By Dalton Del Don
With LeBron James and Kobe Bryant seeing fewer minutes on loaded teams this year, Dwyane Wade has emerged as the best fantasy player on the planet, although Chris Paul is a close second. Finally back to health, Wade is currently averaging career-highs in points (29.0), steals (2.3) and blocks (1.6) to go along with 5.1 rpg and 7.1 apg. He leads the NBA in scoring, and what guard swats that many shots per game? And because of an increase in attempts, he’s even adding 0.7 three-pointers per contest as well. Durability remains a concern, but at least the Heat are in contention this season. Wade is the No. 1 fantasy commodity.
Utah hasn’t missed Carlos Boozer at all with the emergence of Paul Millsap, who just finished a streak of 19 consecutive double-doubles. He even contributes more in the defensive categories than Boozer, averaging 1.4 steals and 1.2 blocks during his 21 starts this season. Since joining the starting lineup, Millsap has been a top-20 fantasy player and has made Utah’s decision whether or not to spend big on the upcoming free agent Boozer this offseason a lot easier.
Don’t look now, but Sebastian Telfair deserves to be rostered in all fantasy leagues. Over the last four games, he’s averaged 12.8 ppg, 7.8 apg and 1.8 spg. His shooting from the field is downright ugly (33.2 percent), but at least he doesn’t take a lot of attempts, and he can knock down free throws (79.5 percent). Telfair looks like the Timberwolves’ new starter at point, and those in need of dimes and steals should look his way.
I’m not sure who misses Mike D’Antoni more, Shawn Marion or Steve Nash. Marion is currently averaging just 11.9 ppg – the lowest since his rookie season. He’s a skilled basketball player, and it’s not like his stats were completely dictated by Phoenix’s uptempo system, but he should have been careful what he wished for, because his skill set clearly works best in certain systems. Marion entered the year a career 34.0 percent shooter from downtown; he’s at 19.4 percent this season. Think he misses all those wide open looks from the corner? And as for Nash, his eventual decline was bound to happen sooner or later, but it’s pretty obvious his suppressed numbers can be directly tied to D’Antoni’s exit. He’s basically back to being the same player he was in Dallas – very good but certainly not in MVP discussions.
After the All-Star break last year, Danny Granger really broke out and revealed a potential superstar. Well, he’s fast developed into a top-5 fantasy player in 2008-09. There might not be another player in the league who contributes so much in every single category, and to think, 16 teams passed him up in the 2005 draft. The scary thing is he’s only getting better. Check out his numbers in January: 32.9 ppg, 4.4 rpg, 4.6 apg, 1.4 spg, 1.6 bpg and 3.3 3PT – all while shooting 49.3 percent from the floor and 91.8 percent from the line. One gets the feeling Granger will be appearing in a couple of All Star games before all is said and done.
It looks like Russell Westbrook’s late surge up NBA draft boards was well warranted, as the rookie point guard has averaged 15.6 ppg, 5.1 rpg, 5.5 apg and 1.3 spg since entering the starting lineup 22 games ago. He’s also drastically improved his shooting, and while the Thunder have experimented with him at shooting guard recently, expect him to settle in at the point long-term. With Kevin Durant, Jeff Green and Westbrook, Oklahoma City has quite the talented young nucleus. And since they currently have the worst record in the NBA, expect a fourth blue chipper to be added in next year’s draft. They could be dangerous in two years.
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