Fantasy Basketball Edge: Is Kristaps Porzingis back to his best?

Christmas Day has come and gone and now, the NBA’s focus switches to the leadup to the trade deadline and All-Star Weekend. But, before that, lots of water has to flow under the fantasy bridge. Let’s look at some interesting numbers in this week’s Edge.

The old Kristaps Porziņģis is back - maybe.

Kristaps Porziņģis has received a lot of criticism this season for his play after returning from an ACL injury, but lately, his numbers have been elevated. Since Luka Dončić went down, KP has scored 49.8, 50.4, 51.6, 53.6, and 44.4 fantasy points.

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Prior to the Dončić injury, he had exceeded 50 fantasy points just three times, and then went and scored over 50 in three of five games without the Slovenian superstar. So, can we expect Porziņģis to maintain this pace as we move forward? Well, I would be very cautious.

In 236 minutes Porziņģis has played without Dončić, he has scored 1.48 fantasy points per minute with a usage of 30.2%. In the 605 minutes together, the usage dips to 23.8% and the fantasy points per minute plummets to 1.10.

Now, 1.1 is still great, but I would be significantly sceptical of Porziņģis maintain his alpha level of play when Dončić returns Friday.

Where has this Dennis Schröder been all my life?

It appeared that Schröder was out of favour in Oklahoma City. Chris Paul came in to replace Russell Westbrook and he joined Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, the team’s point guard of the future. So, was the writing on the wall? It appeared so, but Schröder has responded with his best NBA season and of late, he has been rolling.

He is your 43rd ranked fantasy player in the last two weeks averaging 37.64 points per contest. His usage over that time is at a career-high, using 32.2% of the Thunder’s possessions and his shooting is also a career-high with a true shooting percentage of 63.6 TS%.

There have been four seasons in NBA history of players exceeding 32% usage and 63% TS by Steph Curry, Kevin Durant, Giannis Antetokounmpo, and James Harden (this season) for players who have played more than 10 games.

Schröder’s run has been over five games, but even for players with limited games only 21 individual seasons have ever been recorded eclipsing those marks, and no one aside from the aforementioned four players totalled over 25 minutes of game time. So this run of Schröder is awesome, but also has no chance of continuing.

Mitchell Robinson’s foul issues persist

Robinson has been a bust this season in equal parts due to poor coaching from David Fizdale, but also due to his inability to cease fouling.

As a rookie, he averaged 5.7 fouls per 36 minutes. Usually, you would expect a player to curb their fouls as they get more experienced, but this season, Robinson is actually going at 5.8 fouls per 36, an increase, despite the fact that he is playing two more minutes per game.

Over the last month, Robinson’s minutes have risen to over 26 a game and the foul rate has dipped marginally to 5.2 per 36, which is 3.8 per game. That has also been inflated by the fact that Robinson has 17 fouls in his last three games, fouling out of two.

As often happens, a decrease in foul rate leads to a decrease in block rate and over the last month, Robinson’s blocks have come down to 2.5 per 36, from 3.1 over the season and 4.3 per 36 last season. So, while we love seeing him on the court, the more he stays out of foul trouble and minutes he plays, in general, the fewer blocks we may end up getting, which makes extrapolating his numbers a tougher task.

Jaylen Brown is making his extension look great

Brown received a large rookie contract extension in the offseason and it was roundly criticised. But in his fourth NBA season, Brown is making the Celtics’ decision look like a masterstroke.

Last season was a real down one for Brown, as he played only 26 minutes a night, posting a below-average true shooting percentage of 55% to go with his usually anaemic assist, steal, and block numbers. But, now, back in the starting lineup over Marcus Smart, things have changed.

Brown is posting career highs in fantasy points per game at 34.53, but also in three-point attempt rate, usage, true shooting percentage, PER, BPM, rebound percentage, and assist percentage. So, why has he all of sudden started accumulating assists? It’s not like they are big numbers, but 2.4 assists per game is a significant increase from his career-high two years ago of 1.6.

It’s even better in his last five, with Brown giving us 3.2 assists per game. Last year with Kyrie Irving on the team, Brown just didn’t touch the ball as much, averaging only 17.5 passes per game.

This year, that number is all the way up to 29.4. Having the ball more and passing it more will lead to more assists, so this increase shouldn’t be considered a temporary blip.

Gary Payton is back in the NBA

No, not that Gary Payton, but his son, Gary Payton II, who has played 32 games in the last three years for multiple teams. This year, he appeared on a significantly undermanned Wizards’ roster and put up an eye-popping stat line in his first game.

He scored 10 points, grabbed 11 rebounds, had five assists and a mind-blowing six steals for 46.7 fantasy points in 34 minutes. So, we rush to grab him yeah? Well not really.

I want to focus on his steal rate. Over the first two years of his career, 29 games, Payton has had a steal rate of 1.5 percent. In his four games for the Wizards, three last year and one this year, Payton’s steal rate is at 8.4 percent. That is obviously a huge discrepancy.

The highest steal rate any player has ever had in the NBA in a season with more than 10 games played was Darrell Armstrong at 7.7% back in 95-96 in a total of 41 minutes. In fact, only 17 players have had a steal rate above 5.0% and only two pf those players played 1000 minutes.

So, it’s a great start from Payton, and he is undoubtedly a defensive pest, but those steals cannot be maintained, and once Isaiah Thomas and Jordan McRae are back, the minutes will drop as well.

Every week, I’ll be looking at some weird trends across the NBA and seeing what they mean, so make sure you’re checking out The Edge, here every Friday.