NBA Roundtable: Roundtable: Buy-Low Targets
Welcome to the first Roundtable NBA column. Each week we’ll pick a topic and the NBA crew will respond with their thoughts. It may evolve into an actual email chain with some debate, but we were under the gun on short notice for this one, so it’s mainly just our thoughts, unchallenged by the rest of the group.
This week’s question was: Who are the Top 3 buy-low players right now? Here’s what we came up with.
Steve Alexander (@docktora)
Danny Green, Monta Ellis and Gordon Hayward.
Green’s been consistently terrible every time out this season and this week got off to a bad start. He can’t stay this bad forever.
Ellis played well on Saturday and then had a disaster on Monday. His owners are getting fed up with him and he can be had on the cheap right now.
Hayward is off to a slow start but is starting to show signs of life. All three of these guys are too talented to continue wallowing in misery for much longer.
Ryan Knaus (@knaus_RW)
Rudy Gay is shooting a mere 39.7% from the field and 73.7% from the FT line, depressing what should otherwise be top-50 value. George Karl recently suggested that Gay isn’t in tip-top shape and Gay himself said he’s been “terrible” without his “running mate” DeMarcus Cousins. Expect him to get on track soon.
The case for buying low on Gordon Hayward is pretty clear. He’s averaging his lowest usage rate (22.9%) in three years, lowest total rebound rate in five years, and career-lows in assist percentage, steal percentage, and true shooting percentage. Not pretty. His overall stats are way down compared to last year but he’s getting the same playing time and Utah needs him to make a push out West — this is a prime opportunity to land him below-cost.
Khris Middleton is in a similar situation as Gay and Hayward — he’s playing a whopping 35.7 minutes per game and averaging a career-high 12.3 shots, but his FG percentage is mired at 38.4%, easily a career-worst. Good players don’t deviate that far from their career average (45.0%) for too long, so take advantage of Middleton’s rough start while you can.
Marc Gasol could easily make the list, as he’s averaging just 13.3 points on 41.1% shooting, 6.3 rebounds, 3.3 assists and 0.8 blocks, with zero steals through eight games. Owners don’t give up second-round picks at a discount very often, however, so even a sluggish start isn’t likely to lead to a clearance sale. Ditto for slow starts from Klay Thompson and Nerlens Noel.
Mike Gallagher (@mikesgallagher)
Danny Green – He’s not this person. It’s like some supernatural power came over him and zapped his ability to make 3-pointers. His role is almost exactly the same with less competition, too. Yes, his usage rate is down about two percent from last year and that has a little to do with Kawhi Leonard becoming an offensive superstar, but that obviously doesn’t explain why he’s only made 22 percent from deep. Interestingly, he is still open for his shots. This year, he’s been open on 59.2 percent of his shots (defender at least four feet away). Last year? It was 62.4, so it’s not like it’s a huge difference on him being open. He’ll get hot in no time.
Klay Thompson – The Warriors blew everyone out for their first five games by a total of 100 points, so Klay’s minutes were down. It’s pretty clear he’s starting to get it going in his last three. Klay is just 52nd in nine-cat leagues, so expect him to trend up right away as he becomes more like a top-20 guy. Although, Stephen Curry increasing his usage rate in a big way does pose a slight threat to Klay’s ceiling, so he might not be a top-12 guy. He’s still a fantasy stud.
Marcin Gortat – He’s had a really slow start, but he’s still sitting at 127 per game on the season. The Wizards are playing Nene a lot of minutes, which will likely be trending down soon — he’ll probably get hurt, too. The Wizards are second in pace right now, so they should stay there after they really made it clear they were going that direction. On top of the scoring, his block rate, rebound rate and turnover rate are worse. He was a first-round player after the break and the offense should shift to more plays with Gortat as a PNR roll man.
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Jonas Nader (@jonasnader)
Terrence Jones probably has the weirdest injury history that I can remember, but I don’t think I have to worry about him getting scratched in the eyelid again. Donatas Motiejunas still has no timetable and Montrezl Harrell hasn’t been effective, and they seriously need Jones’ size down the stretch because we know Dwight Howard‘s workload will decrease (and it’s already low as it is).
Danny Green is shooting just 29.6 percent from the field right now, but we all know that he is prone to cold streaks and he should be back to his old ways soon. The Spurs will have to rely on Green a lot more moving forward because they don’t want to wear out Manu Ginobili, and it’s important to remember that Green was a top-25 asset last season.
Marcin Gortat is off to a really slow start, but he is starting to come around and I don’t think it will be long before he is flirting with early-round value. The Wizards aren’t going anywhere without the help of Gortat, so expect them to get him going sooner rather than later.
Ethan Norof (@ethan_norof)
Wesley Matthews, Terrence Jones, Marc Gasol.
Matthews just had his minutes bumped to around 30 per game, a promising sign after returning before anyone expected. The Mavs are going to need him at both ends of the floor, and he’s going to return to serving as the versatile contributor he became in Portland.
Jones is already battling minor injury issues and has even been dropped in (too) many leagues, but with Donatas Motiejunas (back) still not even cleared to play and the Rockets needing more size in the frontcourt, TJ can re-enter the VIP 1/1/1 (steal/block/triple) club in short order.
Gasol has really failed to assert himself as his team struggles around him, but the Grizzlies are going to need to get back to going through their big man in order to succeed, and he can be had at a much cheaper price than those who drafted him paid on draft day.
Jared Johnson (@jaredj831)
Obviously Danny Green sits at the top of my list, but everyone has pretty much covered him, so I’ll move on to other targets.
J.R. Smith, Trevor Ariza, Kyrie Irving
J.R. Smith is what he is. For the past two years he basically hasn’t been worth owning for at least the first month of the season, but he always manages to find a way to turn everything around and finishes the year with an early-round valuation. I’m not worried about the impending return of Kyrie Irving and Iman Shumpert, as he was playing alongside those guys last year while putting up third-round value. If anything, the return of Uncle Drew will create more open looks for Swish (even though he apparently prefers taking contested shots). He’s currently shooting just 30.6 percent on the season, and his owners are likely fed up with his ineptitude, so you should be able to get him for next to nothing.
Trevor Ariza is another guy that hasn’t been hitting his shots this season (33.3 percent from the field), but his other numbers of 11.1 points, 5.7 rebounds, 2.0 assists, 2.1 three-pointers, 1.9 steals and a stingy 1.4 turnovers per game are on par with his averages from last season (in which he posted third-round value). Once his shot starts falling, he’ll establish himself as an early-round stud, and you just gotta love those steals.
We’re very early into the season, but if the guy in your league that owns Kyrie Irving is also sitting towards the bottom of the rankings, there’s a good chance that person is aggressively smashing his fist and/or face on the panic button. I’d personally hold off on floating out those buy-low offers for at least the next few weeks (really let that buyer’s remorse settle in), but I’d say around November 25 it’s time to fire up the buy-low machine. Irving will be eased back into things in Cleveland, but he should be fully up to speed towards the end of the year (during the fantasy playoffs), and that late-middle round asset you’re giving up now will be an afterthought to Kyrie’s first-round status.
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