Fantasy basketball is all about the numbers, but that doesn’t mean you can just look at the box scores and know what’s going on. You really do need to watch the games so you can see who’s playing well, who plays well together, what each team does well, etc. That said, even with the NBA package, you can’t watch every game. It’s obvious that I watch every Wizards game, but when the Wiz aren’t on, who do I watch? Well, it shouldn’t be too surprising that I end up watching lots of games featuring my top players. I mean, it’s always nice to have a rooting interest, right? So since I watch my players a lot – and since I have a lot of the more interesting players from the season’s first month on my team – I thought I’d give some scouting reports so you can know these players beyond just their numbers. You guys can play along, too. Most everyone out there has to have a hometown team that they watch all the time, or they watch their own players all the time. So chime and give us the good stuff. I’ll probably report on some other players in the near future.
Kevin Martin
Martin has cooled down lately, but this was to be expected. I mentioned in the comments the other day how I saw him as a Richard Hamilton-type with more 3s and I’m sticking to it. A lot of people focus on his weird release for his shot, and it’s true, it is weird (like lots of players on my team, it would seem), but that’s just how it is. It’s what works, don’t let it affect your judgment of him. If he slows down, it’s not because he has a weird looking shot. Martin’s a scorer; he’s not going to rack up many boards or assists, those will come based on how many minutes he plays. But he can definitely score. He’s got a really quick first step and draws lots of fouls this way, which helps explain how he gets to the line so often. His favorite move this year is driving into the lane and then taking a one-footed fadeaway jumper that he often gets fouled on, and he’s fairly accurate with it. He can also nail the open 3. He moves well without the ball and here’s where Brad Miller’s return is going to help him. Miller is the team’s best passer and he’s been finding Martin on backdoors a few times a game. Martin needs these easy buckets to help keep his FG% at a high level, as even though he’s a good shooter, pure jump shooters just don’t shoot 50% on the season.
On defense he commits reaching fouls too often and gets manhandled when he has to guard bigger players. He’s been avoiding foul trouble for the most part, though. He acts as a rover on defense a lot, coming on help and sometimes this is how he gets his steals. One interesting thing I’ve noticed is that Mike Bibby almost never passes the ball to Martin. The assist numbers don’t really bear it out, as at 6 per game Bibby’s right where normally is, even a bit higher, but he’s chucking it a lot more this year it seems. Or maybe I’m just noticing because he’s not passing to my boy Kevin Martin. In any case, Bibby has looked very bad early on, not that this is much of a revelation. It’s not just that he’s taking lots of shots, but fade away jumpers from the corner with 16 seconds on the shot clock. No wonder he’s a long way from 40%. My final verdict on Martin is that he should be a viable mid-round-value fantasy option all year, but he needs help from his teammates to get involved, and sometimes guys like Bibby and Ron Artest aren’t the best helpers. Also, John Salmons seems to have won over Eric Musselman, Francisco Garcia gets minutes and Ronnie Price is starting to assert himself, so minutes might start being at a premium. He’s been over 40 minutes in two of his last four, but under 32 in the four others. I drafted Martin in the 8th round and while it was definitely great value, I’m pretty sure he’ll end the year being merely a very good value.
Zach Randolph
Remember my rationale when picking Randolph in the 7th round? It was basically that the Blazers had nobody with any history of being a serious scorer in the league and that Randolph would have no choice but to score. And that’s exactly what’s happened, and there’s really nobody in the league better suited for the role. Carmelo Anthony is the only other player that has as single-minded a mission to put the ball in the basket every time he touches the ball. Randolph’s a bulldog on that lower block, and he can work his way to the basket better than just about anyone. Sometimes he gets enamored with his jumpshot and sometimes he gets too hung up on taking his defender to the basket, and this is when he’ll throw up those 10-for-25s. But he never loses his confidence, that’s for sure. He passes out of double teams, but those rarely lead to assists. He’s like the ultimate ESPN bottom line player. You see that 31 and 13, but then you see it came on 11-of-26 shooting with 1 assist, no steals and no blocks and it’s not nearly as good. But this is no surprise with Randolph. He has absolutely no interest in playing tough defense, and all of his steals are by accident.
Should we be worried about his knee issues that arose for the first time the other night? Sure, but don’t freak out about it. He might experience some discomfort and miss a game or two, but Randolph is without a doubt a legit 20/10 guy when he plays. I was hoping he might hit a few more 3s this year, but that doesn’t seem to be the case, but that’s actually a good thing. I was thinking he might because he wouldn’t be able to bang down low as much, but he’s as strong as ever down there. It would be nice of some of his kickouts turned into assists and if he didn’t force quite as many shots. The 20/10 with 80+% from the line on tons of attempts are great, but he needs to keep that FG% in the 46-48 range to maintain top 50 value.
Tayshaun Prince
I was excited to get Prince in the 9th round this year, and his early results have quite nice. And it’s all due to one thing, and that’s 3s. Prince attempted between 1.7 and 2.2 3pg in the past three seasons, but is up to 3.3 attempts per game this year. He’s hitting at a ridiculous rate – 47% – which is sure to come down, but as an owner, I just hope he keeps launching. It looks like it’s becoming a more permanent aspect of his game, as he’s taken at least 4 attempts in 5 of the last 6 games. He needs the 3s, though, because his defensive game is seriously lacking, at least for fantasy purposes. Prince is still a very solid defender, but he hasn’t been going for steals at all, with just 5 total on the season. That’s piss poor. It will improve because it’s simply hard to play 36 mpg and get that few steals, but my hopes of Prince being a 1/1/1 guy seem very unlikely to be fulfilled.
But the career high in points is going to stick. Prince is 26 and is in the perfect “career year” territory. The absence of Ben Wallace didn’t leave many extra points, but it left plenty of extra boards and Prince is picking up the slack there, not afraid to get under the basket, as evidence by his 6 rpg. He’s definitely a bigger part of the offense and everyone knows to look for him in the corner when he has an open 3, and he’s certainly not shy about taking it. Perhaps it wasn’t exactly what people who drafted Prince were expecting, but we’ll definitely take it.