Let’s take a look at some of the players that will have a serious chance at improving in the second half of the season. This is going to be a list compiled of players that have been underachieving, injured or will be starting or seeing more minutes in the second half. i’m not going to talk about players that had great first halves and will continue to do so because we already know that Kobe and LeBron are studs and they will continue to be studs.

Ramon Sessions- If you haven’t noticed by now, I am a huge Ramon Sessions fan. With Luke Rinour out for a few more weeks with a broken thumb, Sessions is in prime position to steal the starting PG role away from Ridnour. Even if Ridnour returns as the starting PG, Sessions will have a spot at SG waiting for him and Charlie Bell will go back to the bench. Sessions has not disappointed so far and it doesn’t look like he will anytime soon either. As a starter he is averaging 18.3 ppg, 4 rpg, 7.8 apg and 1.9 spg. He is a fantasy savior in the making. Everyone thought that he would be doing this from the start of the season but Ridnour showed that he could still play and Sessions didn’t really impress anyone. Not the case anymore. Sessions is a solid option in any format as a PG or as a SG but he does seem to play better as the floor general. Read the rest of this entry »

We’ll round out the tiers today and run through some final overall rankings next week. First, some quick thoughts on the preseason. Not on specific players, mind you, just in general. Here are my basic thoughts on interpreting preseason performance:

–For the love of god, don’t let a few games in October dramatically change your outlook on someone. Mike Dunleavy put up 32 points with some nice other numbers the other night. Who cares? He’s still Mike Dunleavy.

–Don’t sweat the minor injuries. We’ve long stressed the myth of the day-to-day injury here on FBB, but it’s different in the preseason, especially with established stars. Most of these guys are ready for the season start and don’t feel like playing at ¾ speed and risking an actual injury.

–The circumstances in which you should pay attention to performance and injuries is when it directly impacts playing time to start the season.

OK, now that we got that out of the way, onto the centers. There’s actually a fairly deep pool of quality centers this year, meaning you have little reason not to have two solid starters. And you should, because once you get past the top 25 or so, the dropoff is steep.

Tier 1
Yao Ming, Chris Bosh, Tim Duncan, Jermaine O’Neal

These are the top guys in the middle and all should be gone within the first two rounds. They all have injury questions, as all except the old man of the bunch missed large chunks of time last year. That said, only O’Neal can really be given the tag of injury prone, but he’s a virtual lock for 20/10/2 and has improved his FG% dramatically over the past couple of seasons.

Tier 2
Brad Miller, Amare Stoudemire, Marcus Camby, Boris Diaw, Ben Wallace, Mehmet Okur, Zydrunas Ilgauskas, Carlos Boozer

All of these guys except for Stoudemire finished in the top 42 on the player rater last year. And all of them are guys you can pretty easily talk yourself into taking or at the same time talk yourself out of taking. Miller’s been very consistent and offers a great advantage in assists, but could age in a hurry. Amare’s pros and cons go without saying, as do Camby’s. Ben Wallace might continue his slight decline or be rejuvenated in a new setting. Okur is coming off a career year, which can be a good thing or a bad thing. Ilgauskas seems to be over his injury problems, but barely managed 30 mpg last year. Boozer was as a stud when he came back last year, but he can do it for 82 games and not get into Jerry Sloan’s doghouse?

Tier 3
Chris Kaman, Shaquille O’Neal, Samuel Dalembert, Emeka Okafor

If you play in a weekly H2H league, then Shaq can obviously be a lot higher. In traditional roto leagues, though, it’s just about impossible to have him around. Kaman could find himself in upper tier if he continues to improve on last season’s numbers, but he might just hold steady. Is this the year that Dalembert finally plays strong the whole season? How the hell should we know? As for Okafor, I remain skeptical of his ability to take it to another and stay healthy.

Tier 4
Andrew Bogut, Joel Przybilla, Nenad Krstic, Channing Frye, Tyson Chandler, Kendrick Perkins, Eddy Curry, Chris Wilcox, Darko Milicic, Pau Gasol

A long of younguns in this tier. We probably would have put Bogut in the above tier were it not for his injury. A lot of upside here, but at the same time a lot of potential for disappointment. Some favorites of mine in this tier are Channing Frye and Kendrick Perkins. Darko’s the real question mark here – even if he doesn’t fully develop this year he can still be a massive force in blocks if he fights his way into the starting lineup. Gasol is an obvious x-factor. There are going to be very solid players available through eight rounds, so it’ll be hard to take Gasol before that.

Tier 5
Ike Diogu, Kwame Brown, Zaza Pachulia, Kurt Thomas, Mark Blount, Brendan Haywood, Eddie Griffin, Nazr Mohammed

There are 25 guys listed above, not counting Gasol, so that means these guys should be viewed as bench material in almost all leagues. There’s not too much to like here. Diogu has nice upside but needs to work his way into the rotation. Kwame’s Kwame, and now he’s hurt. Blount, Haywood, Thomas, Mohammed – you only want them for fill-ins. We put Griffin on here for fun. Which of course means the opposite of fun.

Like shooting guard, power forward is a pretty thin tier. Many top power forwards qualify at center, and that’s where they are most likely to be slotted. It seems like the smalls qualify at PG, the bigs qualify at C, the mediums qualify at SF, leaving SG and PF pretty thin.

Tier 1
Dirk Nowitzki, Elton Brand

Two of the top players in the game and two of the most reliable first round draft picks. It’s hard to predict much bigger things than they’ve already done, but that’s fine. Dirk’s percentages were both slightly above his career norms last year, while his steals and blocks saw a significant drop. Something to keep in mind.

Tier 2
Rasheed Wallace, Dwight Howard, Chris Webber

Three very different players in this tier. Wallace lost his center eligibility, but it’s possible he’ll get it back with Ben Wallace gone. He might serve the Pistons better by shooting fewer 3s this year, but fantasy owners hope he keeps gunning. To me, Howard’s season hinges on how many blocks he gets. We know he’ll shoot a high percentage, be a liability from the line, clean up on the glass and increase his scoring a bit. If his block rate recovers he might justify his high draft spot. Webber’s a known commodity at this point, in that we don’t know exactly how many games he’ll play, but that he’ll be good for around 20/10 with bad shooting when he’s out there.

Tier 3
David West, Troy Murphy, Zach Randolph, Drew Gooden

It’s tempting to West in the above tier and it’s possible he shows another leap in production, but as a “percentage player,” he’s not really the type to reach for. Murphy and Randolph (when healthy) are points and boards guys, not much more. We’re big fans of Gooden’s game (we wanted the Wiz to make a run at him in the offseason), but minutes might be a real issue with Anderson (insert your own pronunciation here) around.

Tier 4
Vladimir Radmanovic, Al Jefferson, Stromile Swift, Udonis Haslem, Ryan Gomes, Kenny Thomas

All of these guys will either be starters of first people off the bench, but it’s hard to envision any of them getting much more than 30 mpg. The first three on the list are perennial disappointments (OK, that’s not totally fair to Jefferson yet) and the others are low-upside points/boards guys. Gomes seems to be holding off Jefferson for the starting job, but we’ll see if that lasts the entire year.

Remember that tiny group of shooting guards?  Well I found out where they all went: right here at the small forward group. We’ve got about fifty of these guys to tier up, so let’s get right to it:

Tier One
LeBron James, Shawn Marion, Kevin Garnett
Let me take this opportunity to discuss Shawn Marion and Kevin Garnett.  Marion is currently being taken at 4th overall on average on ESPN drafts.  KG is second.  Some doofus on Rotoworld said that his second pick was easy – whoever was leftover from KG and LeBron.  This just in: SHAWN MARION IS A BETTER FANTASY PLAYER THAN KEVIN GARNETT.  Marion was actually way better than LeBron last year, too, but I could make an argument (and have) that LeBron goes 1 overall.  But don’t let Marion slide behind KG in your draft.

Tier Two
Paul Pierce, Andrei Kirilenko, Vince Carter, Tracy McGrady
This group should all be gone after 20 picks.  Pierce is clearly the class of this group, but AK and McGrady could compete with Pierce if they stay healthy.  If you take TMac or AK, I think that’s pretty much the only risk you should be allowed for the first 7 or 8 rounds of your draft.  Surround them with solid people.

Tier Three
Michael Redd, Lamar Odom, Rashard Lewis, Carmelo Anthony, Ron Artest, Peja Stojakovic, Richard Jefferson
The reason that you take scarcity position guys in the first two rounds is so that you can take super-solid guys like these in the third.  This is what I call a “luxury” pick.  All of these guys are better than Jason Terry or Brad Miller, but if you’ve come out of the first two rounds with no C or PG, you might be inclined to reach for the scarcity pick.  Being able to pass that over for one of these guys is a luxury.

Tier Four
Antawn Jamison, Josh Smith, Andre Iguodala, Caron Butler, Ricky Davis, Al Harrington, Gerald Wallace, Charlie Villanueva, Shane Battier, Mike Miller, Morris Peterson, Josh Howard, Corey Maggette, Adam Morrison
Now THAT’S what I call a tier!  Some of these guys could go as early as the late third or early fourth, some may fall as far as the seventh or eighth, but they all are pretty much in the same category.  Some might argue that Wallace or Smith should be a tier up, but those people would be wrong.  Everyone’s got their favorites in this group (mine are probably Battier and Maggette), and this is a great place to look for your mid-round sleeper.

Tier Five
Marvin Williams, Andres Nocioni, Eddie Jones, Luol Deng, Tayshaun Prince, Shareef Abdur-Rahim
All of these guys could, theoretically, play to the level of the Tier Four guys, but all of them have question marks and issues.  There are a couple of nice sleepers here and at this point if you’ve drafted solidly you can probably run the risk on Williams or Deng rather than settling for Prince or SAR.

Tier Six
Josh Childress, Hidayet Turkoglu, Wally Sczcerbiak, Stephen Jackson, Antione Walker, Bobby Simmons, Kyle Korver, Donyell Marshall, Danny Granger, Rudy Gay
This is the “wait for it” tier.  If you have to draft these guys as starters, that’s probably not a good thing.  But if you can get one of them for your bench, I’d say go for it.  There are a couple of nice sleepers and a couple of certain disasters, but we like these guys better than the next group.

Tier Seven
Grant Hill, Marquis Daniels, Darius Miles, Hakim Warrick, Mike Dunleavy, Andrea Bargnani
OK, maybe Grant Hill should be in tier six, but only if you can pull the trigger quickly on him when he gets hurt.  The rest of these guys may very well be drafted in the late rounds but it won’t be by us.  They’ll all be more of a headache than they’re worth, and I’ll be happy to let someone else have that headache.

Here’s the thing with shooting guards – there just aren’t too many of them worth having.  When we were splitting up people into positions to tier them, we used ESPN’s positions, where it seemed like the ground rules, basically, were that players qualified at their “biggest” position, except for PG’s.  So FC’s were treated as centers, F’s were power forwards, GF’s were small forwards, and G’s were point guards. So while there are a lot of good players who qualify at SG, the thing is that most of them also qualify elsewhere, and that’s where they went.  For example, guys like Dwyane Wade and Joe Johnson, they also qualify at PG, so they are treated as PG.  Other top picks like Paul Pierce, Tracy McGrady, and Vince Carter also qualify at SF, that’s where they go.  So what you end up with is only guys who qualify purely at SG for this tier ranking.  What you also end up with is a HUGE tier drop between tiers two and three, as you’ll see:

Tier 1
Kobe Bryant, Ray Allen
When a guy only qualifies at SG, he’s gotta be really good to go in the first round, and both of these guys qualify.  Kobe could very well be the top fantasy player in the league, and Ray Allen is one of the safest Top-20 bets in the league.

Tier 2
Jason Richardson
Boy, we really hate one-person tiers, but the gap between Richardson and the first and third tiers is just way too big for him to fit into either one of those.  Richardson should be a top-30 player as long as he’s healthy, but the injury risk means he may fall a bit in your draft.

Tier 3
Raja Bell, Richard Hamilton, Cuttino Mobley, Manu Ginobili, Larry Hughes, Brandon Roy.
See what I mean by the huge tier drop between 2 and 3?  J-Rich should be gone by the third … these guys shouldn’t even be considered until the fifth.  Some of them are good category fillers (like Hamilton and points, Mobley and threes), but for the most part this is just good filler.  We’re putting Brandon Roy here but he’s very clearly at the bottom of this tier, and he looked horrendous in his first preseason game. 

Tier 4
Jamal Crawford, Bonzi Wells, Kevin Martin, JR Smith, Randy Foye
OK, really, this is where Roy belongs, but his hype-o-meter readings say he’ll be taken above all these guys. (What, you mean you don’t have a hype-o-meter at home?  I keep mine in a case right next to my upside-gauge and my arrest-ability index.)  These guys are all late-round sleepers.  A couple of commenters have jumped on the Kevin Martin bandwagon and I don’t disagree with them, and he should probably be gone first, somewhere around the eighth round.  JR Smith is the other hot sleeper here, but I’m not completely sold there.  These guys are all draftable, and in some cases startable, but they really belong on your bench to start the year.

Tier 5
Fred Jones, DeShawn Stevenson, Flip Murray
These guys shouldn’t even be drafted but all could potentially have some value depending on how the first few weeks of the season shake out.

See?  That’s it for SG’s.  Not too much, right?  Tomorrow we’ll look at a much more crowded position, SF.

By this point everyone knows the value of tiering players; in many ways tiers are more valuable than overall rankings. When it gets to those middle rounds, rankings become very subjective, and taking the last solid point guard over one of many remaining solid shooting guard becomes the right move even if the shooting guard may be ranked a few spots higher.

NOTE: We usually use Yahoo as the default here, but in this instance we are using ESPN’s positions, since so many players in Yahoo have multiple position eligibility. It makes for some positions with not too many players, but, well, y’know.

Tier 1
Gilbert Arenas, Dwyane Wade, Allen Iverson, Steve Nash, Chris Paul

These are the best of the best. It’s not out of the question that all of these guys get taken in the first round. It’s a very subtle drop to the next tier, but it’s noticeable.

Tier 2
Jason Kidd, Joe Johnson, Chauncey Billups, Mike Bibby

Depending on how many separations you want to make, these guys can be in the above group. But nobody will be taking these guys in the first round. That said, they’ll likely be gone by the end of round 2, with the possible exception of Bibby.

Tier 3
Jason Terry, Kirk Hinrich, Andre Miller, Raymond Felton, Jameer Nelson, Baron Davis, Stephon Marbury

All of the above should make a solid PG1, but all have some issues. Terry is going to play off guard and won’t rack up the assists. Hinrich has a brutal FG% and might be as good as he’s going to get. Miller is consistent and boring, and the preseason hype of Denver’s run-and-gun offense might make him a bit overrated. Felton and Nelson are looking to put together a whole season of strong play, while Davis and Marbury are looking to bounce back to superstar levels.

Tier 4
Mike James, Tony Parker, Rafer Alston, Deron Williams

Here’s another mini-tier of unquestioned starters who should be plenty valuable. It’s tough to put James in here when he was better than everyone in the tier above him last year, but it’s going to be a very different situation in Minnesota.

Tier 5
Luke Ridnour, Steve Francis, Ben Gordon, T.J. Ford, Mo Williams, Damon Stoudamire, Sam Cassell, Delonte West, Jason Williams

Similar to the above tier, just with even more pressing questions. Will Ridnour, Cassell and West see as many minutes this year? Can Francis be productive as second-fiddle to Marbury? Can Ford, the Williamses and Stoudamire stay healthy? Can Gordon expand his game at all?

Tier 6
Derek Fisher, Speedy Claxton, Sebastian Telfair, Jarrett Jack, Devin Harris, Jamaal Tinsley, Smush Parker, Brevin Knight

Here we’ve got a bunch of players who are looking at possibly starting jobs, but don’t have too much of a track record to go on. Telfair, Jack and Harris are all young with upside, while Fisher and Claxton are solid vets and Tinsley is an ultimate tease, but without his main minutes competition from last year. There’s still reason to be skeptical of Parker after his out-of-nowhere performance last season, and Knight may be pushed into a backup role in Charlotte.

Tier 7
Earl Watson, Anthony Johnson, Carlos Arroyo

A mini-tier here of players who just might find themselves with a starting job, or at least enough minutes to provide some value in deep leagues.

Tier 8
Chris Duhon, Monta Ellis, Bobby Jackson, Antonio Daniels, Earl Boykins, Juan Dixon

These guys aren’t too likely to help out too much, but all of them have had at least some marginal value at times in the past year, so they are worth keeping an eye on.