Fantasy Hoops Roundtable: Taking My Talent to South Beach

Categorized as: Author: Nels, Author: Patrick, Fantasy Basketball, Fantasy Basketball Roundtable
Posted on: October 12th, 2010

The fantasy hoops roundtable is back for a new year of Q & A related to all things fantasy basketball. The first question was asked by Ryan Lester of Lester’s Legends. For a full rundown of responses, check this out.

This week’s question is: How will LeBron’s taking his talents to South Beach affect his fantasy production?

Panelists

Jeff/Tom from Damn Lies & Statistics
Jason from fBasketballBlog.com
Nels/Patrick from GiveMeTheRock.com
Tommy from HoopsWorld.com
Ryan Lester from LestersLegends.com
Justin from Life is Just a Fantasy … Baksetball Blog
Adam from Razzball
Nabate from RotoExperts.com
Will/Daniel from Rotoprofessor.com
Henry from WeakSideHelp.com

All the panelists’ responses can be found at Lester’s Legends but here is what Nels and I had to say about LeBron.

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Nels

GMTR actually did a podcast about the Heat this weekend (click to listen).

What really stuck with me the most was [Patrick from Give Me The Rock] saying that LeBron’s numbers were so far ahead of everyone else in the league, that even if he drops off 20%, he’ll still be the #2 or #3 pick. The thing I think that might change with LeBron this season is that while his Points come down his FG% should be solid and his Assists might actually go up. With Wade defending one of the wings and Bosh and the Big Man Monster they’ve created back there, I can see LeBron easily matching his Steal and Block numbers, and even if he’s playing Point Forward as many predict, I can actually see his Turnovers coming down, especially as the season goes on and the team gets used to playing together. So, the bottom line: LeBron = Still Valuable, just in a slightly different way than past seasons.

Patrick

To fully understand how LeBron’s move to Miami will affect his fantasy production, it’s important to look at what his fantasy production was before the move. It’s generally accepted that LeBron was the #1 (or at the very least #2) fantasy player in 2009-10. But he and Durant weren’t just the number 1 and 2 fantasy guys by a little bit. No, if you calculate the difference in performance between those two guys and the third best player last year (say Dirk or Chris Paul on a per game basis), it comes out that LeBron was about 30%-35% better than them. Let that soak in. LeBron was better than Dirk or Chris Paul or whoever by at least 30% last year.

In Miami, it’s almost assured that LeBron will see a small decline on the offensive end of the court. He averaged 20 shots per game in Cleveland last year, while Wade and Bosh averaged 19.6 and 16.5, respectively. That’s over 56 shots between the three of them, which would account for 65-70% of a team’s total shots. We’ve never seen a trio quite like these three guys, but for comparison purposes, the Boston Celtics’ big 3 took only 54% of their team’s shots in 2007.

It’s a similar story across the other counting stats, including rebounds and assists. This means that one or more of the three are going to see at least a small drop in production when it comes to the bread and butter fantasy stats (points, rebounds, assists). However, if LeBron is going to be responsible for a lot of the team’s ball handling, it’s possible that his assists remain fairly steady while Wade takes the big hit. Also, expect LeBron to see better and more open looks on this team than he did with the Cavs, so a dip in scoring should be nicely offset by an increase in FG%.

On the defensive end, all three guys should be fine as long as the Heat don’t start blowing out every team they face by the second quarter of games. They’ll still be playing their guys one-on-one and as long as they have their athleticism, the blocks and steals will be there.

So, overall I would not be surprised if LeBron saw a 10% decrease in production due to a decrease in shots, rebounds and possibly threes. But he was so much better than everyone not named Kevin Durant last season, even a small decrease still makes him the #2 pick by a large margin in 2010.

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Tags: LeBron James, Miami Heat