Give Me The Rock

this is fantasy basketball 

Your Enthusiasm is Contagious

Author Icon for Patrick

Categorized as: Diatribes, Fantasy Basketball
Posted on: November 5th, 2006

It’s only two games, but maybe we all were a little too enthusiastic to jump on the Josh Smith bandwagon. In Smith’s case, there was some evidence (namely, actual games last year) to suggest that he could play as a top 25 caliber player for a stretch of games. What there wasn’t; evidence that he could play at that high level for an entire year. Still, over the course of the summer and fall, many “experts” out there had him consistently high on their lists and draft sheets. And BAM – he became a consensus 2nd to 3rd round pick after a good month and a half to end last season.

If it’s tough enough to predict a guy’s performance based upon experience, then to do it based on speculation is folly. I’m referring to the sleeper lists that bombard us each October, predicting breakout players using some mysteriously set of criteria like “opportunity”, “experience”, and “potential”. Of course, we all like these lists and use them to inform us for our drafts. But, do these lists actually help? For example, what if you used this sleeper list last year to fill out your 2005 draft?

To summarize, the following 10 sleepers appeared on the above list. I’ve put their final 05/06 player rank in parenthesis.

1. Stromile Swift (210)
2. Damon Stoudamire (113 in 27 games)
3. Al Jefferson (203)
4. Luol Deng (95)
5. Shaun Livingston (172)
6. Zaza Pachulia (104)
7. T.J. Ford (84)
8. Marc Jackson (291)
9. Raja Bell (62)
10. J.R. Smith (233)

Or, what if you used this sleeper and bust list?

Top 5 Sleepers

1) T.J. Ford (84)
2) Tyson Chandler (145)
3) Shaun Livingston (172)
4) Josh Howard (83)
5) Nenad Krstic (117)

Top 5 Busts

1) Antoine Walker (112)
2) Chris Webber (32)
3) Marvin Williams (212)
4) Joe Johnson (23)
5) Damon Stoudamire (113 in 27 games)

Putting aside the fact that Stoudamire appeared both as a sleeper and a bust and that I wouldn’t have considered TJ Ford a sleeper last year, one probably would have been better off actively ignoring these lists going into a draft. Looking at the first list, if you managed to grab three of those 10 players, chances are that 1 would have been merely worth the pick, while 2 would have been outright busts. The second list isn’t any better – steering people away from both Webber and Johnson – while providing a list of sleepers who I can only describe as “meh”. You completely get what I mean, right? I’m not trying to pick on anyone in particular, I’m sure if I had made a list of sleepers (I didn’t), I guarantee it wouldn’t have been any better. The point is that you should be dubious of all these sleeper/bust lists. They are almost always built upon speculation and personal opinion. Enjoy them, criticize them, just don’t take these lists too seriously.

Other Stuff Like This:

  • Hello

    Please check out www.atmosfootwear.com for the latest styles of Authentic Nike shoes including the very popular Nike Air force 1’s and Air Jordans

    Thanks
  • Very nice analysis. I bit on Josh Smith too, but in my opinion, it's too early to tell anything.
  • Ben - you have more foresight and restraint than I do. I ended up with Smith in a couple of my leagues (I also picked him in the GMTR mock draft) and he is indeed off to a slow start. Although he had a nice game this afternoon - I’m going to have my fingers crossed that he at least gets close to that high draft pick this year.

    John – Thanks for the comment. I’ve been to your site before and I hope you keep up the good work too. It’s a good time to be a fan of the NBA because there’s a lot of interesting writers and sites out there and more show up every day.

    Also, I agree that Gooden will be a solid player this year, but whether he’s a sleeper or not depends on your definition of a sleeper. Some people like to find guys no one has every heard of or would never draft, while, on the other hand, Gooden is pretty much a known commodity. The important thing is that he’ll likely be better than the spot where he’s drafted.
  • will strom really be that good? i think the fantasy sleeper honestly will be Drew Gooden... please dont laugh it off because he will be the best double double player you can get in the league who wont be in demand.

    Love your blog. i am starting to read it every day. check out my site. http://nbajunkie.com

    take care and keep up the great work. i think it is quite hard to write good material and lengthy material everyday.
  • Ben
    I need to brag about this, since I was all over it from the start: Josh Smith's play this year was predictable. There was a history behind it. Everyone saw his incredible April last year and said "Wow, he can do this every game." But they didn't look at the April before.

    Last year I took Smith in the later rounds of my fantasy draft, on the strength of his rookie year April play. He had averaged 16-9-2, with 2 blocks and 1 steal a game that April. "If he could do it then, why not during the year?" I reasoned.

    Of course, he got off to a horrible start, and in the end I dropped him (for Boris Diaw, no less). But the point was, I had learned my lesson - I was not going to get sucked in, like thousands of fantasy players, by another seductive Josh Smith April.

    It happened again. To me it's no surprise, just how much attention he got. He put up similar numbers in last year's April to the April of his rookie campaign, yet more people seemed to notice now.

    Sucks for them. I get to gloat.
blog comments powered by Disqus