Fantasy Basketball: Tread with caution when considering early changes
THE EDGE
Welcome to The Edge.
Every week, I’m going to be digging deep into the stats to find some numbers that slip under the radar that may give you an advantage in your fantasy basketball league.
Whether that’s in making a deal with another manager or grabbing that rising prospect off the waiver wire.
We are a few days into the NBA season and already, some weird, wild, and wonderful performances are in the books. It’s important we don’t overreact at this stage, so I’ll check out how you can get The Edge by not making a catastrophic move by digging deeper into the beginning of the year.
Malcolm Brogdon’s Role
Brogdon took a back seat in his first three seasons in the league, playing in Milwaukee alongside Khris Middleton, Giannis Antetokounmpo, and Eric Bledsoe, but now, in Indiana, he is being tasked with running the show.
The result wasn’t what the Pacers wanted, but Brogdon showed out. In one game as the starting point guard, Brogdon set a career-high in free throw attempts with 11 and his previous high was just eight and came one away from his best assist night with 11 (12 in his rookie year).
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He had a usage of over 23 percent, well above career norms, and his assists rate was over double his career average. And, he has room for improvement, given he only finished one of four at the rim (over a 60 percent career finisher). He could be in for a big year with Victor Oladipo out.
PJ Washington’s Role
The writing was on the wall that Washington would be at the very least a big rotation player for the Hornets, if not a starter, but that he played 38 minutes in a big come from behind win over the Bulls is a surprise.
He also set the NBA record for most threes by a rookie on debut, hitting seven of his 11 attempts. Washington hit just 38 triples in 72 games at Kentucky, so he is about 20 percent of the way to exceeding his college totals.
With Nicolas Batum out for the next 3-4 weeks with a broken finger, Washington is going to entrench himself in the starting lineup and play big minutes for the rest of the season. He won’t be this good with his shooting, obviously, but he shouldn’t be on any waiver wires.
Mike Conley In Utah
There have only been 14 other instances of a player shooting as poorly as Conley did in his Utah debut since 1983. Only 14. So, that, coupled with the foul trouble accounts for the fact that he had just 13.5 fantasy points in Utah’s win over the Thunder.
There will be people who have Conley on their team who completely overreact to this performance, thinking that he is either washed up or doesn’t fit on the Jazz and you should be targeting those managers to try and get Conley on the cheap.
It won’t happen often that he is outplayed by Emmanuel Mudiay, so just breathe deeply and try to capitalise.
Kendrick Nunn’s Explosion
Nunn was a surprise member of the Miami Heat’s starting five with Jimmy Butler out for personal reasons and then went out and dropped 36 fantasy points, including 24 points on the court in only 27 minutes.
It would’ve been more if not for the early fouls he picked up, making Erik Spoelstra sit him down for an extended period. Now, if you haven’t been paying attention, an interesting nugget came out post-game from Spoelstra.
He said that Nunn was going to start regardless of Butler’s absence and it was actually Tyler Herro that replaced Butler. That isn’t to say that Nunn’s 30 percent usage will maintain when Butler is back, because it won’t, nor will his 50 percent shooting from deep.
In saying that, his usage in Okaland, his final season of college was over 32 percent and he shot over 39 percent from deep in his final two college seasons, so the track record as a shooter, and scorer is there.
How he fits next to Butler will be interesting, but he is ahead of Dion Waiters and it looks like it will be Nunn or Herro who could be fantasy options early in the season.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander As The Man
Shai is locked in as the Thunder’s starting shooting guard and he is definitely shooting. A career-high 26 points in 37 minutes against Rudy Gobert and the Jazz, but not a whole lot else.
Just two rebounds and one assist as Chris Paul and Dennis Schröder did most of the facilitating. SGA’s usage looks like it is going to be sky high and he took more threes in the opener than in his rookie season.
He attempted 27 percent of his shots from deep versus just 18 percent last season and converted at a high rate again.
His high usage works well in points leagues, but he will need to add some peripheral numbers to really elevate into the top 40 discussion. It could be here as the Thunder are Shai’s.
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.