Fantasy Basketball: ESPN Fantasy Basketball 2005 - Coorespondents

What can we expect from
Ike fantasy-wise?

For those into Fantasy Basketball, Jeff Kakes, ESPN's Golden State Warriors correspondent wrote about how Ike fits into the Warriors plans and his effect on the fantasy world (for the full article).

With the Las Vegas Summer League now in the books, there are a few things to remember about it: 1) Ike Diogu was a stud, averaging over 18 points and 8 boards a game. 2) Summer League means very little. That's not to say that Ike won't be a decent player this upcoming season, and it was very encouraging to see him be one of the better players right off the bat (he was named to the LVSL All-Star team). But just like with preseason football, don't base your regular season projections on summer league performance.

Now that we've seen that Ike can play a little, the question on your mind now should be: how does he affect the rest of the squad? Right now there is talk that the W's will use Diogu at PF and shift Murphy over to C, which would both help and hurt Murphy. The problem is that with them starting down low, the W's could potentially be the worst defensive team in the league (Duncan would score 300 on them). So do you draft Diogu? At this point it's early to really get a feel for how he'll be used, but my gut tells me that while you shouldn't count on him as a full-timer, he'd be worth a flier near the back end of your draft with hopes he could get 12 points, 8 boards or so.

I think Jeff Kakes has hit it right on the head. If you take Ike, take him with your last picks. He's got the potential to put up near double-doubles if he excels. His value jumps if/when Murphy gets injured.