According to league sources, the Golden State Warriors are expected to call-up Anthony Tolliver from the NBA D-League's Idaho Stampede. Tolliver, who has already been called up once this season via the Portland Trail Blazers, is averaging 21.4 points, 11.4 rebounds and 2.5 Stocks (Steals + Blocks, a statistic I'm now using courtesy of Bill Simmons).
For some reasoning regarding this call-up, let's look at Golden State of Mind's Feltbot's recap:
Is this a basketball season, or Custer's last stand? The Warriors began this game dressing the NBA league minimum 8 players. After Anthony Morrow injured his knee two minutes in, there were 7. Then Cartier Martin got his eye raked by Andrew Bogut, and the Warriors were down to 6. Martin eventually returned, but by that time the Warriors were in serious foul trouble. Chris Hunter fouled out, Andris Biedrins fouled out, Stephen Curry fouled out. And the Warriors were down to 4. FOUR PLAYERS? When Curry fouled out, the refs were forced to invoke the little-known NBA Rule No. 3 (Section 1A), which basically states that the last player to foul out stays on the court and continues to play, but if he fouls again the other team receives a technical free throw in addition to the usual free throws. Joey Crawford mentioned to the broadcasters that he'd never seen this happen before in his 33 years as a ref.
So, obviously, there was a need for somebody, and the Warriors chose Tolliver.
Tolliver isn't a bad choice but according to the Randy Livingston On The Edge Call-Up Rankings, we ranked him as the fourth most-likely player to get called up in the D-League. I ranked him second, the highest of any of us, mostly because of what I was hearing at the Showcase:
Reports coming back from the Showcase most certainly were, as I talked to more than one coach that said he's the most NBA-ready player in the D-League. We ranked him number four, but I'd say that he's obviously NBA-caliber. Also, Moore has already anointed him as this year's Randy Livingston Memorial Award winner (player to receive most call-ups this season.
To give Golden State fans an idea of what they're getting, Tolliver's a stretch big man that hits the boards hard and plays harder. He can play in the post, but I envision him as a Rob Kurz type player for the Warriors.
As far as I can tell, they had an injury-exception to use since Martin used the first of the two they'd been granted.
