Dr. Quez’s Fantazzle Fantasy Basketball Advice
Wondering who are the hottest players in Fantazzle Fantasy Basketball right now? Wonder no more, Dr. Quez on the case. You have your usual suspects – the LeBrons, D-Wades, and Dirk Nowitzkis of the world. But unless you’re paying very close attention, you might not realize just how good the following players have been lately.
Andre Iguodala, Philadelphia 76′ers
Iguodala has been one of the top ten most valuable players in Fantazzle lately, joining the 40 Fantazzle Points Per Game (FPG) club over the past two weeks, territory typically only occupied by the aforementioned group of tier-1 players.
This 40 point mark refers not to actual points scored but total Fantazzle points accrued, which can be accomplished in a variety of ways. You can count the number of 40 point players on two hands, and they are all well-rounded guys who contribute in at least three different scoring categories. Iguodala has reached this mark by actually contributing in all five Fantazzle scoring categories, something that only LBJ and Wade have managed to do on a regular basis this season. He’s being doing this all year, but his numbers have simply spiked across the board lately, especially his scoring, which has jumped to over 23 per game over the past two weeks. Sure, he’s priced aggressively at $125,000. But then again, that’s about what Steve Nash will cost you, and we already know how poorly he fares in this format.
Carlos Boozer, Utah Jazz
If you’re wondering why he’s been so good this year, look no further than his employment status. Ah yes, the infamous walk-year performance boost. Sure, it helps that both he and Deron Williams are healthy again, but I don’t think anybody really saw this kind of production coming. Boozer has averaged 41.8 FPP over the past two weeks and 38.3 for the year, while only costing you $85,000. Don’t ask why we’ve priced him so low, just sign him up every time he’s got a four-game week on his hands. In fact, Boozer offers such stellar value that you probably want to pay him even if he’s only got three games on tap for the week. That’s how good he’s been.
Brook Lopez, New Jersey Nets
If you haven’t been paying attention to Brook Lopez lately, it’s time to get your act together. The truth is that we’re looking at perhaps the next great fantasy center coming into his own right now, less than half-way through just his second season. How many NBA execs are kicking themselves for letting him slide to all the way to New Jersey with the tenth pick in the 2008 draft? This is now two years in a row that a budding superstar has fallen to that spot in the draft, the other being Brandon Jennings (going to Milwaukee this June). Yes, he does command a healthy salary in our game ($100,000), but he still offers excellent value, averaging 36.5 FPP for the year and 41.4 FPP over the past two weeks. How’s he doing it? By averaging 23.3 points, 10.3 boards, 1.3 steals and 1.6 blocks over that stretch, good enough to place him at the number eight spot on the Fantazzle Player Rater. Sign him up, because your smarter adversaries surely will. You can’t let the good deals pass you by in any league, and Fantazzle is no different.
Weekly Rant:
Is There Hope for the Knicks?
Don’t look now, but Mike D’Antoni’s New York Knicks are 5-1 in December and have beaten four playoff-bound teams in the process (Phoenix, Atlanta, Portland and New Orleans). This is not only good news for Knicks fans but also for alert fantasy players, as certain fringe players, such as Wilson Chandler, Larry Hughes and Chris Duhon are suddenly viable assets. In addition, the already solid David Lee and Al Harrington have seen a spike in value, and second year sharp-shooter Danilo Gallinari has re-emerged as a top-50 fantasy option.
From a fantasy perspective, New York is an intriguing club because it features D’Antoni’s fast-paced offense. The result is that when the jump shots are falling, the Knicks have seven – count them, seven – ownable fantasy players. How many other teams can really say that? And how is that even possible if this team is just 8-15, despite the recent winning streak?
The answer lies beyond the obvious (D’Antoni’s up-tempo system). It has just as much to do with his newly shortened rotation, which now features only eight players, and sometimes just seven on any given night. Nate Robinson hasn’t played a single minute since December 1, and rookie Toney Douglas has logged just 11.8 minutes per game this month, which has allowed the remaining guards and swingmen to all play extended minutes. Now, Gallinari, Chandler and Hughes all get enough time to be productive, while Duhon is back to logging 35+ minutes per-game, as he did last year when he was a fantasy revelation.
Yet if you want to understand their success in real-world, non-fantasy terms, you can’t look at any of these six fantasy-relevant players. Instead, you have to talk about defensive stalwart Jared Jeffries, who has been New York’s defensive anchor during the winning streak. If you have actually watched the Knicks play over the past two weeks, you’d know that he routinely guards the other team’s best offensive player, regardless of what position he plays, and leads the league in charges taken. In their most recent victory over New Orleans, for example, you’d have seen Jeffries bouncing back and forth between the best point guard on the planet, Chris Paul, and David West, the Hornets’ best post player. And you’d have seen him managed to stymie them both, despite giving away 30 pounds to West and ______. His combination of height, length and speed is very unusual; All-Star Tayshaun Prince is the first analogue that comes to mind.
The irony is that Jeffries has played so well that the rest of the league HAS to take notice, and his trade value will correspondingly increase. Entering this season, the Knicks’ plan was simple: develop the kids and try to move Eddy Curry and Jeffries’s contracts, because both extend into the 2011 season. The logic was, if you take their salaries off the books, now you can offer not one, but TWO max contracts this summer. You can say to LeBron James, hey, we know we suck right now, but we’d be pretty damn good if we added both you AND Chris Bosh, wouldn’t we?
Now the Knicks find themselves with a curious dilemma: if we find a taker for Jared Jeffries (perhaps by packaging him with Nate Robinson), should we even do the deal?
This was an unthinkable question to ask even three weeks ago. But now, I would argue that’s its a legitimate one, and you really do have to think twice. Let’s not forget that Jeffries was dubbed the “closet MVP” of that Wizards team that made a nice little playoff run in his last season with the club. Now the Knicks have some swagger, and the reason why is they are able to run out FOUR plus defenders simultaneously, with Jeffries (PF), Chandler (SF), Hughes (SG) and Duhon (PG), and D’Antoni has routinely done precisely that over the course of their recent winning streak.
Think about it. What if this Knicks team is better than people realize, and they keep winning games with Jeffries as the defensive anchor? What if they inch closer to .500, and find themselves in the hunt for a playoff spot? Do you give him away for some crummy player who happens to have an expiring contract?
I think Walsh almost certainly makes that deal, but I cannot say with confidence that it’s the right move. The more I watch this guy play defense, the more I like this team as currently constituted.
