Give Me The Rock
this is fantasy basketball
None of us at GMTR are particularly huge college basketball guys. I went to a crappy Division III school where the basketball team resembled Hickory High, Erik lives outside the country and the US collegiate system, and Nels had to give up college basketball when they foreclosed on his house due to the gambling losses*. So we will leave NBA draft and breaking it down to people who actually watch and enjoy college basketball, and by extension, probably have a better understanding of how it is going to affect fantasy basketball in 2010.
Actually, I do know one thing about the NBA draft. People love draft grades. Otherwise there wouldn’t be so many draft grade articles: Fanhouse, Sports Illustrated, Rotoworld, Bleacher Report, Fox Sports, Pro Basketball News, NBAdraft.net. And as always, Ball Don’t Lie is a must read, because they aren’t afraid to hurt some feelings.
Golden State Warriors: Ekpe Udoh
Ekpe is 23 years old and he didn’t average 25 a game last season in the NCAAs. If you’re 23, you should be dominating in some aspect among the 20-year-olds, and he wasn’t. Apologies for making it that simple and flip, but this seems like the Warriors just grabbed the first guy who didn’t come into an individual workout looking for the broom closet because someone told him that’s where he’d find a half-soused Don Nelson at 2 p.m., midway through his second bag of Funyuns.
Grade: F
On SI.com, Tom Lorenzo lists the winning and losing rookies from a fantasy perspective. The great thing about this list is that it’s described in terms of what guys will do NEXT season, which is what you want to know unless you’re in a keeper league. On the winners list are guys like John Wall and DeMarcus Cousins, but he also lists late first round picks James Anderson and Jordan Crawford among the winners. My big problem with the list is that it goes to 11. When is the last time an NBA draft (especially one his mediocre, produced a total of 11 guys who were even worth owning their rookie season in fantasy leagues? 5-6 guys is a much more realistic number.
Fantasy Knuckleheads has a list of fantasy winners and losers from the draft. However, I don’t think you can call the Wizards a loser just because they still have Gilbert Arenas on their team. Unless we’re talking about the 2001 draft.
Marc Spears takes a slightly different look at winners and losers on Yahoo Sports. One winner? The Kings, who got DeMarcus Cousins with the fifth pick in the draft.
We’re going to be hearing a lot about DeMarcus Cousins from now until the start of the season. I bet the hype gets to the point where he starts going before Wall in a lot of fantasy drafts. From TrueHoop:
On the court, Cousins has the full range of skills the NBA wants from its big men. Despite carrying nearly 300 pounds on his 6-foot-11 frame, Cousins can run the floor and his fundamentals in the post are solid. His soft hands and forceful presence allow him to catch and finish deep in the paint. When the ball goes up from the perimeter, Cousins throws his weight around underneath and corrals rebounds with ease. In short, there’s nothing particularly raw about Cousins’ talent. His game is incredibly evolved for a big man with only a single season of college experience.
PistonPowered creates a wicked rebounding chart of every rookie drafted in an attempt to prove that Greg Monroe was a good draft pick. What it really proves (to me) is that DeMarcus Cousins is a beast.
Mark Strotman examines the fantasy implications of the first round of the draft. I love me some depth chart talk.
David Kendrick takes a look at the first five players selected in the draft and predicts what stats we’ll see from them next season.
My favorite part of the Hoopshype draft breakdown? That salaries and player comps are included. I like knowing how much money people make. Thanks Parade Magazine.
Looking for a video breakdown of the draft, fantasy-style? Adam Stanco and Keith Lipscomb of ESPN are on that. Nels and I were going to provide you a video as well, but we didn’t want Adam and Keith to fee bad we were so much better looking than they are.
GMTR Draft Winner? As usual, fashion.
* Possibly not true
Tags: DeMarcus Cousins, Ekpe Udoh, John Wall
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June 28th, 2010 at 10:58 pm
[...] For a bunch of links to other draft related stuff, GMTR has a comprehensive roundup. [...]
June 29th, 2010 at 7:09 am
Oh, Patrick, Patrick, Patrick. When will you learn about rookies? Last year's draft class wasn't supposed to be that good either, then there were a Sh!t-ton of useful players or players worthy of being owned for at least a couple weeks. Let's re-examine:
1. Blake Griffin, drafted in every league (then injured)
2. Steph Curry — finished in the top 10
3. Tyreke Evans – 20, 5 and 5 and ROY
4. and 5. Darren Collison and Marcus Thornton tore things up in the fantasy playoffs and the month before when CP3 was down
6. Brandon Jennings — you know he was on rosters all year long
7. Taj Gibson–provided double-doubles, especially with Ty Thomas out
8. DeJuan Blair had a nice run
9. James Harden was sneaky with steals and threes and was on many a fantasy roster
10. Jrue Holliday was owned in most leagues once he began starting
11. Terrence Williams was a monster in the second half of the year, especially with triple-double like stats in multiple games.
We're already at 11 people off the top of my head, but here are more that saw time on rosters in a standard 12-man league:
Casspi, Flynn, Jerebko, Lawson, Toney Douglas, Beaubois, Budinger…
I won't mention Thabeet.
Many names were people you weren't expecting either. Stop the bias though and get with the times. Rookies are making bigger impacts now because of financial reasons and they are more ready to play than ever before. Hate on Udoh, but the guy has serious offensive skills. I'm a huge proponent of age in evaluating players, and I know he's older, but he didn't start playing till he was in his teens and in Nellie's system, he's going to put up some numbers.
Love you!
Satten
June 29th, 2010 at 9:22 pm
[...] Give Me The Rock » Blog Archive » The NBA Draft: Linkage Style [...]
July 1st, 2010 at 9:19 am
Hey, hey, keep the PDA out of this.
Just call me gramps – the kids these days with their tattoos and global business plans, I just don’t get it.
But you are correct that there are more rookies worth owning in recent years than I implied in this post. All the rooks you mentioned were worth owning at various points of last season, some all or nearly all of the year. As you said, there are a lot of rookies who have at least short-term value over the course of a season. My flip comment did not do the topic justice.
I’m not advocating completely ignoring rookies to go after the corpses of Ben Wallace or Kurt Thomas for the twentieth time. It’s just that most rookies have limited fantasy value or short flashes of usefulness. And much of it happens to be completely unpredictable. If CP3 doesn’t get hurt, then we never hear about Collison. In retrospect, who really cares? Collison was great and happened to be a rookie. But does that mean people should draft Avery Bradley because Rajon Rondo might get hurt? It’s impossible to predict events like that with any accuracy, which means a lot of those rookies’ value only came if you are lucky enough to win the free agent rush when Paul got hurt, or Tyrus Thomas got traded, etc.
The James Harden/Taj Gibson/DeJuan Blair/Jonny Flynn types operate on such the margins of fantasy usefulness that it’s tough to make a compelling argument for their usefulness over someone like Ryan Gomes or Matt Barnes. Yes, they were “useful” in the sense that they were worth owning in 14+ team leagues, but it’s difficult to get excited about them. Now I did say that that only 5-6 rookies were worth owning, so the egg is on my face. What I should have said is that only 5-6 rookies are worth worrying about/drafting at the start of the season. The rest will happen as the season plays out.
July 1st, 2010 at 5:19 pm
Hey, hey, keep the PDA out of this.
Just call me gramps – the kids these days with their tattoos and global business plans, I just don’t get it.
But you are correct that there are more rookies worth owning in recent years than I implied in this post. All the rooks you mentioned were worth owning at various points of last season, some all or nearly all of the year. As you said, there are a lot of rookies who have at least short-term value over the course of a season. My flip comment did not do the topic justice.
I’m not advocating completely ignoring rookies to go after the corpses of Ben Wallace or Kurt Thomas for the twentieth time. It’s just that most rookies have limited fantasy value or short flashes of usefulness. And much of it happens to be completely unpredictable. If CP3 doesn’t get hurt, then we never hear about Collison. In retrospect, who really cares? Collison was great and happened to be a rookie. But does that mean people should draft Avery Bradley because Rajon Rondo might get hurt? It’s impossible to predict events like that with any accuracy, which means a lot of those rookies’ value only came if you are lucky enough to win the free agent rush when Paul got hurt, or Tyrus Thomas got traded, etc.
The James Harden/Taj Gibson/DeJuan Blair/Jonny Flynn types operate on such the margins of fantasy usefulness that it’s tough to make a compelling argument for their usefulness over someone like Ryan Gomes or Matt Barnes. Yes, they were “useful” in the sense that they were worth owning in 14+ team leagues, but it’s difficult to get excited about them. Now I did say that that only 5-6 rookies were worth owning, so the egg is on my face. What I should have said is that only 5-6 rookies are worth worrying about/drafting at the start of the season. The rest will happen as the season plays out.
July 13th, 2010 at 10:01 pm
[...] Give Me The Rock » Blog Archive » The NBA Draft: Linkage Style [...]