Charlie

Villanueva

Villanueva “might” try to fully participate in practice on Friday, and the veteran is clearly moving closer toward returning. He’s played in just two games this season and has been on the shelf since January 4. Villanueva is not someone owners need to worry about picking up off the waiver wire right now.

While the minutes aren’t where we’d like them to be (19 tonight), Villanueva is playing well-enough right now to warrant being owned in deep leagues.

Villanueva is very optimistic about his return, but fantasy owners have no reason to get excited just yet. He’ll be worked in slowly to the Detroit rotation to prove he can stay healthy.

If you’re surprised by this news, you haven’t been paying attention. The injury is to CV’s “other” ankle, not the one that sidelined him to start the season. He might return to the rotation at some point, but he’s not a fantasy option over the final weeks of the season.

Lawrence Frank previously said there was no room in the rotation for Villanueva, who is currently on a five-year, $35 million contract. “Mentally it’s frustrating and hard because you worked so hard to get healthy and help the team out,” Charlie V said. Villanueva has been completely irrelevant for fantasy owners this season.

Frank is rolling with Greg Monroe, Jason Maxiell, Ben Wallace and Jonas Jerebko as his four bigs. Villanueva has appeared in just four games all season due to injuries and ineptitude.

We won’t begrudge him the lack of rebounds in such a small amount of minutes, and he is totally worth a look if you need points, boards, and especially threes in the Pistons’ last game on Thursday.

Villanueva will be active, but it’s not known how many, if any, minutes he will play in his first game back after his two-game, six-minute start to the year. It’s safe to say that the five-year, $35 million deal that the Pistons gave CV back in 2009 looks like an awful big bust.

We’re not entirely sure he will see the floor, let alone play any meaningful minutes for the Pistons this season. It will mostly depend on his conditioning, and from there the question will be whether or not he can still be effective.

Unless the Pistons decide it’s time to go for a more metaphoric type of tanking, we’re not biting on Charlie V’s first semi-productive night this season.