Fantasy basketball injury roundup: Klay Thompson, Kevin Love and more

With the fantasy basketball playoffs underway, a number of fantasy mainstays find themselves on the sidelines at the worst possible time.

If you survived Monday’s NBA injury news dump, congratulations! You’re likely faring better than many of your fellow fantasy basketball leaguemates at the moment.

Before delving into the two most complicated cases, let’s briefly address the no-brainer drops:

• Kent Bazemore is set to miss the remainder of the season with a bruised right knee, according to ESPN.com’s Adrian Wojnarowski. Bye, Felicia.
• Wesley Matthews is likely to miss the rest of the season due to a stress fracture in his right leg, according to Shams Charania of Yahoo Sports. Adios, senor.
• Marcus Smart is out indefinitely with a torn tendon in his right thumb, according to Charania. Say sayonara to him as well.
• Avery Bradley is done for the year after undergoing surgery to repair his adductor and rectus abdominis muscles on Tuesday, per Wojnarowski. See you later, alligator.
• For those in deeper leagues with Daniel Theis and Raul Neto on your squads, rectify that immediately. Theis is done for the year with a torn meniscus in his left knee, per Charania, while the Utah Jazz announced Neto is set to miss at least the next two weeks with a fractured left wrist. Buh-bye.

Now for the hard part: Kevin Love and Klay Thompson.

On Sunday, Terry Pluto of the Plain Dealer reported Love may return from his wrist injury “in 2-to-3 weeks.” Three days later, Joe Vardon of Cleveland.com reported Love is “hopeful to play against Phoenix at The Q on March 23,” although he noted, “Love was hesitant on a precise target date…but he’s looking at next week.”

For owners in standard 12-team ESPN.com leagues, that means you’ll likely get Love back toward the end of your semifinals. Assuming he doesn’t sit in back-to-back games, you’d get six games out of him (two in the semifinals and four in championship week). If you have an open IR spot, he’s worth stashing, but he’ll be a risky use of a roster spot otherwise.

When Love does return, we don’t know whether he’ll immediately vault back into a 35-minutes-per-game role. Since he went down in late January, the Cavaliers radically overhauled their roster, trading away Isaiah Thomas, Jae Crowder, Iman Shumpert, Channing Frye, Derrick Rose and Dwyane Wade while adding Larry Nance Jr., Rodney Hood, George Hill and Jordan Clarkson. They may decide to ease him back into the rotation to avoid disrupting chemistry, particularly if Tristan Thompson returns around the same time.

As such, it wouldn’t be preposterous to drop Love for someone like Justise Winslow if you’re in need of immediate assistance. For owners with the luxury of stashing him, though, he could be a huge difference-maker in the fantasy finals if all breaks right.

Thompson will be even more confounding for fantasy owners, as ESPN.com’s Chris Haynes reported Wednesday that he has a fractured right thumb and will be out at least through next Thursday. Beyond that, his timetable to return varies depending on the reporter.

Marcus Thompson of The Athletic reported “There is growing concern that Thompson’s injury, sustained in the Warriors’ loss at Minnesota on Sunday, could cost him some weeks for it to heal and that it’s not a day-to-day thing.” Haynes, citing league sources, reported Thompson “could miss up to two weeks,” while Charania said the thumb injury “will likely sideline him several games,” although “he’s expected to return before [the] end of the month.”

If the Warriors clear Thompson upon his re-evaluation on March 22, fantasy owners will have him for six games over the following week-and-a-half, just like with Love.  But considering head coach Steve Kerr told reporters Wednesday that Thompson likely would miss “a couple weeks,” it appears as though fantasy owners should brace themselves to be without his services until championship week at the earliest.

Like with Love, the decision of whether to stash Thompson until he returns comes down to the rest of your roster and your waiver-wire options. If you’re in a close matchup and can’t afford Thompson putting up goose eggs for you, there isn’t much of a decision: drop him and live to fight another day. If you can stash him and he does return in Golden State’s March 23 contest against Atlanta, he could resume raining in 3-pointers as normal, giving you a major boost heading into your league’s title game. But if your league only runs through April 1, he is no longer a must-own player.

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Of the two, Love is the safer stash if only because his timetable to return is slightly more clear.

Even if Thompson returns next Friday, who knows how the thumb injury will affect his shooting stroke? By that time, the Warriors may have fallen far enough behind the Houston Rockets in the race for home-court advantage that they decide it’s better to rest Thompson until he’s fully recovered. Between now and mid-April, Golden State’s top priority will be getting its Big Four to the playoffs healthy. The Cavaliers, meanwhile, need Love to develop chemistry with his new teammates before they engage on a tougher-than-expected postseason run of their own.

Either way, Love and Thompson’s temporary absence puts fantasy owners in a major bind at the worst possible time.

All ownership percentages via ESPN.com. All average draft position info via FantasyPros. All rankings via Basketball Monster are based on nine-category leagues and are current heading into Thursday, March 15.