Welcome back friends to what marks the home stretch of the fantasy basketball season. I’m not sure if that’s official, but we try not to do anything here officially at Razz, so I’ll just call it like I see it, and there is roughly about a third of the season left. I have no idea if that’s true, but it looks true, so we’re committed. At first, I wanted to do a rest of season rankings, but then I thought, why not type about the general landscape of the NBA currently? The SEO Gods always approve more content! Plus, this is way better than getting into arbitrary verbal knife fights about having Kawhi Leonard over Jayson Tatum… (just joking, or am I?)
Regardless, here are some random notes as we slowly head to the fantasy (and NBA) playoffs…
So I’ll admit, the star of Trae Young has generally kinda faded a bit, but I’m not sure it necessarily his fault. One of the many stars to come out of that ridiculous 2018 draft (ridicolous because of all the star power or because Deandre Ayton was taken first overall?), Young has been eclipsed by many of his peers either in production, playoff success or both. Young so far is putting up a great slash, averaging around 26/3/11 on 43/37/86 splits. Pretty darn good if you ask me. Obviously Dejounte Murrey hasn’t been the answer, but maybe Young, like his fellow draft-mate Luka, just needs a couple more dudes who can play ball. Until then though, I think this season has taught me that it isn’t that Young is getting worse, it’s just that the Hawks aren’t getting any better.
It’s been a unique year for James Harden, and while he’s taken a step back statistically (21/6/11 last season to this year’s 17/5/8) he still remains a contributor in all fantasy categories and is pretty much the glue that keeps the Clippers together, which is a scary thought. As one of the few dozens of Clippers fans, I can confirm that Harden is getting to his stats in different ways, and it isn’t really age, nor skill that are dampening his numbers, its his role and extreme habit at this point to facilitate, or maybe a better word is to evacuate the ball to Paul George or Kawhi Leonard as many times as possible. Sure, his rapport with Zubacs on the pick and roll is only getting nastier, but this Harden is playing like he wants to win a Chip, not your fantasy championship, so just something to keep in mind.
Damian Lillard is pretty much the proverbial sports roller coaster, and it’s not like this was some sort of mystery. It has always been a constant battle between Lame Time and Dame Time, so is it just the new spotlight this year? I mean, just a great recent example, against the hobbled Grizzlies a couple weeks ago, he goes /-for-21 and 3/13 on three points with four turnovers only to turn it around and go +37 against the Sixers and 8-for-15 in the field and four threes. While it’s easy to point to his off-the-court messes, like his divorce, moving to a new city, these things probably do play a factor. Even though Doc Rivers is a walking meme for a lot of different subjects, perhaps some stability from a “players coach” could help. Or maybe he’s just old and busted, but I just don’t think we’ll know until we see the entire body of work. Or until Giannis wants to fire another coach again.
Just us next time for interesting thoughts on Kuminga, the Warriors resurgence, some Kyrie Irving sightings in the wild, and what is really going on with Jordan Poole?
