5 Underrated Fantasy Basketball Players
Fresh off of fantasy baseball and right in the middle of fantasy football, the start of the fantasy basketball season could not come at a more hectic time. Yet, here we are in week one of the NBA schedule with a few days of games already under our belts.
An NBA season is a grueling, 82 game marathon. And while most fantasy drafts have already been completed, fantasy basketball, perhaps more so than any other fantasy sport, is all about picking up free agents early in the season. During the early parts of a season head coaches are experimenting with different lineups and figuring out how to best utilize new players. As a result, you will see certain players surprise you with great production and others disappoint you with poor production.
The key to winning in fantasy basketball is determining early on which players off to a hot start are for real and which ones are imposters. Conversely, it is just as important to figure out which players off to slow starts are most likely to turn it around. This week we will take a look at players off to a hot start that should continue to make a positive impact on your fantasy team.
As always, the players recommended here are available in a majority of leagues because you do not need me to tell you that Lebron James is going to have a good fantasy season.
PG Randy Foye, Washington Wizards (Owned in 27.4 percent of ESPN leagues): Foye is technically a combo guard, but he is eligible to start in fantasy at both guard positions. A good sign for Foye is that in the Wizards’ first game of the season — a game in which Foye came off the bench — he logged more minutes (30) than starting shooting guard Mike Miller (22). Although he isn’t quite the three-point threat that Miller is, the fact that he can take over point guard duty for Gilbert Arenas makes me believe that he will continue to log more minutes than Miller this year. Plus, with Arenas’ laundry list of injuries, it is not absurd to assume that Foye will find himself as the starting point guard sometime this season.
SG Stephen Curry, Golden State Warriors (Owned in 64.8 percent of ESPN leagues): Yes, I am well aware of head coach Don Nelson’s propensity for switching lineups more often than he does underwear, but Stephen Curry is too good to keep off of the floor. The rookie has a deadly outside shot and is somehow already more dependable than teammates Monta Ellis and Stephen Jackson, the latter of which is being actively shopped around the league.
SF Shane Battier, Houston Rockets (Owned in 54 percent of ESPN leagues): The fact that Battier is not owned in all but the shallowest of leagues is mind boggling. The Rockets are without their two biggest scoring threats (Yao Ming and Tracy McGrady), playing with a relatively inexperienced point guard (Aaron Brooks), and an offensively irrelevant center (Chuck Hayes). Someone has to put up fantasy points and they won’t all be coming from new teammate Trevor Ariza.
PF Yi Jianlian, New Jersey Nets (Owned in 5.3 percent of ESPN leagues): I’ll admit that he has been a mild disappointment thus far in his career, but let me remind you that he is only 22 years old and still learning the nuances of the NBA. He opened with a very strong game against the Minnesota Timberwolves (17 points, 12 rebounds, 2 blocks), and while it may be unrealistic to expect that level of production all season, I see him as a legit fantasy contributor in 12-team fantasy leagues.
C Marc Gasol, Memphis Grizzlies (Owned in 16.3 percent of ESPN leagues): The center position is arguably the toughest to fill in fantasy basketball, and this is especially true for leagues that require you start two of them. Gasol may not be as good of a scorer as Al Horford or the dominant shot blocker that Dwight Howard is, but he his above average in both and also grabs a lot of rebounds. The Grizzlies also have a lot of players that like to jack up a lot of bad shots early in the shot clock (Rudy Gay, O.J. Mayo, Allen Iverson, Zach Randolph), so if your fantasy league counts offensive rebounds as a category Gasol is even more valuable.
