Give Me The Rock
this is fantasy basketball
At this point in the season, I believe that there is no real contender to Dwight Howard’s being the Best Big Man in the NBA. I called him out as a fantasy force over at Points in the Paint early in the pre-season and addressed his definitive advantage in the head to head format while admitting that he is still a rotisserie liability. I had him floating just outside the TOP 10-12 guys in my Top 72 players for head to head. As of December 1st, my list’s last update, I probably too generously placed him at 8th. Which reminds me… I’ll be updating my head to head mini-Big Board soon.
Dwight is the hands down best big ball strategy core player so far into this season. In general, free throw percentage is given up in the strategy so Dwight’s “drawback” in that cat is far less painful in head to head as compared to roto.
It’s the BLOCKS baby!
images via www.orlandosentinel.com through Yahoo! images
His immense fantasy power today comes from the leap in his blocking average. From 2.2 last season to 3.2 this year.
Check out his line-to-date: 20.2 PPG, 13.8 RPG, 1.5 APG, 1.0 SPG, 3.2 BPG, 57.8 FG% (12.1 attempts), 58 FT% (10.9 attempts), 2.7 TOs, through 36:12 MPG
Other notable contending big men are:
Marcus Camby: 12.1 PPG, 13.9 RPG, 2.1 APG, 1.0 SPG, 2.7 BPG, 50.2 FG% (9.4 attempts), 72.2 FT% (3.7 attempts), 1.6 TOs
Andris Biedrins: 13.9 PPG, 12.0 RPG, 2.0 APG, 1.3 SPG, 1.7 BPG, 55.8 FG% (10.2 attempts), 55.7 FT% (4.6 attempts), 2.0 TOs
Tim Duncan: 20.4 PPG, 10.1 RPG, 3.6 APG, o.5 SPG, 1.8 BPG, 51.4 FG% (15.6 attempts), 68.7 FT% (6.3 attempts), 2.2 TOs
Fine, he no longer has a perfect NBA attendance record on his sheet, but his stat bumps are worth it – fantasy value-wise.
Combine Dwight with anyone of these 3 and you’ve got yourself a definitive dominant edge in the big man numbers in fantasy head to head. Personally speaking, I would prefer to have paired him up with TD. Their combined shot volume from the field will give almost any team an almost sure W in the FG cat.
Enter…
The “Double -D” combo of Dwight and Duncan:
I know of at least 3 fantasy managers who have chosen to build their fantasy teams around D-Ho and Timmy-D. Combining these 2 guys give those teams what I call a consolidation of power and resources. Which basically means needing less players to dominate key categories of choice. This concept is even more valuable and important in deeper leagues. Hmm… I think I should write about this in more depth in a separate post. Anyway… Yes, one of those 3 guys is in my 18-man head to head league. You can imagine how he’s been owning the other teams in the big man cats!
We are pretty much in week 12 of 24 in the head to head calendar – the half way mark. It’s time for the cellar dwellers to make their key trades and moves to get their teams’ butts in gear for that second half push. If you’re playing the big man game and you own Dwight on your fantasy team, kudos to you on your choice. Build around him and you’ve got a solid base for the big cats.
I personally think Dwight was really planning on doing a lot more shot blocking this season. Here he is talking about the “The Art of the Block” in an interview sometime before the season began.
I sadly didn’t get to build any big ball teams around Dwight this season. But you can now officially consider me a “D-Ho” for him for next year, if ever I decide to go the big man strategy!
To make this an official GMTR take, here are what Nels and Patrick have to say about Dwight Howard and his season so far:
Nels
Okay, I’ll admit it: Dwight is a lot higher than I expected him to be this season. He’s at number 21 and 11 on the player rater (depending if you have turnovers of not), both of which are higher than his average ranking on the mock draft spreadsheet, and a lot higher than both Patrick and I had him on our Big Board (which was at 55).
His numbers are what I expected, with the sole exception of the 3.2 blocks per game, and really, I think that’s what’s got him that high up the rankings. Player Raters love defense, and 3.2 blocks a game is bordering on the believability of a Gossip Girl plot line. I mean, he’s beating Marcus Camby by more than a half a block per game.
Hindsight is 20/20, as they say, but Howard would have been a much better 3rd round pick in the 10-team Battle of the Bloggers League than my pick of David West (adding to LeBron James and Al Jefferson).
Patrick
The majority of the talk about Dwight Howard going into the season (at least coming out of GMTR) had to do with Dwight Howard’s free throw percentage and how it affected his value. I’ll do something dangerous and actually look back at the Dwight Howard prediction from our player guide:
“It’s hard to say if he can best position 73, though, since he doesn’t seem like he’s going to improve his FT shooting, and his turnovers are still very high. I would go as high as late 4th round if you believe in his upside.”
Ouch. That is what you call a buy oil before it hits $200 a barrel type prediction. Not our best moment. Interestingly enough, Howard has spit in our faces by NOT improving his free throw percentage at all and yet becoming a great fantasy player (at least through this point in the season). He’s shooting 58% from the line in 08-09 compared to 60% last season. Most of his other stats are on par with last season as well.
Basically, Howard has increased his value due to two stats: turnovers and blocks. His turnovers have gone down from 3.2 a game to 2.7 and his blocks have increased from 2.2 to 3.2. So, for Howard to maintain his ridiculous fantasy value he’ll have to maintain those numbers, which I think is unlikely, but not completely out of the question. He’s averaged 2.7 turnovers or less a game a couple times in his career already, so that seems possible. His blocks are a career high by a wide margin. I can see some regression as the season moves along, but he has increased his block totals every year he’s been in the league, so it’s likely he’ll finish the year north of 2.1 blocks a game (his career block trajectory would put him somewhere in the 2.5 block a game range).
~0~
Since it’s GMTR policy for me to fulfill a cheerleader quota and I, of course, wouldn’t want to void my fantasy multi-million dollar contract with the team, here’s my token Orlando Magic Dancer pic:
image by nolimits via Flickr
Tags: Andris Biedrins, Dwight Howard, Marcus Camby, Tim Duncan
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