Starting five of fantasy hoops underachievers at All-Star break

With the All-Star break providing a respite from the action, it’s a perfect time to reflect on the players who caused you to scramble on the waiver wire for reinforcements during the first half of the regular season.

Though a couple of the guys highlighted here are worth hanging onto, the majority have gone from starting material to deep-league fodder.

PointAfter visualizations illustrate each player’s performance. Be on the lookout Tuesday for the first half’s overachievers at each position.

Note: Players who missed large portions of the season due to injury were not considered.

Point Guard: Ty Lawson, Rockets

Preseason Yahoo ranking: 75th

Current Yahoo ranking: 301st

When the Rockets acquired Lawson in the offseason, they envisioned him as a decent off-ball backcourt partner for James Harden. Though Lawson is undoubtedly a talented distributor, he was also once a talented spot-up shooter – back in 2011, he became the only player in NBA history to make his first 10 three-point attempts in a game.

I say “once” because Lawson has seen his three-point percentage steadily decline since entering the NBA, from a robust 41 percent during his rookie year down to 33.7 percent this season. That mirrors an even more precipitous decline in overall field goal percentage, as well as a recent downturn in points per game.

Soon after interim coach J.B. Bickerstaff took over for fired predecessor Kevin McHale, Lawson lost his starting job. He was suspended five games due to two separate DUI incidents that occurred prior to this season. In Houston’s last game before the break, the undersized speedster played just nine minutes in a loss against Portland.

Though the Nuggets ultimately sold low on Lawson — fetching a lottery-protected 2016 first-round pick, Pablo Prigioni and three players who aren’t on NBA rosters anymore in return — they still somehow won that trade. Lawson has been that bad for Houston. The team has explored trading him but has yet to find a deal they like.

After the former Tar Heel was projected as a borderline top-20 point guard during the preseason, he now ranks 74th in standard Yahoo leagues. Lawson is also owned in fewer Yahoo leagues than Eric Bledsoe, who suffered a season-ending injury in late December. That’s basically all you need to know to understand just how much of a bust Lawson has been in the Lone Star State.

Close calls: Derrick Rose, Emmanuel Mudiay

Shooting Guard: Danny Green, Spurs

Preseason Yahoo ranking: 54th

Current Yahoo ranking: 136th

Green has been the reliable shooter who’s tasked with finishing San Antonio’s pretty passing sequences for nearly half a decade now. That’s normally been a cushy position to be in from a fantasy perspective.

However, Green started this season on a brutal cold streak that destroyed a lot of goodwill with his fantasy owners. After his first four full seasons starting with the Spurs produced a 42.3 percent conversion rate from three-point range, that mark was down to 30.1 percent through the end of December.

Even though the 28-year-old since hiked that up to 35.9 percent, he’s not providing the volume he once did, averaging just 7.5 points per game on the season.

The main issue? Green hasn’t been able to make the hallmark shot of San Antonio’s system – the corner three. After sinking 40.7 percent and 58.5 percent of his looks last year from the left and right corner, respectively, Green’s success rate in both zones has decreased by nearly 15 percent.

Note: You can hover over different shooting zones to see Green’s statistics in the corresponding area.

Green is notoriously streaky, so maybe he’ll carry his red-hot January (49.1 percent from downtown) into the second half of the season. If he can’t, a rather one-dimensional player will become more of a burden than an asset.

Small Forward: Kobe Bryant, Lakers

Preseason Yahoo ranking: 83rd

Current Yahoo ranking: 178th

Even though Kobe Bryant was classified as a “stud” last week thanks to a barrage of long-range shots, an increased emphasis on three-pointers (career-high 7.1 attempts per game) hasn’t yielded success throughout Bryant’s farewell tour.

Plenty of Internet ink has already been spilled about Bryant’s miscues this season, including some written by yours truly, so I won’t go into much more detail here. I’ll just say that he’s registered fewer fantasy points in standard Yahoo leagues than Evan Turner.

Power Forward: Meyers Leonard, Trail Blazers

Preseason Yahoo ranking: 98th

Current Yahoo ranking: 203rd

Expectations were cautiously optimistic for Leonard when he locked up a starting spot during the preseason, but 2015-16 has largely represented a step backwards for the rangy seven-footer. A sluggish start put him back to the bench, where he’s mostly stayed.

Leonard is still receiving more playing time than he ever has in the NBA, but his shooting rates are all career worsts to a line of 44.7/34.4/75.7. Trail Blazers coach Terry Stotts has moved the Illinois product farther from the basket on offense each year, since the lanky Leonard doesn’t acquit himself well among bigger bodies down low.

Just 6.6 percent of his shots in 2013-14 were three-pointers. That increased to 45.7 percent last season. Now, more than half his shots are from long distance.

Leonard’s continued transformation into a stretch four has produced mixed results, however. Opponents often leave him open, and for good reason. A year after knocking down 42 percent of all three-point attempts, he’s shooting 38.1 percent on “wide open” treys, defined by NBA.com as shots with no defender within six feet.

And since he’s spotting up at the perimeter more often, his rebounding rate is a career-low 12 percent. That’s worse than all qualified seven-foot power forwards except Dirk Nowitzki, Frank Kaminsky, Andrea Bargnani and Jason Smith. Boards were never going to be Leonard’s specialty, but that trend is yet another reason why he’s disappointed fantasy owners.

Center: Tyson Chandler, Suns

Preseason Yahoo ranking: 73rd

Current Yahoo ranking: 200th

Coming into this season, you had to wonder: how much longer could Chandler keep up his impressive work rate on both ends of the floor? Unfortunately, for those who trusted the 14-year veteran could maintain the status quo in Phoenix, we’ve seen a definitive answer to that inquiry this year.

A stiff contender for the field goal percentage crown in 2014-15 (66.6 percent) and an All-Defensive First Team honoree just three seasons ago, Chandler has seemingly hit a wall at age 33. He’s only a starter by title for the Suns, playing less than half of every game and contributing a measly 5.9 points on 52.2 percent shooting, both his worst outputs in a decade.

Chandler has also logged 0.6 blocks per game, a full five tenths lower than he’s averaged in any other season. The drop off from even last season has been startling.

Boasting an 11.2 percent usage rate that ranks 55th among 59 qualified centers, Chandler has proven to be a far worse fit in Phoenix’s offense than he was in Dallas’ scheme dependent on pick and rolls. With the Suns playing out the string on a nightmarish campaign, Phoenix will likely look to give more minutes to Alex Len in the second half of the season.

Will Laws is a writer for PointAfter, a sports data aggregation and visualization website that’s part of the Graphiq network. PointAfter is a platform for shot charts, scatter plots and other data visualizations about NBA players, NFL teams and dozens of other topics.