Harden, the Lakers and the Week Ahead

Lesson #2: Extensions

A player’s contract status rarely has an impact in fantasy and I am straining to find one here, but please let me stand on my soap box for a second — the week was only four days and there wasn’t much to learn aside from small sample observations. Chris Bernucca nicely summed up the 2009 draft class here but I want to highlight two decisions: Toronto’s decision to extend DeMar DeRozan and Milwaukee’s decision not to extend Brandon Jennings.

Bryan Colangelo’s single most definable skill as Raptors’ general manager is his uncanny ability to torpedo his own submarine. With new additions, Kyle Lowry and Jonas Valanciunas having a major positive impact on the team’s play, there was for a brief moment hope in Raptorland. In an absolutely needless move, that hope was emphatically crushed. DeMar DeRozan‘s one contribution in fantasy and real life is a decent points total. But those points come with a low FG% and virtually no 3PM, AST, REB, STL and BLK. If you measure his production per field goal attempt, DeRozan is one of the worst players in fantasy. By all accounts he is also below-average defensively.

The move spells disaster for the Raptors as an organization. It is a waste of resources (the D-League is full of players who can do what DeRozan does — take the ball on the perimeter, charge into the lane amongst the trees, heave the ball in the general direction of the basket and then complain to the refs about being fouled.) In the process, they gave up their max cap space, locked the franchise into a DeRozan and Landry Fields wing combination for the foreseeable future (both must be in the top 10 of unmovable NBA contracts) and an admitted that Terrence Ross was a mistake draft pick. It also re-emphasizes the foolishness of their free agency pursuit of Steve Nash. If not for that pursuit, they wouldn’t have Fields and could have traded the Ross draft pick to Houston for Kyle Lowry, instead of a future lottery pick.

What is the fantasy impact? There is none but some advice. Don’t make the same mistake as Colangelo and value DeRozan (or any player in fantasy just by his points totals). Despite the contract, DeRozan is not in the same class as Ty Lawson or Jrue Holiday.

For the Milwaukee Bucks, by not extending Brandon Jennings they are either signalling that he isn’t as good as we think he is, or this team headed for major changes. Bernucca noted that both the Bucks’ GM and coach are lame ducks. If this team gets off to a slow start, there is a serious risk that they will blow it all up. That might be good for the younger generation: Ersan Ilyasova, Tobias Harris, Epke Udoh, Larry Sanders, Doron Lamb and John Henson; but will be bad for the veterans: Drew Gooden, Samuel Dalembert, Mike Dunleavy and Beno Udrih. Heed the warning.

Lesson #3: The 0-3 Los Angeles Lakers and 0-2 Denver Nuggets

Panic has set in for the Los Angeles Lakers. They have yet to win a game and everyone is complaining about the Princeton offense. The offence isn’t the problem, it is the defense. Kobe Bryant, Paul Gasol and Dwight Howard are their usual fantasy-stud-selves. Steve Nash may be struggling, but he will turn it around and makes a great trade target. And, you should have known that Antawn Jamison would struggle before the real games started. The lack of defense though is an opportunity; you can safely start your players against the Lakers and opposing point guards make for great streaming opportunities.

Of greater concern for fantasy players is the terrible play of the Denver Nuggets. For a team that lead the NBA in scoring last year, they were blown out by the Andrew Bynum-less 76ers and the disaster-in-waiting Magic, failing to score 90 in either contest. The entire team just looks out-of-sorts and has failed to deliver their expected fantasy value. Don’t panic yet, but if they struggle to score at home there might be an underlying problem that we don’t know yet.

Lesson #4: Danny Granger and Eric Gordon shut down, Hedo Turkoglu breaks hand, Brandon Rush hurts knee

Granger and Gordon were shutdown this week to rest their sore knees. For Granger there is no timeline for his return, for Gordon the prognosis is 4 to 6 weeks of additional rehab. The primary lesson is to not draft players with existing injuries (players who are fully healed on the other hand make for great bargains)— setbacks are common and can kill your season. In terms of fantasy value, the biggest beneficiary is Gerald Green, who was already primed for a surprise season as the primary wing reserve in Indiana, but now is getting starter minutes. His shots aren’t falling yet but they will.

The other hot add has been Al-Farouq Aminu in New Orleans. He is not really taking Gordon’s minutes, but he has had fantasic back-to-back games averaging a monster line of 16pts-7.5reb-2.5ast-2stl-1.5blk all on 57.7% on field goals. He might be worth a look for the defensive stats but the scoring is a mirage. He isn’t getting to the line or hitting threes. The nominal starter at SG, Austin Rivers has been awful and should be benched in all formats.

In Orlando, Turkoglu was a marginal fantasy player at best and can safely be dropped in shallow and head-to-head leagues. The biggest beneficiary is likely to be Josh McRoberts, who played 27 minutes Friday night. The Magic will take advantage of the opportunity and try to showcase him for a trade. You can ignore McRoberts’ line with the Lakers in 2011-12 and look more towards his last year in Indiana, where he averaged 7.4pts-5.3reb-2.1ast-0.7stl-0.8blk, which is only useful in deep leagues.

Finally, Brandon Rush went down, grabbed his knee, tried to get back up then grabbed the knee again. It sounds very serious. Initial talk was that Jarrett Jack would pick-up the additional minutes by shifting to SG but the more likely scenario is that Richard Jefferson dusts off the cobwebs and plays 20 minutes a night. I am not recommending that you add him.