Andrew Bogut's replacements

Let me tell you now, PICK UP DREW GOODEN OR ERSAN ILYASOVA. Andrew Bogut fractured his left ankle in yesterday’s game against Houston and is out INDEFINITELY. Leg injuries are always tough to deal with, but for a 7-footer it’s even more difficult. Due to their size, the pressure put on their legs is more than most other basketball players, see Yao Ming. He could potentially be out for the rest of the season, although nothing has been announced yet, but will definitely be out for at least a few months.

Let’s start with Gooden.  In his 10^th year in the NBA, Gooden has played for 9 teams, and produced for each of these teams. With career averages of27 minutes a game, 12 points, 8 rebounds, on 47% shooting from the field, and 75% from the line, Gooden can fill any gap at forward or center you have without any real downside. As a backup in Milwaukee he was being given 19 minutes a game this year and averaging 8.5 points a game and 5.2 rebounds a game, so chances are that he is probably hiding on the waiver wire somewhere waiting to be picked up. In 24.5 minutes a game as a Buck last year, he averaged 11.3 points, 7 rebounds, on 43% shooting from the field and 80% from the line. Expect numbers close to these again.

On the other side we have Ilyasova, who is a much younger, higher potential player. He is currently in his 4^th year in the NBA and is averaging 7.8 points and 7.4 rebounds in 22 minutes a game. He is currently only shooting 40.7% from the field, however, and as a big man you’d like to see closer to 50%. But considering he has never shot higher than 44.3% in his career, this 50% mark is highly unlikely. Due to Bogut’s injury, Ilyasova played 28 minutes, scored 7 points and collected a ridiculous 19 rebounds. Expect to see a decent increase in both his scoring and rebounding.

The best bet is to go with Ilyasova since he has been seeing more minutes than Gooden this season, but there is no way to tell what the Bucks will do. While they both saw 28 minutes each in the game last night, Bogut also played 9.5 minutes before his injury which means there is still time to go around. It will be interesting to see how the Bucks distribute the minutes, but expect both of these players to get at least around 25 minutes a game. This should be enough for both of them to be valuable fantasy players.