I’ve also noticed that Yahoo gets pretty stingy with the old “C” while throwing out “GF”s all over the place. According to Yahoo, there are only 49 centers in the league and 10 teams have only 1 center, which is totally ridiculous.

People thought I was crazy for drafting Brad Miller in the 2nd round last year, but they underestimated the value of a top center on the fantasy world….case in point, I ended up winning my league.

I think that in order to have a successful fantasy team, you need to have two QUALITY starting centers, as well as some other FC or C eligible players to fill in.

As far as C’s are concerned, I’d include Amare, Diaw, Brad Miller, Bosh, Yao, Kaman, Okur, Boozer, D.Howard, Bogut, J.Oneal, Wallace^2, Big Z, Okafor, Camby, Duncan and Gasol as the best of the bunch.

Other potentially capable centers are K.Perkins, Krstic, Diogu, Dalembert and Pryzbilla/Magloire. Perkins needs to stay healthy, Dalembert needs to keep his head, Diogu just needs minutes, Krstic is solid, and is one of Pryz/Magloire gets hurt, then the value of the other goes up significantly.

Overall, I think that you need to have 2 or 3 of these guys to do well in fantasy league, but you need to take into account what each player gets you. Dalemembert, when at potential, gets like 5 blocks a night, wheras Boozer might get you a block in 5 games. Diogu and Bosh help your FT%, which is quite rare for a big man.

Overall, if you’re going in to the 3rd round (and certainly the 4th/5th round) and don’t have one center yet, you better start looking around, because you don’t want to get pinched by scarcity.

I’ve almost thought about trying to punt 3’s this year and load up on big guys on PG’s (who can shoot). Big guys help you out with rebounds, Offensive Rebounds, Blocks, and FG%…and they don’t usually get TO’s either. If you pair that with some guards who rack up the steals and assists, then you can run the tables on almost every category except for 3ptsm.

Aight…enough rambling on…but I think my point is clear. It’s hard to acquire quality C talent…especially off the waiver wire for more than a few games. It’s much easier to find someone who plays SG/SF who can come in and score some points, hit a three and grab a steal for you. Take this in mind near the late rounds of your draft if you think you can get more value out of some potential steals.

…and above all else MINUTES ARE THE BEST PREDICTOR OF FANTASY SUCCESS (unless your name is DeShawn Stevenson).

I was reading Give Me The Rock this morning and I noticed they were wondering where the position eligibility was coming from (I was curious as well); I assume you guys are looking at this page?

Smooth,

I’m basing this off of Yahoo!’s rosters … for example, here is where Lamarcus Aldridge lost his C potential, and where Brandon Roy picked up PG eligibility: http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/teams/por/roster

Pmad, i agree that that’s a real small amount of C’s … are you counting guys that are “FC’s” as well?

Jeremy,
You wont see me calling you crazy for drafting brad miller in the 2nd round last year. In fact, during our mock draft last year, he was our first player taken in the second round! but yes, as much as we preach PG’s here, centers are the RB’s of fantasy basketball. Scarce, yet necessary.

Finally, we won’t speak badly of deshawn stevenson here at FBB HQ. anyone that contributes to jared jeffries getting the hell out of washington is ok with us.

BV,

I meant to throw out the link to the page at in my first comment, but it slipped my mind until after I submitted. I was going off the the Yahoo player page, which included both C’s and FC’s. I’m not sure when the last time this page was updated, but if those are all the centers in the league, then I can see why there is a need to bump up the value of players who qualify.

Okay, I fully agree with the need for good centers, but I’m having trouble with the position scarcity topic lately. I won my hoops league last year with excellent centers, and fully appreciate that other teams suffered for having the likes of Przybilla in there instead. But I think it’s definitely possible to overdo it, and to leave a lot of statistical production on the table in a panicked attempt to get a center, or even a second center. (I noticed this after a disastrous fantasy baseball draft going after catchers and shortstops, actually, but I won’t get into those details.) I don’t think people would tend to make this mistake in the first round; people recognize that Dwyane Wade is more valuable than Yao Ming. But I can see it happening in the third round or so, and I’m worried I’ll make the same mistake. I think it can be easy to go into a draft with a mantra of “don’t end up with a bad center!!!” and then make the mistake of taking an overvalued C, whose statistical equivalent will be available in the sixth or seventh round, over a real stud PF or SG. In a draft, under time pressure, don’t forget that just being a center doesn’t increase a player’s value by more than several picks. It doesn’t make an eighth round guy into a fourth round guy. Are there good rules of thumb the FBB authors and commenters have for much of a bump a C should get in predraft ranking by virtue of being a C?

PMad,

I _thought_ there was something funny about that list. And then I realized - it’s totally incomplete! Where’s Shaq? Yao Ming? Brad Miller? i dunno why they have a page like that or what’s going on that makes it so incomplete, but i think it’s safe to say there are more centers in the league than there are on that list.

Rook - here’s the thing with position scarcity. For me, i don’t stress it for the first 3 or 4 rounds other than “big” vs “small,” i.e. i don’t wanna get stuck with my top 4 players being guards. But the best way to not end up in that situation in round three is to have done your homework - know who’s worth taking in the third round, the sixth round, even the eigth round. Not having a good center after 5 rounds isn’t a bad situation as long as you’ve got some mid-late round targets still up on your board, y’know? and so you won’t feel the urge to stretch for that marginal center in round 3.

BV - thanks for doing my due diligence for me. I don’t know why Yahoo would leave all the big name centers off the list, but gone they were. After a more throughout look, there are actually quite a few guys that qualify at center, it just so happens that most of them suck. Is still safe to say that there are very few centers that are actually any good, or at least not horrible.

By the way – I great new look for the site. Well done