Posts Tagged Dirk Nowitzki

Several guys who rose out of obscurity the first month of the year to enjoy fantasy stardom have hit a wall in recent weeks, including Marc Gasol, Anthony Morrow, and Channing Frye.  I like Gasol and Morrow as great buy low options if you can convince their owners that reality has set in and get them at the right price.  I’m actively trying to snag both, while I’m slightly more cautious of Frye.  Meanwhile, two fantasy veterans (at least compared to those three guys) in Andrea Bargnani and Andrew Bynum are both great buy low targets as well.

Marc Gasol is pleading for you to buy him for pennies on the dollar. (AP)

Marc Gasol

Just a couple weeks ago, Marc Gasol seemed untouchable, and in fact many of you put him on par with Al Horford in value according to a recent poll.  If you still value him that much, now is your chance to get him on the cheap.

Zach Randolph has been on an offensive tear recently, which has translated into bigger minutes, which has also translated into eating up some of Gasol’s REB stats and shot attempts this month.  Yes, that’s exactly what Z-Bo excels at, but he’s also playing a crazy 39 mpg this month, and his career high for a season is about 35 mpg, so I don’t think he can keep up this pace…

And of course, as I was writing the first part of this post Sunday night, Z-Bo had an off-night while Gasol went off for a big double-double on 7-7 shooting.  However, Gasol fell back to earth a little facing a tough front line in the form of Kendrick Perkins and Kevin Garnett last night, so hopefully his owner has already forgotten about his 16 and 15 performance from Sunday.  In other words, I think Randolph’s strong play as of late has definitely influenced Gasol’s stats.  And as Randolph gets more comfortable in MEM, Gasol will probably have trouble stringing monster double-doubles in a row.  But Gasol’s last 6-game stretch (excluding MIA) will probably end up being one of his worse ones all year, so if you can convince Gasol’s owner that those games represent his true value, you could land yourself a nice starting C.

The other variable to keep an eye on here is Hasheem Thabeet, who has totaled 9 blocks in his last two games.  Even if Thabeet can muster 20 mpg eventually (he was at 9 mpg in Nov and is currently at 14 mpg in Dec), Gasol should still get 30+ mpg, as they’re on the floor together for stretches.  I don’t think it will hurt Gasol’s overall numbers too much (otherwise I wouldn’t be mentioning Gasol here), but it could negatively impact Gasol’s bpg, which were already at a higher per-minute clip than last year.  Nonetheless, most of Gasol’s value comes in his efficiency and nice steals from the C spot a la Nene Hilario, so I’m still banking on a top 50 finish.

Anthony Morrow

As for Morrow, he was on an absolute tear before a death in the family.  He missed 2 games and hasn’t been the same in 4 games since he returned, shooting 27% from the field after topping 50% all year.  Part of it might be mental.  Part of it might just be the law of averages.  Either way, last year he shot 48% from the field, and since he’s such a pure shooter, he’s probably much closer to the 50% guy even if he can’t keep that pace up all year.

Another factor here might be CJ Watson’s recent emergence, which I keep raving about in my weekly pickup posts.  (Although I’m sure Don Nelson will start inexplicably benching him once you’ve picked him up.)  But like I mentioned in my last post, I still like Morrow to find his touch again even if Watson continues to excel.  To reiterate, they have very different roles on the team, with Watson a distributor and Morrow a gunner.

Even with his horrible 4-game stretch, Morrow is ranked #44 by averages over the last month, mainly based on the strength of his 2.4 3pg and amazing efficiency before these last 4 games.  He probably won’t end up that high, but if you can steal him away for an under-performing middle rounder like Mike Bibby, Ron Artest, or Boris Diaw, consider yourself lucky.

Channing Frye

Frye is an “Approach with Caution” guy to me.  I’ve been waiting for his shots to stop falling all year, as he’s never taken close to this many attempts (especially 3’s) his entire career.  But even when Robin Lopez came back, Frye kept getting big minutes and delivering.  His recent 4-game slump (where he’s still hit 4 3’s) is probably just a result of the law of averages, as he was on fire to start the year.  It might also be worth noting that two of those games came against Dwight Howard and Andrew Bynum/Pau Gasol, not exactly the easiest front lines to go up against.  The other two games came against Dirk Nowitzki and Nene Hilario/Kenyon Martin, some of the more mobile big men in the league (and thus guys who could contest Frye on the perimeter).

I’m a little wary of the inconsistency, but if you can stomach that, I think it’s still safe to expect an Andrea Bargnani-ish combination of 3’s/blk when all is said and done.  Factoring in decent percentages, Frye could still finish the year as a top 60 player, although please don’t overpay.

And speaking of Bargnani, I think he’s a great buy low candidate right now as well.  In fact, I just traded Aaron Brooks for him in one league.  He’s not even ranked in the top 100 over the last month after a sizzling start to the year, in large part because a sprained ankle and confidence issues.  But head coach Jay Triano still wants Bargnani to be aggressive, and anyone who noticed AB’s post-all star splits from last year (which is also when Triano came aboard) knows what AB is capable of.

Andrew Bynum

After his last few underwhelming rebounding games, Andrew Bynum might be the biggest prize on this list.  Yes, I know.  If you’re a regular reader of Fantasy Hoopster, I said Bynum would be at his rock bottom during Gasol’s first week back.  Well, I was wrong because after Bynum bounced back in Gasol’s second week, Drew took another downturn last (Gasol’s third) week.

But here’s a safe bet: Pau Gasol is not going to get 20 reb every night.  In fact, if you look at Gasol’s game log and Bynum’s game log, you’ll see Pau went through a similar rough rebounding stretch just before his back-to-back 20 reb outburst, so it wouldn’t surprise me if Bynum rebounds with a nice rebounding stretch eventually as well.  (See what I did there?  It’s called clever word play being a dork.)

Sure enough, if you look at both their game logs last year, you’ll notice they took turns dominating for games at a time.  So sadly, it doesn’t look like they’ll both be able to produce monster games on the same night.  But Bynum still averaged 14 and 8 with 1.8 bpg last year alongside Pau.  With improvements in both his offensive and defensive skill sets (and mpg), I think he can up those numbers to 16 and 8 with 2 bpg.  Add in his impactful FG% and solid FT% for a C, and that’s a top 30-40 finish.  If you need a reference point, check out Greg Oden’s ranking by Yahoo averages: 11 and 8 with 2.3 bpg and solid %s = #36.

In other words, I think this week is just one of those bad stretches for Bynum, and next week could very well be one of the good ones.  I might not trade a first, second, or even third-round draft pick for him, but if you can convince Bynum’s owner that Gasol has officially crushed his value, you might be able to steal him for a middle-rounder.

[And on a side note, Bynum is also getting majorly out-(offensive) rebounded by Gasol, which tends to happen when you become a black hole anytime anyone feeds you the ball... because it's kind of hard to rebound your own fallaway jumpers.  If/when Bynum becomes truly comfortable alongside Pau, hopefully his forced shot attempts will decrease, while his offensive rebounds, easy putback attempts, and maybe even assists might creep up again.  But this might just be wishful thinking...]

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