Efficient Improvement FTW

Posted by Henry on October 18, 2010 · 1 Comment 

Field Goal % is the most underrated category from my little understanding of fantasy basketball. Last night when I was up doing mock drafts I noticed this most in the middle of the 7th round when Channing Frye, Lamar Odom and Trevor Ariza all went in a row. I was gobsmacked. C’mon people, pay some attention. You will often hear about the 10 from 13 effort by random player X but what you never hear are the constant 6 from 14 efforts which slowly destroy your team week after week (*cough* Caron Bulter)

This season there have been some changes to players who normally would be a FG% black hole. I’ve got my take below, including some players who might be regressing this season as well.

Winners

Aaron Brooks: AB already had a massive jump in field goal percentage last season (up 2.8%) to 43.2%. But that is still super low and with 16.2 attempts per game, downright nasty for your teams efficiency. This season, Yao Ming is back in the middle. Kevin Martin is around for a full season. Brooks doesn’t have to be THE guy anymore or carry a team for long stretches. He can get it done when required, have more open looks from deep and won’t have to force shots up that aren’t there. His attempts per game might take a hit, but it is sure to do wonders for his efficiency. Another big jump (45%+) is a real possibility.

Hedo Turkoglu: The Turkish Jordan is renowned for shooting brick after brick, which he can do every night. In Toronto last season, he was a terrible 41% on 9.1 attempts per game. Basically, he was not really feeling it in Canada and should be very happy to return to south of the border. With Nash running the team still, Hedo will have a role. Unlike Brooks, he doesn’t have the talent surrounding him to make his life easier yet in my eyes, you just can’t be that bad again. He is never going to turn into Nene yet you can expect an improvement to about 43-4% on 12-13 attempts per night.

Brandon Jennings: Ugh. That is the one word to describe his season in terms of efficiency last season. The kid can score (55 points never went astray). But 37% on nearly 15 shots per game is an absolute category killer in it’s own right. You would need Pau Gasol and Dwight Howard just to balance it out to something respectable. This one falls into the Turkoglu category in that this will never happen again. The Bucks have got new talent (Maggette, Gooden) who can score when given the opportunity. Last season it was just Jennings and Bogut. This season there is the added experience factor plus others to help out. He’s still going to shoot poorly relative to other point guards however it will be a lot less worse than last go around. 42% on 16 attempts.

Eric Gordon: Gordon already has a +45% career field goal percentage over 140 games. Impressive for a shooting guard playing with the Clippers. He has never been a go to option but has always been there to gather points at a pretty decent clip (about 16 per game). Due to his injury last year, we never saw that sophomore jump which is so common in the league. He was in and out of the team and playing hurt. The best indicator is that his confidence was way down (a 6% drop in FT% demonstrates this easily). His experience on Team USA and his more prominent role on the team will see his scoring increase alongside a better rate. I am thinking a typical Ray Allen season of about 18 points, 46-47% shooting and 2+ threes made. You could do a lot worse at the shooting guard spot.

O.J Mayo: Here are some facts about O.J Mayo. He has not missed a game in the NBA. Despite playing a reduced role on his team in his second season, his stats did not decrease. His FG% jumped 2 points last season to 45.8% despite not attempting any additional threes. This things all point to a marque season for the guard out of USC. As a young player, his additional experience will start to gather, he has shown he can co-exist with Rudy Gay on the floor. I’m betting Zach Randolph and Marc Gasol don’t prove to have the same combined season they did last year. 45.8 is already a pretty high figure but I think Mayo can touch 47% this season on a similar number of shots as last year, making him one of the most efficient shooting guards around. It’s such a pity he doesn’t have PG eligibility this season for all those people out there who love to punt assists (try Jamal Crawford instead)

Losers (just quickly)

Everyone here loses because of a teammate and the subsequent change in team environment.

Mo Williams will be asked to perform heavy minutes this season with an extremely heavy workload. No LeBron means more defensive pressure and less open looks, camping out in the corner for three. It’s just going to be nasty efficiency wise but he should make up for it with other increases. I also think the same thing will happen to Deron Williams. Sure, he is still a first round pick, but you can’t under-estimate the bond him and Carlos Boozer had on the pick n’ roll. Al Jefferson is a completely different player who will take a lot of getting used to and one area this will affect is his FG%. Channing Frye plays a position which demands a low FG%. The Suns motley collection of forwards (Hedo, Hakim Warrick, Josh Childress) aren’t going to get the job done like Amar’e could. Nash needs people to give the ball to but Frye is going to see so much pressure rushing at him whenever he jacks a long ball, it will take it’s toll. Finally, Andrea Bargnani is in the same position. Except 1000 times worse. Chris Bosh might be underrated this season in fantasy but he was the heart and soul of that offense. A lot of people are talking up Bargnani this year but please factor in the inevitable drop off in FG% which results in the added pressue to be the number one option, with a total lack on inside game and inability to draw fouls. It’s going to be long ball after long ball and it’s not going to be pretty most nights.

Filed under Draft, Off-Season 2010, Player Comparison · Tagged with , , , , , , , ,

Some (of the many) myths about the 2010-11 Fantasy Basketball Season

Posted by Henry on July 28, 2010 · 1 Comment 

“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.

—

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.

http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/blog/ball_dont_lie/post/Video-Kids-have-no-idea-how-much-money-NBA-play?urn=nba-258470

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.

Filed under Musings, Off-Season 2010 · Tagged with , , , , , , ,