Give Me The Rock
this is fantasy basketball
Welcome back Dwyane Wade, the Heat are glad to see you! Before the season started, Wade was projected to be out until mid-November and, low and behold, he was out until mid-November. It’s sad that I’m so amazed when an NBA player comes back from an injury on time, but here we are. Wade logged 24 minutes in his return last night, scoring 15 points, 5 assists, and 3 steals. In daily leagues, get him back in your lineup immediately. In weekly leagues, the Heat play again on Friday and Saturday, so the rust should be complete off Wade’s game by the time you get him back into your lineup for next week.
In completely unrelated news, today ESPN’s David Thorpe called Yi Jianlian the best rookie so far this year over Kevin Durant based “on [his] standardsâ€. I read the article three times and I’m still not exactly sure what his standards are, although I think it involves shooting strokes and smoothness. Still, maybe he has a point. Yi has been a huge surprise while Durant is “leading†a struggling Sonics team and is shooting 38% on the year. How about quick look at the stats (sorry, I wasn’t able to calculate a smoothness factor).
| Player | GP | Min | 3PT | REB | AS | ST | TO | BK | PTS | EFG | EFT | 8CAT | 9CAT |
| Kevin Durant | 9 | 33.6 | 1.8 | 4.9 | 1.8 | 1.3 | 3.4 | 0.8 | 20.0 | 34% | 78% | 71 | 118 |
| Yi Jianlian | 7 | 28.4 | 0.3 | 6.9 | 0.9 | 1.0 | 1.6 | 1.9 | 11.0 | 44% | 73% | 104 | 88 |
Just to clear things up, EFG = effective field goal percentage and EFT = effective free throw percentage. They are weighted percentages and put all players on a level playing field. 8CAT and 9CAT are the players’ ratings on our 8 and 9 category player raters.
The verdict? Ah, crap. It depends. If I worked for ESPN, this is the point in the post where I’d make up stuff about intangibles and how it clearly made Yi the better player. But because I do this stuff for free, I don’t feel obligated to run with an angle. As the numbers suggest, Durant and Jianlian are very different players. With 20 points and 1.8 threes, Durant has much better scoring stats. Jianlian’s defense is better as he’s averaging almost 7 rebounds and 2 blocks a game. But the real difference maker between the players is in their turnovers. For those of you in 8-cat leagues, Durant is the better player even when taking into account his horrible FG%. But if you play in a league that counts turnovers, Yi Jianlian is actually the better player as he’s averaging about 2 turnovers less a game than Durant. In fact, Durant is currently 11th in the league in turnovers per game. Overall, things are much closer than anyone probably expected at the start of the season. Durant went number 42 on average in the GMTR mock draft round-up, compared to Yi Jianlian at 142.
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