Fantasy Basketball Advice

With the lockout likely to linger well into October and perhaps into November, trying to preview the season of 30 teams that might not actually have one seems about as worthwhile as raking leaves on a windy day. But I love raking and the wind only makes it last longer. We here at Razzball have you covered, even if you didn’t want to be covered. That’s love. You’ll appreciate it when you’re older. Look at it this way, the only way any of this stuff can be disproven is if the season starts. So go ahead, NBA, make me a fibber! I dare you. Until then, consider this fantasy basketball gospel. Don’t even bother reading anything else – dem’s all lies. From now until the start of the season, we’re bringing you the 2011 Fantasy Team Previews, which will focus on each team in order to paint a clearer fantasy picture. Who’s starting? Who might surprise you? And who might make you want to hurl yourself off a bridge in a few months. Enjoy! Next up – The Indiana Pacers (First Peyton Manning goes down and now you have to read about THIS team? My bad, Indy. My bad.)

Gained – George Hill

Lost – T.J. Ford (if you count that as a loss), Brandon Rush (probable), Josh McRoberts / Solomon Jones (one is likely to leave)

Probable position depth -
PG – Darren Collison, George Hill, Lance Stephenson, A.J. Price
SG – Paul George, Mike Dunleavy
SF – Danny Granger, Dahntay Jones, James Posey
PF – Tyler Hansbrough, Josh McRoberts
C –   Roy Hibbert, Jeff Foster, Solomon Jones

Surprising Team Fact From Last Season – The Pacers drew the fewest number of fans with 555,077. That’s an average of 15,548 fans per game, or 1,743 fewer fans per game than the NBA average and 6,244 fewer fans per game than league-leading Chicago Bull.

Number of Top 20 Fantasy Players   (par 0-1) – 1, Granger
Number of Top 50 Fantasy Players   (par 1-2) – 2, Hibbert
Number of Top 75 Fantasy Players    (par 2-3) – 0
Number of Top 100 Fantasy Players (par 3-4) – 4, Collison, Hill
Number of Top 200 Fantasy Players (par 6-7) – 6, Hansbrough, George

3 Concerns Heading Into the Season

1. How much will George Hill muck up the value of DarCo, George and Stephenson?
That’s a question with two answers. The first answer is that Hill will muck things up for the Indy guards about as much as he did for the San Antonio guards – not at all. The second answer is there’s far less to muck up with Collison, George and Stephenson than Parker and Ginobili. I like Hill on this team. His role should be similar to San Antonio’s, but more fruitful given the players for whom he’s coming off the bench. I’m less convinced of Hill’s potential coming into this season than I was a year ago, and having a hyper-intelligent Spurs franchise send him packing doesn’t do anything to dispel that feeling, but the minutes will be there in Indiana. He’s averaged 28.6 mpg in his last two seasons. He’ll average at least 30 on this Pacers team.

2. Jeff Foster looks like Freddie Mercury, right?

Right. And considering he’s been on the Pacers in all 12 of his professional seasons. Did they just forget he was there, or what?

3. Sell me on Paul George.
Larry Bird called George “one of the five best young guys I’ve been around in all my years in the game.” In other news, Larry Bird may be suffering from long-term memory loss. And also maybe short-term memory loss (depending on the term). And also, I’ve done a bad job selling Paul George.

Fantasy Disappointment in ’11 –  Tyler Hansbrough. People went psycho over T (see what I did there?) toward February’s end and throughout March of last season. He was averaging 30 mpg, 17/7/1 and ceased having dizzy spells. That’s a huge post-trade deadline pickup. The problem is, it was only a 20-game span over the course of his two-year career. Current rumors that the Pacers are interested in David West (or, at the very least, some other big name PF) doesn’t make me feel great about how the Pacers feel about Hansbrough. He’ll get his shot at starting and averaging 30+ mpg, but I’m not reaching on him.

Biggest Fantasy Contributor in ’11 – Danny Granger. This is a soft buy, which I imagine is like paying for something in dollar bills that were run through the washing machine a few dozen times. Them dollars are like silk, bro. If Hibbert hits the top floor of his game this year and proves more valuable than Granger, I wouldn’t be shocked. If Solomon Jones does it, I’ll be shocked.

Deep Sleeper– Lance Stephenson. George is your deep sleeper, Stephenson is mine. Potato-potahto. tomato-tomahto. Stephenson-Steppin, son! On the Indy guard depth chart, I’m putting Collison first, followed by Hill, George, Stephenson, Dunleavy, Price. In keeping with the “Larry Bird Says” theme, the Pacers’ GM said Stephenson “is [the Pacers'] best player.” So just to recap: Bird has one of the five best young guys in basketball and he doesn’t consider that guy his best player. Nor does he consider the team’s best player Danny Granger, Roy Hibbert or Dahntay Jones. Screw it, might as well draft Stephenson in the second round!

With the lockout likely to linger well into October and perhaps into November, trying to preview the season of 30 teams that might not actually have one seems about as worthwhile as raking leaves on a windy day. But I love raking and the wind only makes it last longer. We here at Razzball have you covered, even if you didn’t want to be covered. That’s love. You’ll appreciate it when you’re older. Look at it this way, the only way any of this stuff can be disproven is if the season starts. So go ahead, NBA, make me a fibber! I dare you. Until then, consider this fantasy basketball gospel. Don’t even bother reading anything else – dem’s all lies. From now until the start of the season, we’re bringing you the 2011 Fantasy Team Previews, which will focus on each team in order to paint a clearer fantasy picture. Who’s starting? Who might surprise you? And who might make you want to hurl yourself off a bridge in a few months. Enjoy! Next up – The Utah Jazz (I was just going to marry this preview with a couple other team previews, but those other previews thought such an arrangement would be immoral).

Gained – Enes Kanter, Alec Burks

Lost – Kyrylo Fesenko (who, in turn, lost the meniscus in his knee last week), Kyle Weaver

Probable position depth -
PG – Devin Harris, Earl Watson, Ronnie Price
SG – Gordon Hayward, Alec Burks, Raja Bell
SF – C.J. Miles, Andrei Kirilenko,
PF – Paul Millsap, Derrick Favors, Jeremy Evans
C – Al Jefferson, Enes Kanter, Mehmet Okur, Francisco Elson

Surprising Team Fact From Last Season – The Jazz led the league in personal fouls (1,865 or 22.7 PF per game) and subsequently allowed the most opponent’s free throws. Millsap, Jefferson and Miles each had 220+ personal fouls last season. No other team had more than two players that handsy in 2010-11.

Number of Top 20 Fantasy Players   (par 0-1) – 0
Number of Top 50 Fantasy Players   (par 1-2) – 2, Jefferson, Millsap
Number of Top 75 Fantasy Players    (par 2-3) – 3, Harris
Number of Top 100 Fantasy Players (par 3-4) – 0
Number of Top 200 Fantasy Players (par 6-7) – 7, Hayward, Miles, Favors, Kirilenko

3 Concerns Heading Into the Season

1. How many Utah frontcourtsman does it take to screw up the Jazz?
Heading into the still locked-out season, this is most certainly Utah’s biggest issue: who is going to play and what are they going to do when they are playing. Frankly, Jefferson and Millsap are the only two solid bets for solid production and even Millsap has found himself on the trading block throughout the summer. Favors was raw enough last year (and not in the Eddie Murphy sense of the word … unless you’re referring to Murphy’s facial skin after kissing that tranny a few years back. Then raw may be appropriate. To recap: Darrick Favors in 2010 was more like Eddie Murphy’s whisker burn than his classic comedy special) that I think it’s going to take another full season before we see something useful from him. Kanter might be more rough this year than Favors last year and no one else should play more than 10 mpg. They might, but they shouldn’t.

2. Is it bad that I still think Deron Williams is this team’s starting PG? That’s bad, right?
Only if it means you’re hoping to get 20/4/10 from your Utah point guard instead of the 16/4/6 you’re more likely to get from Devin Harris

3. What are the chances fantasy owners get the “2011 Eurobasket Tournament AK-47″ instead of the “old ‘n’ busted Andrei?”
I’d be more worried about Kirilenko returning to the NBA than playing well in it. At this point, what you’re getting with Kirilenko is the same thing you’d get with a 10-year-old thoroughbred: A beautiful mane, mood swings, brittle bones, and a high unlikeliness that it will make it all the way around the track.

Rookie Review! – I already went over Enes Kanter here. Wait, no. Not there. –> here. And as for Alec Burks, the No. 12 overall pick, who by most accounts, is an athletic shooting guard whose athleticism and shot might not immediately translate to the pros. He doesn’t have a good outside jumper and he’s skinny. And what’s worse, Burks landed on a team with all sorts of players who have kinda adopted a mindset that if they want playing time, they’ll have to learn a second and third position. Favors, Kirilenko and Hayward might see action at the three. Miles might see action and the two. Millsap might see action at the five and Okur might see action. The more malleable these guys become, the less I see Burks having a solid footing on this squad. He’s quick and has a creative ability when he’s airborne, but so much of that has been predicated on him having the ball in transition. Go ahead and change the predication in “Burks is draftable” to “is not.”

Fantasy Disappointment in ’11 –  Mehmet Okur. What makes an injury-prone, 6-foot-11 center who’s barely averaged 7 rpg in his career and isn’t even the best Turkish center on his own team more attractive? Remind everyone that he’s going to turn 33 this season.

Biggest Fantasy Contributor in ’11 – Al Jefferson. It’s been a while, so perhaps you forgot what Howlin’ Wolf did to opponents after the All-Star Break last season: 22/11/3, shooting .518 from the floor and blocking 1.8 shots per game. Who knows what happened to him in February. Maybe he didn’t get along with Deron Williams. Maybe he was less distracted with ski season coming to a close. Maybe he sucked up any residual talent Okur still had in him like John Coffey did with “badness.” At any rate, Jefferson started all 82 games last season and should go somewhere before the 30^th pick in the draft as Utah’s top offensive option.

Deep Sleeper – Gordon Hayward. The starting shooting guard for the NBA’s Names-That-Don’t-Match-Faces squad was highly underrated in the final stretch of last season. He averaged 36 mpg and laid out a 16/3/3, shooting .581 from the floor and averaging almost two threes a game. No one really talked about it. I picked him up on two teams last year and won both of those leagues. That’s only a coincidence in the sense that there were co-incidences. One was me picking up Hayward and the other was me winning the leagues because of it. While I don’t think Hayward averages 58 percent shooting all season, with Burks, Bell and maybe Miles offering only minor assistance at the two-spot, I can easily see Hayward playing 32+ mpgs all year and ending up somewhere around 13/3/4.

You see what I did there in the title? I oversold it, didn’t I? You’re imagining a new statistic that will change fantasy basketball forever, because a state someone would consider awesome would certainly do that. And seeing as how I wasted no time calling this stat awesome, you’d be right to assume it’s revolutionary. It isn’t. So now, before I’ve even explained what bopOSPM is, I’m already apologizing for calling it something it isn’t. If only blogging tools came with delete buttons, I’d start all over.

Earlier this summer, Neil Paine over at Basketball Reference compiled a list of the 20 best offensive players against the league’s top defenses. Also known as, Offensive Basketball-on-Paper Statistical Plus/Minus, bopOSPM struck me as interesting back in July, but nothing that could necessarily be applied to the fantasy game. It’s basically a barometer of who to start and who to sit; basketball’s equivalent of pitcher matchups in baseball. The best 30 pitchers in the league you’ll start against the Red Sox, Yankees, Phillies or whomever. But after that, good fantasy owners tend to play the matchups a little more shrewdly. With the exception of maybe a few players, there really isn’t anyone in the top 20 who you wouldn’t draft within five slots of where they show up on the bopOSPM list.

Then I got to thinkin’ – which you can infer means that I was sitting on the toilet – this stat would be useful in two instances past draft day. The first would be in streaming situations or in deeper daily leagues where game-by-game matchups are important to evaluate. The second would be as a tie breaker between your average start vs. sit decisions that everyone must make at some point.

Let’s start with the second instance just to be confusing. Fantasy hoopsters (<- my term that I tell everyone my grandmother came up with) are constantly hitting the waiver wire trying to tap into secondary players suddenly in the position of getting big minutes and doing something with them. If you were trying to decide whether to pick up Paul George or Jared Dudley, bopOSPM could be useful. George collapsed against good defenses (-4.47), while Dudley led the NBA in positive differential between the best 15 defenses in the league and the worst. What that means is that Dudley could be played against good teams and George couldn’t, something that would be helpful to know when deciding who to start, who to sit or who to pick up and stream.

That kickass segue brings us to the aforementioned first instance, in which bopOSPM gives certain players in certain matchups a certain edge. The Chicago Bulls had either the best or second-best defense in the league last season (depending on your metric of choice). Derrick Rose came out on top of Paine’s bopOSPM list. One of the reasons, undoubtedly is that he didn’t have to play against the Bulls. That’s at least two fewer games he didn’t have to play against the league’s top defense. There’s a lot to be said for owning a player in a weak division who plays well against top defenses. Players like Rose not only thrive against the heavy hitters, but being on a heavy hitting team, he doesn’t need to prove it as much as, say, Kevin Love will. Because when Rose isn’t thriving against top defenses, he’s facing weak ones … and thriving.

It’s just another tool to evaluate players on a game-to-game basis or from player-to-player when otherwise in a toss-up.

_________________________

Now, chew on this for a couple days. I’m leaving town to get married and will not likely be thinking much about bopOSPM. At least not that I’m willing to admit to anyone.

I’ll be back and posting far more regularly once the nuptials are behind me next week. Promise.

Wish me luck, gang!

In real life, Rajon Rondo is one of the best point guards in the NBA that talks really fast, dribbles a ball at all times of the day and night, hates my questions in media scrums, and is secretly hated by the POTUS. In fantasy basketball land, Rajon Rondo is a specialist. Despite being a fantastic floor general, in fantasy he lacks the tremendous value that he brings to the Celtics. Rondo can’t throw alley-oops to Kevin Love just because you have them both on your team, so just about the only thing he brings to your fantasy team on offense is with assists. Defensively, his steals averages are always near the top of the list and he’s a pretty good rebounder for a point guard, but even when you factor in those statistics, Rondo doesn’t live up to his real-life reputation in fantasy.

Almost all expert rankings will place Rondo far down the list of top point guards – Adam ranked him as the 17th best fantasy point guard at the end of the season – but there are still folks that will draft Rondo above guys like Jrue Holiday or Steve Nash because of his place amongst the league’s top pure point guards. Some folks expected last season to be the breakout campaign that vaulted Rondo into the top five fantasy point guard conversation. Unfortunately, Rondo continued to brick jumpshots (38 percent on all jumpers, 23 percent on three’s) and even though he averaged a career high 11.2 assists per game (second-most in the league), his scoring average dropped to 10.6 points per game, the second lowest of his career. Additionally, the stat that continues to break the backs of Rondo’s fantasy owners, free throw percentage, regressed from 62 percent to 57 percent.

If there is any silver lining it would be that the Celtics’ Big Three is getting older and must be due for a regression very soon, giving Rondo a chance to take on a bigger role. Pierce, Allen and Garnett getting older and progressively worse will likely present one of two outcomes for Rondo: 1) He will accept the added responsibility, adapt his offensive game by either taking it the hoop more (resulting in a higher PPG average) or working extremely hard on his shot/free throw shooting (resulting in a higher PPG average and a higher free throw percentage) or 2) Rondo fails once again to develop as a consistent offensive threat outside of his passing and as it becomes harder for the Big Three to convert on his passes into assists, he regresses as both a real point guard and a fantasy point guard.

Either way, I think this is the season that we finally see what Rondo is made of. Rondo has gone from unknown to anointed over the past three years but as the Big Three become less and less effective, we’ll learn how good Rondo really is.

With the lockout likely to linger well into October and perhaps into November, trying to preview the season of 30 teams that might not actually have one seems about as worthwhile as raking leaves on a windy day. But I love raking and the wind only makes it last longer. We here at Razzball have you covered, even if you didn’t want to be covered. That’s love. You’ll appreciate it when you’re older. Look at it this way, the only way any of this stuff can be disproven is if the season starts. So go ahead, NBA, make me a fibber! I dare you. Until then, consider this fantasy basketball gospel. Don’t even bother reading anything else – dem’s all lies. From now until the start of the season, we’re bringing you the 2011 Fantasy Team Previews, which will focus on each team in order to paint a clearer fantasy picture. Who’s starting? Who might surprise you? And who might make you want to hurl yourself off a bridge in a few months. Enjoy! Next up – The Golden State Warriors (Can! You! Diggit!?!)

Gained – Klay Thompson, Jeremy Tyler, Charles Jenkins, Mark Jackson, the D-League’s Dakota Wizards

Lost – The innocence of not having Mark Jackson as the team’s head coach, Acie Law

Probable position depth -
PG – Stephen Curry, Jeremy Lin, Charles Jenkins, Charlie Bell
SG – Monta Ellis, Klay Thompson
SF – Dorell Wright, Reggie Williams, Al Thornton
PF – David Lee, Louis Amundson, Vladimir Radmanovic
C – Andris Biedrins, Ekpe Udoh, Jeremy Tyler

Surprising Team Fact From Last Season – The Warriors’ Margin of Victory was -2.33, meaning they lost each game by an average of 2.3 points. It should also be noted that Golden State was dead last in total FTA/FTM, while they were second only to Minnesota in opponents’ FTA/FTM. If only Ellis could have hurled himself into the lane 30 times a game instead of 25, they might have had a shot at the playoffs.

Number of Top 20 Fantasy Players   (par 0-1) – 2, Curry, Ellis
Number of Top 50 Fantasy Players   (par 1-2) – 3, Lee
Number of Top 75 Fantasy Players    (par 2-3) – 4, Wright
Number of Top 100 Fantasy Players (par 3-4) – 0
Number of Top 200 Fantasy Players (par 6-7) – 6, Thompson, Biedrins

3 Concerns Heading Into the Season

1. Are we looking at Curry Favor or Goose Stephen this season?
I don’t know what that means. But I do know that the reports of Curry’s nagging foot and ankle issues were far worse than the actual injury. He only missed eight games. That’s not great, but before I looked it up, I would have guessed he missed twice that (he was a game-time decision about 15 times). When it’s all over, he averaged more points, better percentages and the same amount of assists in 2.6 fewer mpg in 2010 than he did as a rookie the season before. If you picked him in the first round, I think you picked him too early. If you picked him in the second round, I’d go ahead and keep on keepin’ on.

2. David Lee: discuss.
He averaged 17/10/3 at season’s end, but he had tooth chips in his elbow through the new year. His 19/12/4 April averages were closer to fantasy owners expectations on the Warriors’ high-octane offense heading into the 2010 season and I tend to think we’ll get somewhere in the middle of that from a healthy Lee in 2011. I’d guess 18/11/3 and look to grab him between picks 20 and 30.

3. Remember when An-Bie was a solid fantasy option at center, Gwen Stefani was on her second solo album and ‘The Wire’ was in its final season? Good times, huh?
Yeah, but those days are over. Don’t look at Biedrins until at least the 150^th pick.

Rookie Review! – Klay Thompson, Golden State’s top pick, would be more exciting on just about any other team. He’s a shooter. Pure. Simple. Elegant. That’s it. His defense is fair, but not outstanding and he’s not particularly athletic. Of all the teams in need of an outside shooter, with underwhelming athleticism and anonymous defense, the Warriors ain’t it. That said, if Ellis is traded or there’s an injury in the backcourt, he’s worth an immediate look. Jeremy Tyler was taken with the 39^th overall pick in the draft and is interesting like a Jackson Pollack painting – assuming you see Ekpe Udoh and a bunch of paint splotches when you look at a Pollack. Tyler is the player you get when Udoh has already been drafted. And Udoh should not be drafted. Charles Jenkins was drafted five players after Tyler and I’m pretty sure he owns the low ‘n’ slow barbecue joint near my house.

Fantasy Disappointment in ’11 –  Dorell Wright. He went 17/6/3 and shot .430 from the field before the All-Star Break. After it, he cooled a bit to 16/4/2, shooting .409. But Wright was actually worse for most of the season than those averages suggest, if you disregard his bananas January

Biggest Fantasy Contributor in ’11 – Monta Ellis. Some people like diced onions on their hotdog, some people like sliced. Others like just ketchup and probably sleep with their cousins. What I’m trying to tell you is I prefer Ellis’ production, but if you prefer Stephen Curry a bit more on draft day, that’s cool. … And you probably sleep with your cousin.

Deep Sleeper – Klay Thompson. Don’t reach to draft him. Bob and weave until the right moment. Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee and label this recommendation, Cautious: Klay.