Fantasy basketball owners received a plethora of bad news over the weekend, as DeMarcus Cousins and Mike Conley are each done for the year due to injuries.
Cousins went down late in the New Orleans Pelicans’ game Friday against the Houston Rockets while attempting to rebound his own missed free throw. The team quickly confirmed everyone’s worst fears, announcing that he’ll miss the rest of the season with a torn left Achilles tendon.
Conley, who hasn’t played since mid-November while rehabbing a heel and Achilles injury, is likewise set to miss the remainder of the season, the Memphis Grizzlies announced Saturday. He’ll “undergo surgery to smooth a small bone protrusion in his left heel that continues to cause pain and soreness,” but the Grizzlies expect him to be ready for training camp this fall.
As if that wasn’t enough bad news for one weekend, Oklahoma City Thunder swingman Andre Roberson went down Saturday with what the team suspects is a ruptured patellar tendon, according to ESPN.com’s Adrian Wojnarowski. They’ll put him through further testing to confirm the diagnosis, but for now, fantasy owners should expect the worst with Roberson as well.
With Cousins and Conley confirmed to be done for the year and Roberson soon likely to follow, all three are must-drops in redraft leagues of all sizes. Here’s a brief look at which players stand to gain fantasy value in their respective teammates’ absences.
New Orleans Pelicans
As if Anthony Davis wasn’t carrying a heavy enough load as is — he’s currently the second-ranked player on a per-game basis in nine-category leagues, trailing only Stephen Curry — his usage rate is set to take off in the absence of Cousins. He’s posting a four-year low in that mark (27.7 percent) while splitting touches with Boogie, but now that he’s the Pelicans’ primary focal point down low, his usage should once again nudge above 30 percent, where it was last season.
Since fantasy production is all about opportunity, those with Davis on their rosters should expect even more from him in the coming weeks. A drastic increase in points and rebounds isn’t necessarily likely — after all, he’s already averaging 26.5 points and 10.4 boards in 36.3 minutes — but he could more closely resemble his 2016-17 output, when he set career-high marks in both categories. So long as Davis remains healthy (an admittedly big “if”), he’s a lock to finish as a top-five value in all fantasy formats.
Both Jrue Holiday and Rajon Rondo stand to potentially benefit from Cousins’ absence as well. With Cousins no longer in the lineup, Holiday will slide into the No. 2 scoring role behind Davis, while the Pelicans will need to rely more heavily upon Rondo to guide their offense. Cousins was averaging a career-high 5.4 assists per game this season, but Davis is nowhere near as adept a passer. As a result, both Holiday and Rondo should experience an uptick in touches on a possession-by-possession basis, raising each player’s rest-of-season ceiling.
Whereas Rondo was a fringe option in 10- and 12-team leagues prior to Cousins’ injury, he’s worth taking a flier on in the roughly 50 percent of ESPN.com leagues where he’s available. The buy-low window on Holiday has long closed, but it may be worth paying a premium to trade for him before he takes off even more.