NBA Fantasy Trends: Honed Dipo

Victor Oladipo has fixed his offensive game so much lately that he should be the pitch man Home Depot’s do-it-yourself fixing department. Or the plumbing department because he’s piping hot? Or the kitchen deparment because his stat lines have everything but the kitchen sink? Or maybe the lighting department because he’s lighting it up so much? OK, I’ll stop.

Well, he’s been the best player in standard leagues for fantasy over his last five games, averaging 27.8 points, 5.6 boards, 3.2 assists, 2.0 steals, 2.0 blocks and 2.0 treys. His efficiency has been completely elite with a 67.8 true shooting percentage and a 25.8 usage rate. Here’s what his shot chart looks like:

Wow, that’s smashing at the rim with a high volume. He’s also been fantastic on his mid-range shots and posted a 56.3 effective field goal percentage on his jumpers in that span, too. Oladipo is getting assisted on his buckets slightly less, as well. His scoring off-dribble numbers are also kind of cool:

That is eating on no-dribble shots and having 39.1 percent of his shots coming off 3-6 dribbles is Russell Westbrook-type stuff. The loss of Nikola Vucevic (groin) may have even helped him more to open up the paint because Jason Smith kind of spaces the floor at times. Oladipo does run a lot of PNR and he’s also above average on that play, too. On the year, Oladipo has a 54.0 true shooting percentage when Vooch is off the court compared to a 52.9 with him — his usage rate also goes up 3.2 percent without Vooch. The more time Vooch misses, the better off VO will be in the scoring department.

He’s having a great 2016 and he’s had 27.6 percent of his shots at the rim while making 63.6 percent of them. Oladipo has also been awesome with his corner treys in that span, hitting 20-of-43 (46.5 percent). Even after that terrible December, Oladipo is still on pace for career highs in field goal percentage, free throw percentage and 3-point percentage. Plus, all three of those increased last season, too. In other words, he’s looking even more promising for next season, especially since he has a 59.0 TS% in 2016, which was just 46.5 in the 2015 part of this season.

The bad news for DFS is he has a couple tough games coming up against the Pistons on Wednesday and Heat on Friday. For season long, it feels like he’ll be a top-10 player the rest of the way, which isn’t saying much because he’s had first-round value since the break.

Alphabet Suped

Sticking with the 2013 draft class, how insanely good in Giannis Antetokounmpo right now? He’s bringing up the ball a lot and is the focal point of the offense. If not for his awful foul shooting, the Greek Freak would be right up there with Oladipo for the best player in fantasy over the last five. In that span, Antetokounmpo has almost averaged a triple-double with 18.8 points, 8.8 boards, 9.2 assists, 1.4 steals, 2.4 blocks (!) and a 60.9 field goal percentage. He did only make 1-of-6 from three, so that’s really the last domino to fall for his game. Here’s his shot chart in this five-game run:

He’s crushing at the rim more than Dipo with that incredible volume — Dipo has better efficiency. The crazy part on Giannis is that the entire arena knows what’s going to happen and nobody can stop him right now. He’s assisted on just 30.8 percent of his shots in that span, which is even crazier to have that kind of volume. On his “driving” shots on NBA.com, Antetokounmpo is a perfect 12-of-12 in that span. It’s also pretty cool he was blocked just one time in those five games after being blocked 52 times in his previous 64 games.

The PGiannis project has been in the works since 2014 Summer League. He was actually pretty bad in that experiment and really wasn’t looking to pass like he is now. In fact, he only had 1.8 assists to go with his 4.5 turnovers per game in that Summer League event. Well, he’s basically two years old and wiser. He’s grown into his body a little more and nobody can beat him to the spot on his first step.

In DFS, we’ve justifiably seen him rise to the elite with a price approaching $11K on most sites. He’s still someone worth using because he’s basically turned into the forward version of Russell Westbrook with more defensive stats and less scoring. In season-long leagues, we might be looking at Giannis coming off the board later in the first round next year.

Out Smarted

Marcus Smart flopped with his added opportunity. It looked like he was going to be picking up some extra run and shots with the Jae Crowder (ankle) injury, but he’s arguably been the NBA’s worst offensive player these days. Among players who played in all nine of their teams last nine games (190 players), Smart has the worst true shooting percentage at 36.4. In that span, Josh Richardson was twice as efficient at 72.8 — Channing Frye and DeAndre Jordan are also more than two times greater on efficiency.

So what’s up with Smart? Here’s what his shot chart looks like in that horrendous nine-game span:

What happened to team spirit and Celtics green? Smart has been really bad everywhere. While his jumper numbers are bad, he’s 16.3 percent below league average at the rim. He’s technically a point guard, but Smart only had three shots with more than six seconds of touch time in this awful nine-game run. He’s also had 53.8 percent of his shots come without a dribble. While that’s usually the best scenario for efficiency, Smart only posted a 26.2 effective field goal percentage on those no-dribble shots. What’s more, he managed just a 28.1 eFG% when he was wide open on shots greater than 10 feet away.

Basically, he just can’t shoot. The shot selection is pretty good because he’s been open on 66.4 percent of his shots. Still, he’s not losing playing time because of his defense. There’s really no way you can use him in DFS right now while he’s this cold. In season-long leagues, it really depends who is out there if you want to drop him. The problem is Smart probably has higher upside than anyone on the wire.

Cold Ish

Speaking of guys who looked like they were coming around from an efficiency standpoint, Ish Smith is back to struggling again. Here’s what his shot chart looks like in his last four games.

Yeah, and you thought 45.0 percent at the rim was bad. Smith does have a higher percentage of his shots at the rim, so that’s why he’s at 30.2 percent from the field and not below 29 like Smart. However, he should not be taking that many mid-range shots.

Since Jahlil Okafor (knee) went down back on Feb. 29, Smith leads the team on usage rate at 24.9. He’s also first in minutes and assists. Plus, he is only fifth worst on true shooting percentage, but that’s because he was really in a nice groove before this four-game stinker.

Basically, he has a big upside with all that usage. He just needs to get the efficiency sorted out. Smith actually has three pretty good matchups coming up against the Nuggets, Blazers and Warriors. He will probably have at least one great game in there and he certainly could hit value in all three. Season-long owners should still trust him unless they’re teetering on field goal percentage.

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