Punt Specialists, 2017 Fantasy Basketball

KRAMER: Wide open, I was wide open underneath! I had three inches on that guy. You two were hogging the ball.
GEORGE: Me? It wasn’t me. I never even saw the ball. All you do is dribble.
JERRY: I have to dribble, if I give it to you, you just shoot. You’re a chucker.
GEORGE: Oh, I’m a chucker.
JERRY: That’s right, every time you get the ball you shoot.
GEORGE: I can’t believe you called me a chucker. No way I’m a chucker, I do not chuck, never chucked, never have chucked, never will chuck, no chuck!
JERRY: You chuck.
GEROGE: Kramer, am I a chucker?
KRAMER: You’re a chucker.
GEORGE: All these years I’ve been chuckin’ and you’ve never told me?
JERRY: Well it’s not an easy thing to bring up.

You’re a punter. It’s not an easy thing to bring up. But you are. The good news is that your opponents are, too, but they may not know it yet. No, you probably didn’t plan to punt a category. But, at this point in the season? Yes, you should be punting at least one category. It might be because you’re out of the running in assists in your roto league. Maybe you’re just stuck in the middle, 300 rebounds behind the team ahead of you, and 300 ahead of the team behind you. Or, in head-to-head, you’ve seen your playoff opponent’s team, and you know you’ll double that team’s threes easily, while it’s even clearer that you have no chance to compete in FG%. You are now punting those categories that can’t help or hurt you. You can use the word ignoring instead, if that helps. You’re not trying to get players that are bad at the categories that no longer matter. You just don’t care about them anymore. So, it’s going to take a bit more work to figure out who’s worth more to your team now. That’s where today’s Run The Numbers comes in.

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Last week, I gave you some of the best pickups for help in each individual category. This week, I’m presenting the best pickups based on removing each category. It’s certainly not foolproof, as there’s a ton of fluctuation right now in playing time but, I looked at Basketball Monster’s rankings over the past 30 days, and I extracted some of the top players available in at least 50% of Yahoo leagues. I’m starting with the 8-Category and 9-Category (includes turnovers) rankings, as these are pretty much all the players you’ll see listed in the punt rankings below them. Now, if you know that your team can ignore multiple categories, remember that you can do that yourself without much trouble. You can at least compare players using the ESPN Player Rater after subtracting the values from your punt categories. Keep watching the recent action, too, as someone like Jonathan Isaac could be the difference-maker you need. Anyway, if you know a category you can ignore, find it below, and see if any of the corresponding players are available in your league.