Fantazzle Fantasy Basketball: Ring In the New Year with some Cash!
Hello, boys and girls. Welcome to another installment of Dr. Quez’s Good Advice. This one’s gonna be a quickie, because it’s New Years Eve and there is much to do here in the snow-covered paradise also known as Brooklyn.
Every week brings us new surprises in the NBA, and thus in Fantazzle Fantasy Basketball as well. This piece will focus on a short list of players who have offered excellent value over the past seven days, and who should be at the top of your list going forward anytime they offer you a four-game schedule.
David Lee, New York Knicks
Over the past seven days, Lee has averaged 45.8 Fantazzle Points Per Game (FPG), good enough to rank 7th best on the Fantazzle Player Rater (FPR). He also is in the midst of a four-game schedule, so kudos to those of you who were wise enough to sign him for the current week. At a 90K salary, you can’t really find a better value in Fantazzle Fantasy Basketball at the moment.
How is Lee doing it? For starters, as the Knicks have transformed themselves into a respectable club, they have also slowed down the pace of their offense. This means more pick-and-rolls for Lee, who excels at beating larger defenders to the basketball off the dribble, and who is perhaps the most ambidextrous finisher in the league. Lee has also gained confidence in his mid-range jump shot, which has lately become very reliable, and is also a crucial part of his pick-and-roll repertoire. When the defender plays over the pick, he uses his speed to get to the rim, and when the defender plays underneath it, he steps back and splashes a fifteen-footer.
Look for Lee to make his first All-Star team this year, and don’t be surprised if Knicks re-sign him this offseason instead of chasing after a more celebrated big man, like Chris Bosh. He’s a perfect fit for D’Antoni’s offense, and has blossomed into a premiere post player.
Gilbert Arenas, Washington Wizards
Arenas offers a classic example of a player who can only benefit from the Fantazzle Fantasy Basketball scoring system. In traditional formats, Arenas’s value is limited because of his piss-poor field goal percentage and astronomical turnover rates – two categories that are not part of the Fantazzle scoring system. Here, there really is no down-side to paying Agent Zero his 115K salary when he’s actually playing good basketball, which he has been doing for a couple of weeks now (finally).
It shouldn’t come as a surprise that Arenas has averaged 46.7 FPG over the past week, because once upon a time, before all of the injuries, Arenas was a bonafide superstar, and a clear top-10 fantasy player, if not better than that. Now, about two months into his comeback campaign, we are starting to see flashes of the old Gil, which means its time to start sticking him back in your lineup. Sure, he’s no bargain at 115K, and he might not average 45+ FPG every week, but Arenas has one of the highest ceilings of any player in the game when he’s healthy, which he appears to be. My money is on him being a top-10 Fantazzle player again going forward.
Rajon Rondo, Boston Celtics
With Paul Pierce out and Kevin Garnett also ailing (he is considered day-to-day), Rondo has been forced to shoulder more of the offensive burden lately. Remember the Rondo who looked like the best player on the court during the 2008 NBA Playoffs? Well, he’s baaaack. Over the past seven days, Rondo has averaged 38.5 FPG, ranking him 17th on the FPR. The main difference has been his scoring, which has jumped to 20 ppg during this run, while his assists (9.3) and steals (2.3) remain robust. At a 90K salary, few players currently offer better value than Boston’s young point guard.
Wilson Chandler, New York Knicks
With an asking price of just 60K, Chandler is one of the cheapest options in the Fantazzle game, and yet he ranks among the top 75 on the FPR over the past seven days. True, he has had a fairly up and down year, and you never know when he’s going to lay a stinker on you, but you can afford to take that chance with a young player in a good offense who has been on a roll. The nice thing about Chandler is that he’s clearly viewed as a building block for the franchise, which means that even when he struggles, he will get his minutes. And because he contributes in four different categories (points, rebounds, steals and blocks), he can get you points even when his shot is off. He has averaged 27.3 FPG over the past seven days, and he is currently in the middle of a four-game schedule, which means he has offered excellent value to those who were smart enough to sign him for the week.
Have a safe and happy New Year, everybody!
- Dr. Quez
Fantazzle Fantasy Basketball (fantazzle.com)
