Weekly Report: Injuries Mounting
As injuries pile up — as they really start to pile up, with all due respect to the guys who got hurt late in preseason — we’re now at the part of the season where attentive managers can grab some quick wins by being smart about the bottom of the roster. We’re not advocating dropping someone with major long-term upside like Isaiah Jackson, but if you have a plodder type like Reggie Jackson or Steven Adams and aren’t relying on their specific output in a specific build, you’re going to get far more utility out of dropping the low-end guys to make room for streamers, particularly those with multiple games of appeal.
Not every injury situation will yield a player like that — hello, Torrey Craig — but most of them do, and every so often you’ll end up with a real gem like Jevon Carter has been. Three or four games of someone like Thad Young in a starting role is probably better than what you’re getting out of the last guy on your roster anyway, and it also gives managers the added flexibility of moving from streamer to streamer as the season goes on. It can be hard to move on from the team you carefully assembled on draft day but being willing to churn through a spot or two can yield major benefits over time. It’s the sort of thing that can help you get past your own injury issues.
Good Surprise
Spencer Dinwiddie’s hot shooting landed him inside the top-20, thanks largely to an absurd 4.3 3-pointers per game and .509 from the floor overall. He’s now a top-40 guy on the full season and despite the good vibes, this is an obvious sell-high opportunity. Dinwiddie could very well deliver a career-high in scoring, but a few other numbers look way out of whack. Here are his current numbers on track for career bests, with the previous high in parenthesis: 1.2 steals per game (0.8), 3.3 3-pointers (1.9), a .459 3-point percentage (.376 — and even that’s an outlier, with every other season .337 or below), and a .491 field goal percentage (.444). That’s not to say that Dinwiddie can’t make a big leap in his game; simply that expecting him to make this big a leap in so many areas seems like a bad bet.
Apologies to any managers who have stepped in Dinwiddie’s warpath so far this season but those of you who will dance with him later in the calendar could get a nice reprieve. Maybe he’s playing extra feisty because of the crypto crash.
There were a number of fun candidates for this spot this week, but Dinwiddie narrowly grabbed the crown over Jalen Green (No. 23), Aleksej Pokusevski (No. 25), Max Strus (No. 30), Charles Bassey (No. 39), Patrick Williams (No. 46) and Lu Dort (No. 50). We’ll get to them later, for the most part.
Bad Surprise
For the first time this year we’ve got no “good” players sitting outside the top-300. The only one who is even close to the consciousness of 12-team leagues is JaVale McGee at No. 375, and even that isn’t a real shock. Instead we’ll have to look at Collin Sexton at No. 289, with nothing of note beyond 13.0 points on .475 shooting in four contests. He hit two 3-pointers and grabbed two steals in four games and appears to be locked into a bench role for the Jazz. While Utah being surprisingly good has been a fun treat for managers who rolled the dice on Jazz players, Sexton is the one guy left out in the cold. We were fading him hard during draft season but this is beyond even the most pessimistic projections. The fact that the Jazz keep winning only decreases the odds of a second-half surge, too.
No Surprise
Herb Jones was up inside the top-120 last week and looks to be quietly getting back on track. He’s going to be the forgotten man in New Orleans between their star power and the concerns over more proven fantasy options in Jonas Valanciunas and CJ McCollum, but the Pelicans need what Jones has to offer. Most encouraging for fantasy managers is the fact that Jones landed in the 12-team picture despite “only” four steals and one block in four games. A defensive maestro, seeing him swap some made shots for multi-steal or multi-block games is an easy trade to ask for, and one we’re expecting over the course of the season. Keep sticking with him.
30 Thoughts
Let’s whip around the league to see what’s wrinkling the brain these days, from star names to the scrubbiest of scrubs. It’s what happens when you’re in a 30-team league.
Atlanta: AJ Griffin looks to have supplanted Justin Holiday in the rotation. Not surprising that the team’s best 3-point shooter is climbing the ladder. Deep leagues only for the time being but the thought of a knockdown shooter getting to stand in the corner and play off some All-Star guards sure is appealing.
Brooklyn: The Cam Thomas experience is not a fun one — outside of Summer League anyway. The fact that it’s taken so many absences and organizational disruptions to even get him on the court is not a great sign, and while Thomas’ scoring upside will always keep him in the conversation, he’s got a long way to go before being a consistently impactful NBA player.
Boston: A little disappointing that Derrick White couldn’t take off, even with Malcolm Brogdon’s hamstring injury. He ended up averaging 21.8 mpg and was startable as a top-110 guy, but it would’ve been fun to see him go right back to the old top-60 stuff.
Charlotte: The Hornets might get better with LaMelo Ball back in action, though their early losses might be too much to overcome considering the depth of quality teams in the East. If the team can’t get near the Play-In race, keep an eye on Mark Williams. He was thought to be NBA-ready in the draft and generated a little sleeper appeal in fantasy draft season but has struggled to find time under Steve Clifford. Recently assigned to the G League, Williams has shown out. Over three contests with Greensboro (in this stint), Williams has averaged 24.0 points on .547 shooting, 14.0 rebounds and 2.7 blocks per game. Don’t forget about him.
Chicago: Sign me up for the post-hype season where Patrick Williams is actually delivering on his sleeper appeal. There’s a lot to like about his game in fantasy and reality.
Cleveland: Isaac Okoro finally hit his first 3-pointer of the season last week, but it’s highly concerning that the Cavs were down two starters and chose to go with their oldest player and an offensively deficient Lamar Stevens. Okoro’s being kept in a pretty tight role; one that might not get the most out of his game.
Dallas: The JaVale McGee experiment sure ended quickly; he’s been benched and now is hurt. There were hopes he could recapture last season’s magic as a low-end big man but that hasn’t come to pass.
Denver: Please lord, let Michael Malone learn from last season (and the year before that, and the year before that) and just plug in Bruce Brown at center while Nikola Jokic is in the health and safety protocols. NBA Twitter might not be able to handle the whiplash of going from Jokic to DeAndre Jordan at the same position.
Detroit: I don’t want to think about Marvin Bagley as a fantasy option and you can’t make me. Last season it took a ton of minutes and a featured offensive role to make him a late-round consideration; even in a starting role it’s tough to see Bagley repeating 27.2 mpg and 21.2 usage on this version of the Pistons. We’ll see if he can take advantage of this quick starting opportunity and set himself up for more later in the year.
Golden State: James Wiseman’s roster percentage is a good measure of how many teams are already inactive. Simply paying attention makes you better than a huge swath of the fantasy populous. That aside, a G League assignment should be good for him. Let Wiseman get in a bit of a groove in real playing time and boost up his confidence in games that he should dominate. What that means for his role whenever Wiseman gets recalled is anyone’s guess, though.
Houston: Last week, we said this about Jalen Green: “A slow start for Jalen Green has him outside the top-150, though if you worked him into a punt-FG% build and didn’t go all in on last year’s strong finish from the field, things are working out alright.”
Well, things are going better now after Green shot .596 from the field to score 29.3 points per game last week. There’s a wild swing in terms of what you’ll get, as there always is with volume scorers, but Green’s been far more good than bad over his last few months of NBA action.
Indiana: Weirdly, I think that Myles Turner playing great actually helps out Isaiah Jackson and Jalen Smith in the long term. An impactful Turner makes him a better trade target, and that will mean we get a bidding war or some team caving quickly. Pressure creates deals and right now Turner is doing all he can to get out of Indiana.
LA Clippers: After Luke Kennard left Tuesday’s game with a calf strain, I’m ready to declare that starting spot truly cursed. It sent Norman Powell into a crazy slump, did nothing for Terance Mann and now injured Kennard, all while the Clips wait for Kawhi Leonard to take the throne. Fingers crossed that Ty Lue settles on Nic Batum — who we know fits with the rest of the starters — or Robert Covington — who simply needs more minutes — as the next option. One of them will break the curse and become a 12-team value in the process, you heard it here first.
Los Angeles Lakers: Apparently the Lakers are in no rush to make a trade as they want to see what impact Dennis Schroder and Thomas Bryant have on the roster before shaking things up. Oooh, nobody tell them.
Memphis: Interested to see what happens with Brandon Clarke now that Jaren Jackson Jr. is back. Last year they proved to be the frontcourt against playoff-type opponents. We saw Clarke pop off as Steven Adams struggled in Jackson’s return game on Tuesday, and maybe JJJ’s presence lessens the need for Memphis to keep leaning on Adams so much. Maybe I’m just a sucker trying to find reasons to believe. But if I’m not, think about the value Clarke could provide…
Miami: Gabe Vincent was great last year with Kyle Lowry out and he’s been just as steady with Tyler Herro ailing now. Look at him for points, steals and triples, though you won’t find the same assists upside at the moment. There’s room for more than just Max Strus here.
Milwaukee: Jrue Holiday’s absence is a bummer, and a reminder that random injuries are the only things you’ll need to think about in Milwaukee this year.
Minnesota: Surrendering a huge lead to a shorthanded Cavs team and letting Darius Garland go supernova isn’t great, but a win is a win, and maybe that’ll reset things for the Wolves. A lot is being made of their slow start and some stuff under the hood isn’t looking great, but the team got off to a similarly slow start last season before turning it around. It’s also not a coincidence that the Wolves won on a night where D’Angelo Russell finally played well. They badly need more out of their guards.
New Orleans: Larry Nance Jr. is a legitimate must-start guy for the rest of the way. The Pelicans are not afraid to lean into small ball and he’s getting the backup C minutes even when they aren’t. Hopefully those nights lead to fewer injuries and Nance can just roll.
New York: Remember that offseason when the Knicks had some real momentum as an organization and a ton of cap space? And then they entered the season with the same team plus Evan Fournier and no cap space? Fournier was DNP-CD on Tuesday night. At least you can feel a little more comfortable with Cam Reddish, not that that’s a sentence that anyone’s said before.
Oklahoma City: Last week, we said “Aleksej Pokusevski sits just inside the top-200 despite shooting .381 from the field and .500 at the line. If he can even get to “below average” it looks like this could be the year. That’s a large leap, but everything else is tracking in the right direction.”
Pokusevski shot .586 from the field and .667 at the line, finishing as a top-25 player last week while also grabbing 3.3 defensive stats per game. He won’t hit that percentage every week but clearly there’s a reasonable landing spot when things aren’t either very good or very bad.
Orlando: Mo Bamba was back in the top-100 last week. Fingers crossed he can keep this up when Paolo Banchero returns. There should be a way to get all of the bigs involved, but it is a very tough needle to thread. You shudder to think of the crunch when the team gets its guards back in a few weeks.
Philadelphia: The Sixers being interested in Kevin Durant is nice, but that deal would take approximately a million other things to happen, ranging from another team or two that has assets Brooklyn would want willing to play ball to the Nets deciding to hand over another star to Philly. Fun to dream, at least.
Phoenix: The Jae Crowder relationship must be damaged beyond repair because this is the perfect situation for him to return, build up his trade value and then ride off into the sunset with another squad.
Portland: Prior to this season, the last time the Blazers had reasonable NBA forwards, they were Al-Farouq Aminu and Moe Harkless. Seeing the team’s transformation into a bunch of long wings that fly around on defense has been incredible. Their title cred is still up for debate but the Blazers can at least put up a fight at the game’s most important position again.
Sacramento: Good for the Kings, throttling the Nets on national TV like that. The offense is starting to hum and everything appears to be rounding into form. That’s a rising tide that should lift all boats and good vibes are contagious. We’ll see if it kickstarts Harrison Barnes at all.
San Antonio: So far so good out of the Spurs’ five-game week, with Tre Jones missing one but dropping 10 dimes in the second, Devin Vassell and Keldon Johnson bouncing back from a Monday dud, Jakob Poeltl setting a new career-high in scoring and Charles Bassey even delivering low-end numbers in a limited role. Three more games of goodness to go.
Toronto: Last week I intimated that Toronto’s injuries could have the silver lining of forcing the team to elevate guys into real roles that will either provide the Raptors usable intel or inspire those players into better play. Fred VanVleet, Gary Trent Jr., Precious Achiuwa and Otto Porter were all promptly injured. I apologize profusely. This, in turn, will lead to enough returns to halt the momentum of Dalano Banton, who set career-highs in scoring in two straight games. I cannot win.
Utah: Talen Horton-Tucker becoming a legitimate backup point guard on a team other than the Lakers is the height of hardcore NBA comedy. It’s also actionable for managers in deeper leagues! Letting THT run point seems to bring the best out of him while also playing to Collin Sexton’s strengths as a shot-hunter, though Sexton’s struggles are another story for another day.
Washington: Remember Corey Kispert? You should. He was top-70 last week and while that was obviously inflated by .727 shooting, the Wizards seem likely to keep Kispert and his spacing in the mix with the starters. He’s an underrated grab if you’re in a 12-team league.
Deep League Darts
How’d we do last week? For 16-teamers, we endorsed Maxi Kleber, who fell outside the top-200 even as JaVale McGee got the boot. For 18-teamers, we called out a returning Alec Burks, who finished at No. 279 but did score 17 points in his lone appearance. We totally missed on Gorgui Dieng, as Charles Bassey got all the minutes.
Nic Batum hit seven 3-pointers on Tuesday night and while that’s not a reasonable expectation for him, it seems like it might be his turn to step up on the wings. Add him in 16-teamers and see what happens over the next few games.
In 18-team leagues, Dwight Powell appears to have some stability in a starting role. He won’t fit every build but you know that he’ll help you in the long run.
In 20-teamers, you could find a little value in Wenyen Gabriel, who appears to be getting regular minutes as a defensive-minded forward. Things could drop off when the Lakers get healthy but if you need a FG% boost with some rebounds, steals and blocks, Gabriel plays hard enough to get the job done.
In even deeper leagues, let’s have some fun and go with David Roddy, who should pick up reasonable playing time while Desmond Bane (toe) is out.
Final Thoughts
This is a tricky time for NBA evaluators. Things have been going long enough to draw some conclusions, but we still have plenty of room for changes. Remember how the Wizards were great last year and then ended up being mediocre or worse? Or how the Celtics looked totally broken? We’re at the same point this year. The Jazz will probably not make the playoffs, try as they might. The Sixers and Heat aren’t this average, and the Wolves will still get better. We have some good information to act on but things are still taking shape, so don’t get crazy just yet.
It would be awesome if the Jazz made the playoffs, though, just to be clear.
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