The Daily Dose: Dose: Redemption Realized
Sunday featured an eight game slate with big time performances from the usual cast of Paul George, Brook Lopez, and Andre Drummond; and a scrappy win by the Rockets that featured zero Ty Lawson and a benched Terrence Jones. Kemba Walker and Robert Covington are sell high candidates, and there are a few new guys making blips on the fantasy radar. Let’s get to it shall we?
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Nightly Notables
Paul George did it again on Sunday, going off for 39 points (10-of-21 FGs, 14-of-17 FTs), four boards, five treys, one assist, two steals, one block and four turnovers through 37 minutes of work. He was one of the more polarizing players for the Rotoworld staff heading into the 2015-16 season, but I am proud to say that I was never a member of the anti-PG-13 hype train. The main argument against George was that while he was a top-11 performer during the 2013-14 season, his value dipped to the top-20 in 8-cat leagues and top-30 in 9-cat leagues during the final 40 games of that season. That is a factual statement, however, it wasn’t just George that fell off that year; but it was also the entire Pacers team that completely self-destructed during the latter half of the 2013-14 season. George then spent a majority of the 2014-15 season on the sidelines, causing some to forget how truly talented he is when on the basketball court. The fact is that prior to George’s gruesome leg injury, he was an MVP-candidate and one of the most promising up-and-coming players in the league, and those facts have not changed. Not only has he come back completely revitalized, but he’s come back hitting career-highs in points (26.4), rebounds (8.4), assists (4.6), treys (3.1) and field goal percentage (45.8). Watching him, you can tell that he lost zero athleticism with the injury, and his career-high rebounding numbers also support that statement. PG-13’s current marks in 3-pointers and field goal percentage do seem a bit unsustainable, so he could fall a bit from his current No. 6 overall evaluation, but I don’t see him slipping too far out of the first-round. I am not one that would recommend selling high here, even if his percentages dip, his do-it-all nature will hold him at an early-round evaluation no matter how you slice it.
Kemba Walker’s dream season continued on Sunday, as he knocked down 7-of-13 shot attempts on his way to 22 points, three treys, three assists, three steals, two boards and one block in 40 minutes. Steve Clifford reinvented the Hornets offense during the offseason (4-out, 1-in) and the additions of Nicolas Batum, Jeremy Lamb and Jeremy Lin (partnered with the greatly improved play of Marvin Williams) have really opened things up for Kemba. The biggest improvement for Walker this year has been his shots at the rim, as he’s now connecting on a career-high 63.2 percent of his shot attempts from 0-3 feet, in addition to hitting a career-high 44.8 percent of his shots from 10-16 feet; which has resulted in him connecting on a career-high 45.9 percent of his shot attempts. This feels like a bit of a sell-high moment given that Walker is a career 39.8 percent shooter from the field, but you can’t discount the fact that he’s a very talented player, who for the first time in his career is playing around some talented individuals that can actually spread the floor. If you want to sell high, you better be getting back a top-25 player in return.
Scott Skiles decided not to mess with Nikola Vucevic’s minutes on Sunday, and he had a nice game with 18 points, 10 boards, two assists and two turnovers through 32 minutes of work. Talent is not the issue with Vucevic, rather it’s his coach whose rotations can drive a fantasy enthusiast (or writer) to the brink of insanity. Vuc was hot coming out the gates this year, but inconsistent playing time and a drop off in the defensive statistics (0.8 steals 1.4 blocks) has returned him to a fourth-round evaluation. Skiles is a coach that is not afraid at all to tinker with his players’ minutes, regardless of pay grade, so if I’m an owner of Nikola I’m looking to sell high after he strings together a few good games. If you need further evidence, here are Vucevic’s minute totals from the past seven games: 32, 21, 32, 26, 25, 16, 36. How annoying.
While I’m nervous about Vucevic’s production as we make our way through the season, Victor Oladipo doesn’t cause me much concern at all. Yes, he’s coming off the bench now, but the dude is simply a stat-magnet, and in his three games off the bench thus far he has compiled averages of 20.0 points, 6.0 boards, 5.7 assists, 1.0 steal, 1.0 three-pointer and 1.0 turnover on 43.6 percent shooting. Coming off the bench has basically only been a positive for Dipo. It has given him more freedom on offense, as evidenced by his usage rate spiking to 29.7 (21.4 as a starter) and his assist percentage jumping to 32.7 (17.4 as a starter). He also gets to come into the game and go up against the opposing team’s second-unit (lesser defenders), which has helped his scoring and efficiency (43.6 percent from the field as a reserve compared to 37.0 percent as a starter). Because Oladipo went through such a dreadful stretch after returning from his concussion in mid-November, he’s currently putting up just sixth-round (9-cat) and seventh-round (8-cat) value on the season; so now would be a good time to float out some buy-low offers for a guy with early-round potential. By the way, Oladipo is currently committing just 1.4 turnovers per game, which is a career-low and was a major deterrence to his fantasy value in years past.
Pistons head coach Stan Van Gundy criticized Andre Drummond’s effort following their 87-103 loss to the Thunder on Friday (a game in which Drummond only managed to grab seven rebounds), but The Big Penguin responded on Sunday night by going off for 20 points, 18 rebounds, three steals and one block. He also shot just 2-of-11 from the field, which one could argue contributed to Detroit’s 83-87 loss to the Nets; but fantasy owners probably don’t care very much about that factoid at all. Drummond has been an absolute monster this season, and he’s making 20/20 games look normal.
Brook Lopez stuffed the stat sheet during Brooklyn’s third win of the season, putting up 15 points on 6-of-18 shooting (3-of-5 from the line), nine boards, five assists, four steals, six blocks and three turnovers. Lopez had a bit of a scare with his surgically repaired right foot earlier in the season, but that turned out to be much ado about nothing, and he has yet to miss a game this season. Despite the fact that Lopez made it through 72 games last season (putting up second-round value in the process) health concerns had him coming at a pretty substantial discount on draft day. The health concerns weren’t unreasonable, as Lopez was forced to go under the knife four times between 2012-2014, but the final procedure was one in which they literally reconstructed his right foot and so far it’s looking like it was a resounding success. Zydrunas Ilgauskas underwent a similar procedure back in 1999, and Big Z claims that the operation saved his career. To give you a better idea of exactly how Lopez’ foot was reconstructed, I did a little digging and found a quote from Dr. Jonathan Deland, the co-chief of the Foot and Ankle Service at Hospital for Special Surgery that he gave regarding Brook’s procedure back in 2014: “If the foot is not even, if the first metatarsal — the bone that is on the ball of the foot, where the big toe meets the foot — if that bone is down too far, then when you hit the ground, it causes you to shift weight over to the outside, to the fifth metatarsal where that fracture is. So one bone was realigned to ease the stress on the fractured bone and decrease the chance of re-injury. You make the bottom of the foot even. … What was done, I believe, was to bring the first metatarsal up a little bit to make it even with the other metatarsals on the bottom of the foot,” Deland said. Lopez has been an extremely frustrating player to own in the past, but we can’t forget that he didn’t miss a single game through the first three years of his career, and it looks like the foot issue is finally behind him.
Robert Covington racked up seven more steals on Sunday, and looking at the steals column of his recent game logs is pretty insanely ridiculous. Over the past five games Covington has seen his minutes jump to 35.6 per game, and he has responded with averages of 18.0 points, 8.0 boards, 2.0 assists, 3.2 three-pointers, 1.0 block and an insanely unsustainable 5.2 steals per contest. To balance out those ridiculous numbers, he has at least turned the ball over 4.2 times per contest, but who really cares when he’s swiping away the rock 5.2 times per game? He’s not going to be this good for the entire season, so selling high on Cov (who is currently a top-30 guy on a per-game basis) seems like the right thing to do.
Terrence Jones came off the bench again on Sunday (behind Clint Capela), and the coaching change in Houston has me genuinely concerned about Jones’ outlook with the Rockets for the remainder of the year. The positives for Jones are that he’s in a contract year, and is an uber-talented player. The negatives are that he’s coming off the bench, is in a shooting slump (32.7 percent from the field over the past six), and he hasn’t stepped foot on the floor during crunch time through Houston’s past two victories. Over the past six Jones has averaged just 8.7 points, 5.2 boards, 1.0 three-pointer and 0.7 blocks per game, although I’m still willing to give Terrence some leash given the upside he presents. He’s one of the few guys in the league that can offer a fantasy squad blocks, boards, and treys; and as a career 52.5 percent shooter, the odds are in his favor to snap out of his current funk. Jones has some favorable matchups coming his way this week against New Orleans, Dallas and Sacramento, so I’m hopeful he can get things back on track. However, if he falters against the Mavs or Kings (some of the worst teams in the league at defending the power forward position) I may look to call it quits on my breakout candidate.
While things have been frustrating for Jones owners, it’s been otherworldly horrific for owners of Ty Lawson. In fact, the term “Lawson owners” is becoming less and less of a thing as his ownership in Yahoo! Leagues has now dropped to 57 percent, and that number will likely head further south after he picked up a healthy DNP-CD during Sunday’s win over the Knicks. J.B. Bickerstaff has not just sent Lawson to the bench to try and solidify the second-unit, no; Bickerstaff has completely removed Ty from the rotation in favor of Patrick Beverley and Jason Terry. I mean, Sunday’s game against New York went into overtime, and still, Lawson didn’t once touch the hardwood. The guy that was brought in to be a difference maker in Houston’s pursuit of a championship is having a career-worst season behind averages of 7.0 points, 4.5 assists, 1.1 steals and 0.6 three-pointers per game on a putrid 32.5 percent shooting from the field. Lawson bet on himself when he came to the Rockets, agreeing to make the final year of his contract non-guaranteed, and that is a bet that Mr. Lawson is probably seriously regretting at this moment. The Rockets are currently paying Ty $12.4 million to wave a towel, and with how ineffective he’s been, you have to wonder if Houston is looking to waive Lawson goodbye.
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