Fantasy Basketball Advice

It’s been over a year since LeBron James strapped on his giant testicle-kicking boot and whomped every last Clevelander in the plums before heading to America’s wang. We were all so naive then. So young, with such supple, non-saggy breasts. The Cavs are certainly older now, droopier. They’ve had a rough year, done some embarrassing things in public they wish people didn’t know about. But that’s in the past. James has moved on, the NBA has moved on and Cleveland has finally stopped standing over the sink, eating dry cereal right out of the box. The Cavs are on the rebound. Sure, Kyrie Irving and Tristan Thompson aren’t James, but how could they be? James was special. He got Cleveland in their prime, like Timberlake did with Britney. And Cameron. And Biel. Let’s not dwell on Cleveland’s old flame, let’s evaluate the fact that it needs two new ones to make up for percentage of the old. It’ll hurt Cavs fans about the same, but at least it’s a it less played out. So let’s look at one of the new chicks on Cleveland’s arm and his prospects for the 2011 fantasy basketball season.

Earlier this season, the Cavs surprisingly rid themselves of J.J. Hickson, an occasionally energetic banger with the ability to get to the rim, clean glass and probably miss a handful of awkward jump shots and free throws. In his place? A shorter, lighter version of the same thing. Thompson isn’t the same type of player Hickson is, but he will pose many of the same problems Hickson did in his tenure with the Cavs. First and foremost (or firstmost if you wanna build a theme): motivation. He showed last year with Texas that he has the ability to mentally remove himself from the game, float 15 rows back, eat someone else’s nachos and watch while someone else goes for rebounds. And considering he’s the first guy off the bench backing up Antawn Jamison’s ailing body, having a young rebounder who sporadically opts out of that task is not a harbinger for success. And if his energy doesn’t dip from lack of touches, one has to wonder how motivated he’ll be playing on the 2011 Cavs, which I assume will feel like playing on the 2010 Wizards. Also, he shoots the ball like he’s two-hand tossing a laundry bag over a high fence. So there. That’s me beating up on the guy. Now here’s me being up on the guy. First off, he can rebound and has the wingspan of a damn pterodactyl. Has the second-longest reach among power forwards in this 2011 rookie class (9’0.25″), which is about the same as Amar’e Stoudemire despite being about an inch shorter and five pounds lighter. On the nights when he’s motivated to establish position (something can also do well), it wouldn’t surprise me if he leads the game in total rebounds. In short, he’s a banger. He bangs, Ricky Martin (notice the use of the comma, lest there be rumors spread). And all that banging he does puts him on the line a lot, which would be a bigger asset if he could shoot better than .487 from the line. I’m going to go out on a very short, very sturdy limb and say he can probably improve on that almost worthless free throw percentage. He’ll be used sparingly in the opening months of the season (REAL sparingly if there’s a lockout!) but should eventually get a shot at 28 mpg. I wouldn’t expect miracles, nor would I expect to see him off any draft boards before Round 15. I’m guessing, 24 mpg, 8.5/6.5/1, with 1.1 stl+blk per game by year’s end and if that’s impressive arm candy to show off to friends, I’m sure they’ll support you in your recovery.

It’s both bizarre and oddly thrilling how little is known about Enes Kanter. Usually, two months into his tenure as a drafted NBA player, we’ve learned as much as we can possibly think of about these guys. We’re more curious about fresh hoops meat than anyone we know in actual reality. I can’t remember the exact birthday of the best man in my wedding, but I can tell you that two years ago tomorrow is the anniversary of the U-18 European Championship game between Turkey and Lithuania, or more pointedly Kanter and fellow first-round draftee Jonas Valanciunas. I shouldn’t know this. I have no real application for this knowledge (keep reading if you don’t believe me), but every June 3, my best man gets real upset with me for some reason. My point isn’t about the tidbits we know about Kanter, the point is that tidbits are all we know about him – and that’s the tidbit that is most intriguing. He’s played fewer than 100 minutes of basketball in two of his last three seasons and none of it was on a large stage. So, yeah, this was a weak draft, but he was still the third pick in it. Let’s preview what we can about Kanter for 2011 fantasy basketball.

The word on the street (or the half-dozen words if it is translated to Turkish) is that Enes Kanter is a super-young, super-solid big who will be productive in this league as long as he is healthy … and there is reason to believe he won’t remain healthy. He’s 6-foot-11, plays physical and has a soft touch. He’s been compared to Al Horford, but most extended video clips show him to be significantly tougher on the glass. So the fact that his knee strength are already being questioned is less exciting than, say, rolling yourself in a quilt and sliding chest first down a carpeted staircase. And on the Jazz, he’s widely believed to at least get a shot at starting center over Mehmet Okur, which would save Al Jefferson from having to play center too. I don’t really see him doing much, outside of learning the NBA game, this season. If they need him to do something other than score, he’s a more physical body than Okur. If Millsap swaps teams, Kirilenko stays away and Okur’s career turns out to be finished, in theory, Kanter can pick up the slack. Call him ‘Kan-er’ –  Kanter is stinkin’ thinkin’! Having said all that, he’s slower than a guy with his athletic ability should be, he’s 19 and he’s never played stiff competition. Also, he’ll be in Utah and I’m assuming a teen from Turkey enjoys the occasional discoteque-ing. In short, it’s gonna be a rough adjustment. Ever try to hit a disco in Salt Lake City? I wouldn’t hope for more than 9/7, with 1.5 stl+blk from Kanter next season. The kid from Istanbul is widely believed to be very teachable, hyper-aware, and constantly noble – but we already knew that Istanbul was Constantlynoble, didn’t we?

When my computer freezes, I yank out the power cord from the electrical socket. TV goes on the fritz? I whack it a few times. Freezer breaks? Eff it – I just turn it into a closet exclusively used for pants! I’m not good with technology. I’m about as capable with technologically as Amy Winehouse is with pills. And before you turn on me for making an insensitive joke about a musician whose career consisted of only three songs that anyone’s ever heard of, you should know that I’ve been under the impression that Amy Winehouse died two years ago. You wouldn’t shake your head at me in the summer of 2013 for making light of Winehouse’s death, don’t do it to me now. Anyway, I’m a Luddite. That was the original point of all this: technology is both amazing and inexplicable. Take the iPhone: the thing can detect movement. The songs shuffle when you shake it, or the display changes from vertical to horizontal depending on how you hold it – it’s amazing. If these things can detect motion, why not weather or environmental conditions? I’d like that in my gadgets. You’re on the beach, it’s warm, the hot glare of the sun beats down on my phone – boom – Jan & Dean. The Beach Boys. I’m in my car, it’s warm, the windows are rolled down, there’s wind – poof – a CCR, Springsteen, Thorogood playlist breaks out. Performances adaptive to the physical environment: it’s the way of the future, Howard Hughes. At least that’s what the Timberwolves were hoping when they chose Arizona’s Derrick Williams with the second overall pick in this year’s draft. The team will not belong to him outright, but it will need him to adapt to a variety of environments in order to be effective … and to sputter out CCR whenever Kevin Love asks for it. And he will ask for it. Let’s take a look at why I think DerrWilliger is a sneaky fantasy basketball pick.

Williams has been widely compared to David West as the type of player he’ll eventually most resemble. Physically, this isn’t far off. West is an inch taller, but five pounds lighter. Williams is quicker than West, but is probably going to have a rough year guarding the three if he gets stuck there. West, in his first two seasons with Xavier, did everything better than Williams except score. But it’s precisely Williams’ scoring that makes him so intriguing. He averaged 1.9 3ptm last year on .568 shooting from beyond the college arc. He won’t average anything near that as a rookie, but it shows that the dude can spread the floor. Put him next to Love, who sank 88 threes last season, and you’ve got a tricky frontcourt. Ultimately, I think Williams will face the same glut as Kyrie Irving will face in Cleveland: there’s other capable bodies playing their same position. Unless Minnesota can shuffle off Anthony Randolph, Michael Beasley or Love (perish the thought!) to another team, I don’t see Williams getting into the starting lineup. I do however see him playing both SF and PF and amassing 24-28 mpg by the end of the year. The Wolves need a second big besides Love who can spread the floor and get to the line. If he’s playing SF, he’ll be bigger than enough of his defenders to score in isolation. He’s a lot like Beasley in both size and skill set, which is a problem in that Beasley is his main competition for playing time (Love ain’t going nowhere and it’s unlikely that they’ll movie him to center to get Williams more minutes at the four). A third of Williams’ 8.3 rbds last year came on the offensive end (huzzah!), which means he only averaged about 5.5 defensive boards (boo!). This might be the biggest factor playing against the kid. He’s not going to grab three offensive boards a night playing 26 minutes a game and sharing the floor with Love. And outside of Love and Darko Milicic, the Wolves’ next best defensive rebounders all play the same position as Williams (Beasley, Anthony Tolliver, Martell Webster, Wes Johnson and that’s not counting what Anthony Randolph will contribute). Ultimately, I think everyone with a mild pulse on this roster last season will completely fall away in 2011. Webster, Milicic and Johnson especially. Que Seras, Sarah. Whatever will be, Sarah. Don’t expect “David West,” from Derrick Williams, but do expect 25 mpg, 14/6/1 with solid percentages. It isn’t as farfetched as me trying to turn off the alarm on my iPhone without swearing at least twice.

We’ve all seen it happen in movies – usually romantic comedies or melodramas where someone has a disease that’s slowly killing them (or perhaps romantic comedies involving terminal diseases, but those are less common) – where the male lead finds himself in a situation in which he needs to woo the female lead in some embarrassing public setting – usually involving old people on a tour or some form of walkabout. The male lead always disrupts the public activity in an over-the-top manner indicative only of Hollywood’s imagination and not real life. “I’m sorry everyone, you all have to stop your tour of the dinosaur park so I can explain to Maggie here that I wasn’t sleeping with her sister, I was simply explaining to her sister while naked how Maggie’s bowel cancer has opened my eyes to life and love and I cannot live without her!” (Or, you know, something like that.) The female lead plays it coy for a second. Tears welling up, arms crossed. She was hurt and she is strong and she wants the male lead to see it. Then what happens? The cute old folks they cast as extras get to say one line. And that one line is always something sweet and humorous. Like, “Well if you don’t go over there and kiss that boy, honey, I’m ditching Wilbur here and doing it myself!” Hilarious, right? Watch for it in the next RomCom disease movie you rent on Netflix, because it happens in 94.1 percent of them. The idea here is that old people are supportive of young love because they remember when they were that age and no one should miss out on that feeling. Except, have you ever actually met old people? Especially old people you aren’t related to? They ain’t supportive of anything except hurrying through whatever activity their social security is paying for so they can get home in time for their 3 pm nap. It’s nice to think of the elderly as grandparents to us all, but really, we’re just in the way of their nap. Go hold hands later kids, I’ve got a pack of stegosauruses to look at before I take my nap! And now I’m going to talk to you about the top pick in the 2011 draft, Kyrie Irving, and tie this all together. It’s going to blow your mind. Wait for it.

There’s something poetic about the Cavaliers earning two of the first four picks in one of the weakest drafts of the last decade after having sputtered and clanked through the 2010 season. This rookie class is so underwhelming that its number one pick will, by most accounts, not be starting in order for Baron Davis to run the floor. Boom-Dizzle: the aging unreliable with questionable work ethic and even more questionable health. He was sent packing from Golden State, sent packing from LAC and he’s starting on the worst team in basketball. That’s all you need to know about the number one pick and this rookie class in general. And yeah, the Cavs say Davis is going to be a great mentor, but they’re also simultaneously trying to sell him off and have been since the spring. I just don’t see the old-guy-takes-promising-rookie-under-his-wing story working out because, a) old guys don’t really like doing that. The more successful they are, the quicker they mentor their way out of a job, and, b) Davis doesn’t strike me as the type able to mentor himself, much less a 19-year-old top draft pick. But this is the lie the Cavs will try to sell, just like Hollywood painting the elderly as kind. Davis isn’t going to see himself in young Irving, he’s going to see his competition. Old people don’t see young love, they see a disturbance in their routine.

Either way, it’s unlikely that Irving will play more than 24-28 mpg before Davis inevitably gets hurt and only a little more likely that he’ll end up averaging more than 30 mpg by year’s end. Compare that with John Wall’s 38 mpg last season and we’re looking at a bit of a disappointment. The 6-foot-2 Duke guard has a surprisingly short wingspan and the highest percentage of body fat among incoming rookie PGs drafted in the top 15 over the last 20 years. Irving’s got an efficient shot and a solid ability from the outside, but he’s not an athletic scorer like Rose or Westbrook. He’s built more like Deron Williams, but without the skill to do most of the things Williams can do. He averaged nearly 28 mpg with Duke, which he’ll likely match this year too, but his .529/.901 percentages won’t stick and neither will his 17.5 ppg. It’s important that you enter your draft with limited expectations for Irving. If ever there was a season where the No. 1 pick was far from a lock to have the best year, this is it. You’ll get 28 mpg, .475/.850/15 pts/2 rbd/3.5 ast, with  3 stl+blk+3ptm out of him – and if you draft correctly, you’ll be happy with that. Don’t be the guy taking Irving in the seventh round when everyone else was planning to wait until the 11th.