Comments on: Reading Preseason Box Scores

by: bv

Thu, 27 Oct 2005 20:09:00 +0000

i actually am a huge fan of both villanueva and griffin this year. I think they’re great risk/reward picks late in the draft. As for Ford, I’m optimistic - but you have to wonder what his ceiling is? Still, spending a late round pick on him makes sense.

by: Michael

Thu, 27 Oct 2005 18:30:00 +0000

I picked up Charlie Villanueva, Eddie Griffin, and TJ Ford in the later rounds of my draft yesterday.

Based on preseason, they all looked like pretty good gambles in terms of performance and playing time.

What do you expect from these three?

by: nightkid

Tue, 25 Oct 2005 19:28:00 +0000

Another interesting thing is the situation in PHX. James Jones and Raja Bell had been lighting it up from beyond the arc. Raja Bell is going to be good this year, but what about James Jones? A lot of people are saying that Jim Jackson will cut into his minutes. But is it really going to happen? I haven’t yet seen 1 game where James Jones play very few minutes.

We’ll see about that after the season begins.

by: Anonymous

Tue, 25 Oct 2005 04:13:00 +0000

Last season, I relied heavily on pre-season stats for evaluating the rookie class and found it quite useful.

I noticed, for example, that Dwight Howard seemed to be getting heavy minutes and putting up double-doubles on a nightly basis, so I targeted him in my draft and picked him up in the very late rounds. As it turned out, his preseason season numbers weren’t too far off from what he posted in the regular season.

In particular, I keep an eye out for guys that are putting up decent numbers and getting heavy minutes on crappy teams that don’t have a strong cast of established veterans(But I steer clear of those rooks on crappy teams run by rookie-averse coaches like Larry Brown).

This year, the two players that you mention in your post would qualify. Chris Paul, even before last night’s eye-poppin’ line, was averaging nearly six dimes while playing close to 30 m/gm. There’s absolutley no reason to think that he won’t duplicate those numbers this season. He should also be a good source of steals and threes and if he also happens to be a point guard that averages 4.5 boards a game, well I’ll just about twist my arm off patting myself on the back for drafting him in the tenth round.

Villanueva certainly meets my qualifications too but he seems less certain than Paul to get the requisite PT this season. How is Toronto going to use him? As a starting 4, with Bosh at center? As a backup to Bosh? Or even as a center? He went undrafted in my league, but based on his pre-season showing, he’s definitely worth keeping an eye on.