duarte – Fucking Haliburton’s out two weeks and at this point I’m almost gonna take a break, too. Love this team, love Hali, and everybody and their brother in the league is out a month. The silver lining is that we’ll get to see what Carlisle decides to do with a shockingly crowded roster. My bet is that he’ll play James Johnson again like he did the other night just to piss me off. But the logical thing to do is to slide Nembhard to the 1, Buddy to the 2, Nesmith to the 3, and bring Smith back into the lineup at 4. If he does that, Duarte’s bound to see more minutes. And with more minutes, hopefully, comes the return of last year’s form for a good player

3.     Isaiah Jackson – Here’s possibility number three for the Pacers (and if you don’t like all the Pacers talk you can kiss my astronaut) – Everything I said above still happens, except instead of Duarte getting those minutes, they stay big and Jackson gets them. This is likely to be a game-to-game decision, which is not exactly ideal for us, but Jackson eats every single time he plays. So keep an eye on him, too. They play Atlanta tonight, so make of that matchup what you will

4.     Hamidou Diallo – I made the mistake of thinking his minutes would plummet when Bojan came back so I dropped him for Dyson Daniels. And while I’m still holding out on that being a good long-term decision, Diallo’s 27 last night hurt my pride. They’re a weird team with a lot of injuries, and as long as Hamidou keeps scoring in double digits I don’t see why they’d take him out

5.     Luke Kennard – He’s hurt again but it doesn’t seem long-term and he’s dangerously important to the Clippers. Buy low!

6.     AJ Griffin – I secretly dropped him mid-week because he hadn’t played more than 17 minutes in six games. He’s slid into that Shaedon Sharpe zone where he looks good and he makes a play every game that makes you smile but he’s a rookie on teams who are trying to win. I’d like to be wrong about both of them

7.     Obi Toppin – He’s been dropped by two teams with good reason, and Thibs has constricted his rotation like they’re in the playoffs already (to the point that my guy Hartenstein is holding on by the barest of threads) but he’s back from injury and someone you could take a swing on. Listen, he’s seventh on this list

Some shout outs

• Gabe Vincent – Can’t get enough of this guy. Last night in a typical regular season game for Miami with half the roster out, Gabe played 41 minutes and put up 57 fantasy points! Now, lest you think this earned him a place on his own list above, let’s take a look at the game before that, against OKC: 39 minutes played, 10 fantasy points
• Frank Kaminsky – Frank the Tank is not only still in the league, he’s been playing a little bit for Atlanta. I do mean a little bit. But last night in only 14 minutes he put up 13 real points on his way to a more than solid 27 fantasy point night. Why did the Hornets have to draft him?
• Isaac – With Zion out for a while, Naji Marshall has taken the starting job. Enjoy it!
• Steven – In the dying moments of Christian Wood’s eligibility, he scraped out an 85-point game last night. Chivalry is dead
• Overreactions – In the immediate aftermath of possibly our biggest trade of the season, Jalen McDaniels had 6 points and De’Anthony Melton had 19
• Ricky Rubio – That swarthy man is back and looking good. Damn you, Will, for stealing him from Old Man Team’s clutches