13 Predictions
I see lots of lists everywhere I look on basketball blogs at the moment. The internet + fantasy + basketball = lists. Why aren’t I getting in on that action I asked myself? Probably because I don’t do anything the easy way was the response. BUt times, they are a changing. So here is a proper list, with an arbitrary number of points on a specific subject.
13) Kevin Martin will play more games than Gilbert Arenas and also have more fantasy value. Boom. Take that email argument from two days ago. This came out of a discussion with my Gilbert Arenas loving house-mate who thinks that Arenas is about to turn into the next incarnation of Pistol Pete Maravich. Apparently when John Wall is the savior, miraculous things happen to players who have lost their way. I call absolute balony on the grandest of scales. I do think Arenas will provide fantasy value but a top 5 SG? Nope. Lead the league in 3PTM? Nope. He will continue to shoot a terrible clip for FT% and manage a way above average TO rate for a SG. Kevin Martin on the other hand is about to light it up, Rockets style. He is playing for a smart coach and embedded in the highest basketball IQ team in the league. He has zero pressure on his shoulders with Yao and Brooks running the show. I can easily see 20+ points per night, with multiple threes, a wicked FT% and best of all, a career high FG%. He will miss time but 70+ games is to be expected.
12) DeMarcus ‘Boogie’ Cousins will win fantasy rookie of the year. This is mainly because of what he won’t do, as opposed to what he will do. John Wall will also put up big numbers, but like every rookie point guard to ever have played, his FG% will be somewhere in the dirt and his turnover numbers will be through the roof. Cousins has the advantage of being a big man who comes in as the most NBA ready rookie of those selected in the lottery. For fantasy, this means relatively low turnovers, higher FG% while still doing things like score, board and block. There are no negatives here people unless he has a brain explosion. The more I see of Cousins, the more I get this feeling that Sac-Town are going to fall in love with him and Evans running the place ragged. While he might initially battle for minutes, by Week 6 he will be playing 30+ night in, night out. You can’t keep a good thing down.
11) Chris Bosh, Dwyane Wade and LeBron James will all average within 4 points of each other. Every time the Heat get mentioned, all I see are camera flashes and smirks on faces accompanied by a loud groan from the NBA masses. It has already reached that point. However this is not just a story about one player. Or two. It’s going to be about all three. People will look back and Chris Bosh could well be the reason why this all worked out fine, or why it all crashed in flames. He has to want it at least a thousand times more than his play in Toronto suggests. He will get his points in all kinds of manners which we can’t even understand yet. Left unguarded under the basket, dropping 18 foot jump shots with no-one chasing him down, alley-oops from distance. This season will have it all for Chris Bosh and that means points, points and more points. I’ll put it officially at 22.9 per game, which would be more than enough to stay within the margin of Wade and James. It also makes him a very attractive fantasy option, one of a handful of 20/10 guys out there. He still probably can’t block, but those points will be some of the most efficient in the league.
Baby Davis didn't make the cut for 2010-11 predictions
10) Jameer Nelson will storm back into some form and be one of those pesky point guards that seems to have a blinding week for your opponent but against no-one else. Two seasons ago, despite playing only 42 games, Nelson was the bee’s knees as a second tier point guard. He has never been one for a cache of assists but he has the ability to turn it on when required. In that 2008-09 season, he averaged 2 3ptm, 1+ steal and amazing efficiency. His drop off has been pretty substantial since then, as he struggled with injury and the arrival of Vince Carter. But Nelson is the glue guy for Orlando this season. Carter hasn’t proved anything and may get moved before the deadline. Rashard Lewis is stuck in major funk from which I don’t think there is an escape. The thing is, this Magic team is only good enough when it really counts when Jameer is in top gear. Chris Duhon and Jason Williams are capable but small spells will be the order of the day. If the rumors about Dwight Howard’s offensive game (I think I’ve heard this one before though) are true, it’s only going to contribute. I’m not advocating you take Nelson anywhere in particular for your squads just that he’ll bounce back and cause some pain for opponents at some point during this season. He is too good not too.
9) The proliferation of the 1-1-1 guy. Last season we only saw two players actually record more than 1 three, 1 steal and 1 block every game over the course of the season and they are called Durant and James. Many others were close, but close sorta don’t cut it in my books. This season, there will be a rash of 1-1-1 players crowing their talents from the treetops. A certainty you can add to the list is Dwyane Wade. But let us focus on some more low key guys. Whatever you think about Channing Frye, as he seems to be a pretty polarising player in fantasy circles, he should average more than 27 minutes a game and in turn, nudge up his steals (0.8) and blocks (0.9) from last season to walk on hallowed turf. Andrea Bargnani should easily make this list but can’t steal a ball worth a damn. Last season he only managed 0.3 per game. Lazy? Perhaps but if he is going to be ‘da man’ in Toronto, this will have to change. There are a pair of Knicks (Gallo and Azubuike) who will be there about. If you are a Rudy Gay believer (and I’m not) then his 0.8 3ptm and 0.8 blocks totals are disappointing for a player of his ability but I don’t see him busting many balls on the court given his massive pay day. The most promising candidates though are those who were short, but only managed to play limited minutes. Nic Batum and Michael Beasley fit the bill here. And a flier? Troy Murphy only averages 0.4 blocks per game but playing alongside Brook Lopez and coming across with help defense could, in some far off fairy land, bump this total up.
8) Serge Ibaka will start for the Thunder and become the Chris Anderson for the next decade. The playoff series against the Lakers was Ibaka’s coming out party. Despite losing that series, Air Congo as he is affectionately known to OKC supporters was a monster. Against the best big combination in the league and the eventual NBA champions, Ibaka held his own defensively for long periods of time (25 minutes per game) over the 6 games. He isn’t exactly an offensive mega star in waiting but with Durant and Westbrook as teammates it’s not exactly an issue. But he can block. And block and block. So, instead of picking Chris Anderson with that 11th round pick, aim for Ibaka in the 10th instead just to make sure you nab him.
7) Old guys will continue to make fools of the haters out there. I’m talking mostly about three guys. Marcus Camby, Steve Nash and Jason Kidd. For the past two years I have been railing against anyone who brings their names up, deriding them for believing in players who cannot keep doing what they do. Yet they keep on keeping on regardless of what anybody says. Perhaps this is my personal mea culpa, an apology to what I believe have been overrated old fantasy stars but in reality they are just plain fantasy stars like everyone else. Steve Nash led the league in assists last year. Marcus Camby finished the season with a top 25 overall fantasy rank regardless of what system you use. Jason Kidd has missed 3 games in the past 2 seasons while throwing down three pointers with alarming regularity (+2 per game) and amazing accuracy (+40%), not to mention the 9+ assists and 5+ boards. Each of these guys have slid down draft boards over the past month because of concerns about age but what makes this year so much different? Nothing.
Steve Nash as he was originally intended
6) Twitter will make you more competitive in your league. If you are reading this blog, you probably know what twitter is. That said, unless you are a junkie, this isn’t going to apply to you. You know those people, scanning their phones every 15 seconds not because they got a text message from an actual friend but because they racked up another 3 @ replies. Those people. Well, they have an advantage over you and your reliance on Rotoworld to update you on the latest player movements, injuries and form. You are officially 1-2 hours behind the twitterati who if this were last season, have already picked up Darren Collison as Chris Paul is still sitting on courtside wondering what just happened. Twitter explodes at key moments because someone is always watching the news as it’s happening and this news spreads like wide fire, first on Twitter then to other parts of the internet and finally to the mainstream. If you think catching the scores on SportsCenter when you get home is going to cut it in 2010-11 for your fantasy news, you have another thing coming my friend.
5) Elton Brand will be the player who most outperforms his Average Draft Position. I know this is a big call considering it’s normally some rookie or super back up who was not even drafted in the vast majority of leagues, but I think Brand is just going to kill it this season. This comes from someone who dislikes watching 76er games so much, if it happens to be one of the two televised games that week in Australia, it doesn’t get tivo’d. Doug Collins is on the record as a big Brand supporter. He is fully recovered from his injury. All signs point to a massive boast. One the other side, his name is often mentioned as a 4th or 5th option at PF and nowhere I read is even the least bit excited in him. Perhaps wisely, but I don’t understand how a player with as much talent as he obviously does can continue to suck for so long. 34+ minutes, 19/9 with 2+ blocks.
4) As opposed to the above, Paul Pierce will be the most disappointing player related to his ADP. On the latest yahoo big board he is late 4th round. Pierce was a great player. He led his team when it was going through the worst era of the franchise. He led the league in scoring. He adapted his game when necessary over the past three seasons. But he looks OLD. With KG fit and better than ever (compared to the last two seasons anyway), Rondo taking on more and more responsibility and the combination of Ray Allen and Nate Rob in the backcourt and Shaq and Jermaine O’Neal in the front spells the least reliance on Pierce since he was a rookie. He will still get minutes, still do that annoying head fake, draw the contact crap that has been his bread and butter for years but the excitement and the bang for your buck is way over. 14-15 points with filler (2-3 assists, 3-4 boards, 1.2 3ptm) is fine for the Celtics this season but the problem is, that’s not 4th round material.
A picture tells 1000 words
3) Kid Delicious (aka Kevin Durant) will be the most dominant fantasy player since Garnett’s 2003-04 season. The gap between KD and whoever ends up as the 2nd option is going to be spectacular (barring injury). Sure, he is a consensus number one pick everywhere you look, but his dominance is going to be unbelievable. Box scores are literally going to explode with goo half way through the 3rd quarter. I’m big on going over the top, so let’s not stop at the 2000 word count. Toss out the pencil, grab your permanent marker and write this down: 33 points, 9.5 boards, 50/40/90 with 1.8 threes, 3+ steals/blocks. Eat it Chris Paul. (post script: as I was finishing this post up, this was on twitter about KD and partying. EXACTLY why he is number 1)
2) Tyreke Evans will play beautiful, exquisite basketball for the Kings but this will not translate into first round talent. I just saw this tweet from Steve Alexander (head of Rotoworld NBA) saying that he is going late first round/early second round in all of his drafts. Which makes me sick. There is no doubt he is an ungodly talent on the basketball court but one quarter of pre-season hoops against the Clippers does not mean he can shoot threes or make free-throws all season long. Sorry, just the truth.
1) Luol Deng will continue his domination of Rashard Lewis. This one is for my boy Jason over at fbasketballblog who is forever doubting the talents of Britain’s greatest export. If you are still reading, I’m sorry to end on such a middle of the road kind of thing but this is going to become my singular achievement for the season after the inevitable collapse of my fantasy teams by about week 15. Deng has been biding his time but now it has arrived. He has always flirted with being a major piece of the puzzle and now that Derrick Rose has matured a little, Joakim Noah is a beast in the middle and Kyle Korver is running around jacking threes, Deng is left to hit his stride and carry his load on offense. While Rashard Lewis might be making $19.5 MILLION US DOLLARS this season (this point needs to be emphasised over and over again with every bricked three point attempt), he cannot compete!
Some (of the many) myths about the 2010-11 Fantasy Basketball Season
“Surely nobody saw the sorry collection of talent I overpaid to assemble proceed to underachieve spectacularly. At least, I hope nobody saw that.”
According to Doc Funk, this is what Bryan Colangelo is saying when he talks about the ‘failings’ of Chris Bosh. More power to you Mr Funk. But to totally take this quote out of perspective, it applies to so many other things in life apart from bad Toronto Raptor player contracts. Like fantasy picks. Over-priced, half-baked players (not just Michael Beasley) who get by on past achievements and their good looks (and not just Joakim Noah). The rankings have started to appear but the mainstream, like everything else mainstream, often gets the easiest things wrong because popularity trumps smarts these days in almost every arena. So let’s break down some of the myths about certain fantasy players for the upcoming season.
Tyreke Evans > Rondo/Kidd: This just doesn’t add up for me. The Kings have all of a sudden become a pretty impressive list. They have added a legit power forward beast in DeMarcus Cousins who is going to be demanding the ball. Carl Landry is slotting in off the bench. Sam Dalembert is going have a ridiculous TRB%. At the start of last year it was the Jason Thompson sleeper contest. This year he is hardly talked about, indicating their depth. Francesco Garcia is back from his bouncy ball injury and Omri Casspi has grown up another year and is ready to showcase in cities apart from just New York. Evans isn’t going to get the opportunity to go improve on his 20/5/5 which by the way, was ONLY achieved because the whole organisation from the GM and coach down were spoon feeding him minutes to get to those stats. In March, he averaged a minute and a half more than his season average, despite playing for a team without a chance at making the playoffs. Everyone marks down Derrick Rose not being able to hit three’s, but Evans only managed .5 per game. Plus at the guard, like Rondo, he is destroying your FT% (75% on 6.5 per). The difference? Rondo is a legitimate triple double threat every single night whereas Evans is still learning the game on a beefed up team. Let it be clear. I’m not Evans hater. I just don’t see him above Kidd or Rondo on the PG pecking order this season. Point guards are meant to steal and get assists. Extra scoring and boards never hurt anyone, but if you can’t do the fundamentals of your position to an extremely high standard, you lose marks and fantasy value in my books.
Gilbert Arenas anywhere near Mo Williams (as seen on the Buser big board): This scares me. If there is only one player who could symbolize a Do Not Draft list, it would be Arenas. Two seasons destroyed by knee injuries. One season destroyed by gun charges. At least when Yao goes down he does it with style. Mo Williams has never been the man. He only lasted one season at the Jazz and with the Bucks there was always someone in front of him (Michael Redd of all people). Of course, at the Cavs all he has had to do is occasionally bring the ball up, knock down a couple of free throws per game and camp outside the three point line. This all changes. Mo Williams is THE MAN in Cleveland. Antwan Jamison is too old, J.J Hickson is too young. He is going to have a major season. And everyone is going to wait for him to fall for them. Be brave, take him early. And if you are even thinking about Arenas before the late 5th round, go watch some John Wall mix tapes and get back to me.
Paul Millsap not being awesome: If the last one scared me, this CBS ranking page is like a all consuming black hole. Now I know CBS uses some whacky points based system which is impossible to understand, but here are a few of the names of the ‘forwards’ before Millsap (who comes in at #56… not total… excluding all guards and centers). Corey Brewer; Thad Young; Shawn Marion; Grant Hill; and my personal favorite, the afore mentioned Jason Thompson at #47. Now Millsap isn’t going to light it up this season even with Boozer having exited stage right. Okur and Al Jefferson will soak up minutes, but this is the same Millsap who played in every game last season and managed 11.6 points/6.8 boards/1.2 blocks with 53% from the field in less than 28 minutes. With more opportunity (and that’s what he will get this season), these numbers will spike. But even if they didn’t, that list of hacks still shouldn’t be appearing on any rankings list come October.
Cheer up Perk, you don't have to sit with Mr. Glum anymore (Photo by Christian Petersen/Getty Images North America)
Bill Walker playing more minutes than Kelenna Azubuike: You remember Bill Walker right? Sure you do. Celtics bench warmer. Good at looking glum. Has crazy eyes. Well, he arrived in NYC last season and found out that he was actually allowed on the court long enough to score some points. However, this Yahoo depth chart (dated 29 July) must be some sort of sycophant because it has him as the starting two guard! Sheesh. I guess all that time backing up Ray Allen must have taught him to shoot right? Well he did manage to knock down some three’s in the 27 games he did play but this was because Chris Duhon was the next best shooter after Gallo. But now this Knicks team doesn’t need Walker and his ability to mop up minutes while others are injured or should not be playing. Azubuike though, he can straight up ball. Injured for the majority of last season with the Warriors, the year before he was an actual effective player. 32 minutes per game, 14 and 5, with near 1-1-1 extras. Nothing to jump up and down about, but a lot more than anything you will see from Bill Walker this season.
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In some non-fantasy stuff. I just want to say, there are some very funny people on the internet. I know this stuff has probably been seen before, but it makes me laugh and on the off chance others haven’t seen it, check it out.
Followed closely by;
http://jeskeets.tumblr.com/post/866956695/kids-have-no-idea-how-much-money-nba-players-make
The real reason CP3 is staying with the Hornets.
Other basketball related stuff;
Best contracts under $40m by Hardwood P.
Fantasy outlook for the Rockets by GMTR.
And best of all, three fantasy experts (no, really) in the form of Jeff Andriesse, Tom Lorenzo and Greg Fox are having a live blog in about 3 hours by my count (Noon, American Eastern Standard Time). Check it out at Damn Lies and Statistics.
