This is the fourth in a series of position primers for roto leagues. Keep in mind that any rankings, discussion, etc will be for roto purposes only.
You can forget about position scarcity and the center position. Perhaps it used to be thin and you had to scramble for talent, but that’s no the case any longer, thanks in large part to a litany of players with multiple eligibilities, usually in the form of “FC”. A well-executed draft strategy relative to Yahoo! ADP can net you Troy Murphy or LaMarcus Aldridge in the third round, David Lee in the fifth, Al Horford in the sixth, Luis Scola or Kevin Love in the eighth, Joakim Noah in the 10th, Chris Andersen in the 11th, and Antonio McDyess, Brendan Haywood, Channing Frye, or Roy Hibbert in the last rounds. The sleepers don’t fall as far in competitive leagues, but there is solid production to be had at the position from top to bottom in any draft.
(positional table and comments after the jump)
08-09: Yahoo! season rank during the 2008-09 season
ADP: Yahoo! ADP as of 10/3
Tier 1: You have to love the juxtaposition of brilliant per-game potential with at least a question or two. Pau Gasol doesn’t have injury concerns, but the disparity in his numbers last season when Andrew Bynum played (17.6 pts, 55% FG, 9.2 reb, 0.4 stl, 0.9 blk) and when he didn’t play (20.8 pts, 59% FG, 10.3 reb, 1 stl, 1.2 blk) is definitely worth noting when he’s lining up to be your Round 1 pick. Oh yeah, and Ron Artest is in the mix now, too.
Tier 2: I’ll gladly take Brook Lopez and/or Troy Murphy on the low end of their Yahoo! ADP this season. Lopez doesn’t even have to improve to warrant a third-round pick, and my guess is certainly that he doesn’t regress … There’s plenty of talk about Murphy falling way off last season’s numbers, but most people are glossing over his career-high minutes, the fact that he’s always been a tremendous rebounder, and his 40-percent shooting from three in multiple season before last season’s spike to 45 percent. And when you consider that he was top-10 in per-game impact last season, he can come down in a number of areas and still be huge.
Tier 3: My guess is that Elton Brand‘s boards and blocks recover in the motion system, but he won’t enough post plays to top 20 points per game. That said, I’ll easily take the “risk” if it means a Round 4 pick … Aldridge, Lee, Horford, Nene, and Okur – I don’t feel bad drafting any of those players this season. If you can get two of them between Round 4 and 6, you are doing very well.
Dwight Howard: There are multiple schools of thought on the dilemma of D12 in roto. Here’s mine in a nutshell: the deeper and more competitive your roto league is, the sooner drafting him (relative to roughly pick 30) makes sense. Howard’s domination of a few categories come more into play if the standings are tight from top to bottom than when there are well-defined groups of haves and have-nots. When the category points are concentrated among the top teams, it’s harder to make up for a poor showing in even one category; that’s not the case when a handful of points affects the placement of many teams. If you do draft Howard, many of your targets to help prop up his FT% will be a major drag on his positive FG%. You’ve got to make peace with that, but be careful not to over-do it. Assuming your D12 draft strategy nets you an average-ish standing in three categories (FG%, FT%, TO), you’ll have to place very well in most of the other stats to challenge for the league crown.
Tier 4: All five of these players have upside in that best-case scenarios could actually happen: Carlos Boozer may see steady minutes and reward the team with great production before a mid-season trade allows everyone to finish the season happy. Andris Biedrins could stay healthy and leave Don Nelson no choice but to up his minutes, all while he improves his free-throw shooting. Andrea Bargnani could be ready to completely break out for 9-category purposes, even though Chris Bosh is still there. This could be the season that the (almost) 22-year-old Andrew Bynum stays healthy and productive. And this could be the third time in four years that the 35-year-old Marcus Camby appears in at least 70 games.
Tier 5: If you miss out on David Lee early, target Kevin Love or Luis Scola later … Rasheed Wallace averged 1.7 threes, 7.4 boards, 0.9 steals, and 1.3 blocks last season and wasn’t even trying all the time. I’m loving the ROI potential there … One thing that can make you feel better about Spencer Hawes is that is largely lacking in competition for major minutes … I’m trying to think of a reason why Chris Andersen won’t block a ton of shots again this season, and nothing is coming to me.
Tier 6: Very interesting group here. Greg Oden’s ups-and-downs will probably even out to be some pretty good numbers … Andrew Bogut‘s injury issues would be a bit easier to forgive if his career average from the line was above 60 percent … Joakim Noah is a great later target. The Bulls will have no problem with his taking ownership of the center spot … You want Antonio McDyess because we know what he’ll give you in 30 minutes per game for the Spurs and you want Channing Frye because we don’t know for sure what he might be able to do as the Suns’ starter.
Tier 7: Another tier with a nice mix of predictability (Shaquille O’Neal, Brendan Haywood, Udonis Haslem) and uncertainty (Tyson Chandler, Roy Hibbert, Drew Gooden).
Tier 8: These are mostly fringe options that immediately become rosterable if something like a teammate’s injury creates a boost in minutes.
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Nice primer, Matt.
Are you planning to do H2H position primers as well?
going to do something a bit different for h2h, but in general “stuff” is on the way soon, yes
Finally some legit rankings. I cant wait for the head to head stuff to come out. Easily the best fantasy basketball site going, you and steve alexander are the cream of the crop.
i’ve got a quandry that i would like to hear some expert input on. some of my friends ragged on me pretty hard and others said i made slick trades.
i’m in a 10 team H2H league and I wanted Durant real bad, but i had pick 8, which is easily the worst pick to have in the 1st round this year. Durant lasted until 7 somehow because i guess me and my friends are rooks, so i took Roy. i then traded Roy, Aldridge and McDyess for Durant and Hawes. then right after that i traded Jameer Nelson, Mike Conley, and Channing Frye for Jason Kidd and Anthony Randolph. my two FA pickups after were Brandon Jennings and Darko Milicic. i basically punted assists, and from the feedback from my friends i wonder about my pre-season moves. Am I crazy to make these moves? Did I swindle or get swindled? Can I contend? I apologise for being long winded, this is my second year for fantasy hoops and I’m loving the excitement.
for reference, my roster now stands as…
PG – Kidd, Nate Rob,
SG – Durant, W. Chandler
SF – J. Smith, B. Griffin
PF – Bargnani, A. Randolph
C – D. Howard, Okafor
Util – Hawes, Beasley, Garcia
BN – C. Lee, B. Jennings, Milicic
I love the second trade getting Kidd and Randolph for Nelson and scrubs, but not the first trade. You’re basically trading Aldridge and McDyess for Hawes and the bit of difference between Durant and Roy. Would’ve been better off with Roy, Kidd, Aldridge, and Randolph, but overall you’re better than before, Randolph is huge. I’d consider dropping Garcia at this point though, I think he has a broken arm and is out indefinitely. Milicic and Jennings are probably wait-and-sees, but you might be able to do better there too.
Agreed
hey thanks for the reply. it was tough to do the durant deal but i just had to have him, i figured i had enough center depth to take the risk on a huge jump from durant. i also took your advice dumped garcia, milicic and jennings for danilo gallinari, andres nocioni and d.j augustin.
why are kidd and jennings on your roster if you are punting assists?
i like kidd’s treys steals and rebounds from the PG slot. and jennings is gone already.
can’t blame you necessarily, but a massive part of his impact is wasted on your team
understood, thats a good point. i am looking to move bargnani and kidd to a raptors fan in my league for brook lopez and something else worth while.
i’m on 11 team (14 players per roster ) roto keeper league and I have done about 6 trades already. (keeper players – can’t be waived)
I had gasol/ming traded for okur/jgreen = w/ green traded for sjackson.
I had ZBo traded for Rashard Lewis = Rashard traded for Tparker ( I needed a pg at this point)
I had ellis traded for TD ( I needed PF/C)
I had Josh howard/Lou williams traded for TPrince and Tyreke Evans ( i prefer Prince’s roto game esp 3s and loving Tyreke evans as a big PG.
so you’re not alone on this multiple traded my mates ostracized me for it.
Matt what do you think of David Lee’s rank on yahoo? I can’t understand for the life of me why he’s ranked so low at 48. He ranked 18 last season, and that’s after coming off the bench for the first month of the season playing behind randolph. In fact, I think all the Knicks players are ranked much lower than they should be. Nate Robinson 106? That can’t be real. This guy is gonna rank higher than 50 this season for sure.
I think good fantasy players always emerge on bad teams (like NY, Memphis, Sacremento), but you have to temper your expectations a bit. There’s only so much value on teams that score 85-90 points a night.
you do realize that this is the knicks under D’ANTONI we’re talking about here, right? 90 points? that’s just crazy talk.
i think he’s too low. that’s about all there is to say about it
i don’t know about you guys but i don’t recall seeing david lee fall to the 5th rd in any of the 20 something drafts i’ve been involved in (including mocks). I’ve actually seen him go in the third, and more often than not in the early 4th. i managed to snare horford in the 6th rd of my main league, which i felt was a nice steal. personally i think bargnani should probably sneak into the tier 3 c’s, as he appears primed for a breakout year. sure, the boards are mediocre, but the rest of the line is HOT for someone at pick 61, and his production is going nowhere but up from here. i figure if you can grab lee as well as bargnani, and then follow that up with someone like horford and finish it off with c.andersen for some blocks, your big men stats are looking pretty sweet, and your first 3 picks can be all g’s/f’s to take care of assists, 3s, stls, pts etc.
Three questions.
Why don’t the Magic play Gortat at C and Howard at PF? Gortat clearly deserves starter’s minutes.
When are the 76ers going to realize that Speights is way better than Dalembert?
If Anthony Randolph gets injured during the preseason, will Don Nelson have to go into the Witness Relocation Program? I think he thinks it’s the playoffs or something.
“If Anthony Randolph gets injured during the preseason, will Don Nelson have to go into the Witness Relocation Program? I think he thinks it’s the playoffs or something.”
Come on Cap! You know how these coaches are. Nellie just needs more time to, ummm, evaluate Randolph’s talent before he can make a decision on starting him.
Phhhhhhhhhhhh…!
Put some money down on Nellie getting canned before the end of the season. Somethings gotta give!
Unless Nellie cans himself, that’s not going to happen….
Nellie runs the show in GState.
“Unless Nellie cans himself, that’s not going to happen….
Nellie runs the show in GState.”
Wow – then I guess it’s true, what they say about absolute power corrupting absolutely.
Can we say Napoleon Bonaparte?
Witless Protection maybe?
Cap
2 reason Gortat can’t get starter minutes next to Howard
VC and R Lewis
VC can play SG, and Lewis is better suited at SF if you ask me. Go big with Nelson, Carter, Lewis, Howard, and Gortat, there’s your championship team. No team can matchup against that, not even Shaq and Z, or Nellie’s small ball.
The magic thrive off high % 3 ball. On offense it won’t work. Dwight alone is enough prescence in the paint (offensively) to open up the 3 ball. As for defense it seems great, but once again it is not really a need. Rashard lewis does not match up well against most SF’s anyhow defensively(pierce,LBJ,tayshaun etc.). The problem is situational and bass + dwight makes alot more sense if a more traditional PF is required to matchup.
I try to get Biedrins on every team I play somehow, he’s massive in FG% and is one of the most consistent rebounders in the league, well worth the hit in FT%.
I’m also heavily targeting Kevin Love this year (in H2H leagues), I think he has potential to get a lot more rebounds than people think and could be a top 75 player when it’s all said and done.
Also think Kaman and Noah are steals where they’re going. They should outproduce Oden and Andersen at least, and probably Hawes.
Why is Camby always dogged? I couldn’t help but take him in the early 6th round. His per game averages are normally in the top 10. I know the guy gets hurt all the time and 70 games is a good year, but I can’t see how a guy this valuable lasts past the 4th round (blks and reb king, low to, only minor negative is pts/ft%)
Camby’s definitely worth the risk, but not too early when there are still more reliable studs available. You’re almost guaranteed missed games, and those can add up in a roto league. Not to mention the lineup uncertainty, Camby’s a stud when healthy and playing 35+ minutes, but off the bench he’s the equivalent of an above-average starting center I’d guess, like 10/11/2.5/1. He only played 31 minutes with Zbo in town so Griffin will likely do the same. In the 6th I like him, but might try to trade him if he has a few big games early as (Peter) Griffin develops. hahahahahaha
the injury history is what causes him to fall. early 6th certainly isn’t a bad spot to grab him, depending on what other C are on the board and what production you are looking for
Because he’s gonna be sharing his minutes with Kaman.
Wow, Oden is going 50 picks behind Bynum?? Really???
I know bynum has shown some flashes when not injured (more than oden anyway), but i have to say the injury risk is about equal, and the potential for this year is roughly the same (18/10/1.5blks vs 16/9/1.5blks would be my estimates). Is bynum more likely to sustain those #’s if healthy? Probably. But if oden is healthy and getting PT, he will certainly be a lot closer to bynum’s numbers than their respective ADPs.
just curious, but did you know that bynum is only 3 months older than oden?
more on-topic, compare their per-36s from last season
AB: 17.8 pts, 9.9 reb, 2.2 blk, 1.8:2.1 a:t, 3.9 pf
GO: 14.8 pts, 11.6 reb, 1.9 blk, 0.8:2.4 a:t, 6.5 pf
oden is obviously a great value pick at that ADP, but “if oden is healthy and getting PT” is no small qualifier. part of it also is probably laker fan-boys grabbing bynum early
Bynum has played in 35 and 50 games over the past 2 years, so there is certainly a track record of missed games there as well. If oden is healthy, i think he will get the playing time necessary to have a relatively similar impact as Bynum at a much more appropriate value.
I agree that it has a lot to do with the “laker fan-boys” picking bynum early. it was just one of the more staggering differences in ADP for similar players that i have seen in these primers.
Are you doing a PF Primer too or are they lumped in with SF or C?
the first option
Hi Matt,
Props for your great site, No.1 in fantasy basketball for sure. I have a question for you, which C-eligable player would be a fair trade for B.Davis? I have Baron and would like to know who’s a fair trade for him. Cheers.
well, i’m not matt but i’ll attempt to help you out.
I would say that the trade would depend on exactly what stats you (and the guy you are trading with) are looking for. Try to target a team in your league who is lacking an elite pg (maybe one who didn’t draft a pg in the first 3 rounds). it would probably help if that team also had an excess of big men.
now, have a look at the rest of your team. is losing baron’s threes going to decimate you completely in that category? if so, you may want to trade him for mehmet okur or andrea bargnani, and perhaps get the other guy to throw in another player to sweeten the deal for yourself. Or, you could target troy murphy, but noone in their right mind would trade murphy straight up for baron, so you’re going to have to throw someone else in there.
if it is boards you are after – look no further than david lee. if you have enough threes and assists to cover the loss of davis, lee is going at around the same mark in most drafts, and that would be a great deal for you. if you need blocks however, you might have to look at someone like elton brand.
basically, this whole trade depends on how highly the manager you are trading with rates baron davis. Personally, I wouldn’t go near him no matter what the offer was (or any clippers player that isn’t named eric gordon for that matter), so you better hope there’s someone out there who thinks that he can rebound back to somewhere remotely close to his best.
Thanks for the reply, appreciated.
great post here, and the last paragraph is of particular note. b-diddy will be all over the map depending on the manager
Dalembert is vastly underrated here. Last year he finished at #88… and that was pretty much a worst-case scenario. He was the victim of horrible coaching and as a result he didn’t get nearly the minutes, or touches, that he deserved. This year the coach is saying only positive things about him, and he seems committed to getting Sammy more minutes, and more touches on the offensive end.
Clearly he will finish higher than #88 overall this year… personally, I rate him above many of your tier-5 centers.
Projected stats: 12 points, 10 rebounds, 2.5 blocks, 0.5 steals, 52% FG, 71% FT. Easily a top-50 player.
it’d be a major surprise if he were to set career highs in PTS and BLK as your projections suggest, but i can agree that he’d be a top-50 player if that were to happen. despite the good vibes right now, i have a hard time seeing him crossing the 30-minute threshold for this team
You haven’t seen worst case scenario yet. It’ll get even worse this year with the new Princeton offense, which he is a terrible fit for. I’m not drafting this guy period in standard 12×13 leagues.
No Hasheem Thabeet on this list huh? I find that interesting because there is no way that Gasol is the long-term solution at center for the Grizzlies this year.
haha you created a username just to post that? isn’t “long-term this year” a contradiction in terms? anyway, if i had any faith in thabeet making any contribution in the short-term this year, i might have listed him. gasol was reasonably effective last season and should at least improve incrementally, so they’ll be in no rush to simply bench him. another thing working against thabeet even seeing enough minutes to matter is that they can move z-bo to C when they go small
what is the situation with the NY Knicks center position? Yahoo sports has Eddie Curry as the starter.
I am in a deep draft and taking him is actually under consideration!
the depth chart is wrong. he’s completely worthless and would be lucky to get garbage minutes. that said, he’s also largely worthless when he does play
http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/basketball/knicks/2009/10/07/2009-10-07_knicks_try_to_shape_up_eddie_curry.html
try the depth chart link at the top-left of this page
How can Lopez be winning this poll (by a landslide) when he was 25th overall last year? I mean, how much bigger a leap do you all think he’ll make?
Oden went for only 8.9/7/1.1 in only 21 minutes last year, I think he’ll be much more improved than Lopez this year, given more minutes.
Or how about Westbrook, Rose, C.Lee, Love, or Ariza? I expect them all to improve significantly this year, more than Lopez at least.
I dont know about oden really. I like the numbers and the potential per 30 min projection but that foul rate will keep him off the floor a lot. I think love is going to be big like a better David lee
kevin love out 6-8 wks. ryan hollins is probably worth a speculative look in deep leagues for some blocks. pecherov did okay tonight but i’m not sure he’s got a lot to offer
http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/recap?gid=2009101604
Do you drop Love if the time frame is more then 8 weeks i.e a third of the season.
Other C’s available are Haywood, Hibbert, and McDyss.
I think Haywood could return to form – Will Blatche be any kind of threat to his playing time? I know it’s only pre-season but Hibbert looks to be a lock to start and get some decent minutes. McDyss still looks like he has some run in him, especially if the Spurs want to rest Duncan. Or, does 2/3 of Kevin Love have greater value than all of the aboove?
It depends what you need. I like Blatche for his block/steal combination. McDyess is just a rebound machine with not much else, and I agree with your assessment about him becoming active to give Duncan relief. Haywood is a more traditional block/rebound combo, but I think Blatche may eat into his time with good performance. Hibbert is the starter, but I’m still not sold. Even when he stays out of foul trouble his FG% and low rebounds are worrisome. I’ll be watching him for sure, but I’m not yet sold. McDyess is the least risk here, but any of the others could easily surprise and surpass him… it’s just unclear which.
Thanks for the great primers, Matt. The advice on C’s going deep was right on, as it was something I noticed but didn’t put together into my overall strategy. I took Okur in the 5th and waited all the way to the end to grab Marc Gasol and McDyess. Meanwhile big man stats are being filled by the likes of LBJ, Gerald Wallace, Anthony Randolph, and Tyrus Thomas, so it’s looking good.
My question is this: last year I created my own excel spreadsheet to use for comparing trades, adding FAs, and getting an overall look at my team’s strengths/weaknesses. This year, I’m using the same spreadsheet to look ahead. It adds up averages in every category and gives you a total to look at.
I took all the winning numbers in each category in every league I played in and came up with the following “winning paces”:
FG: 48.4%
FT: 82.3%
3pm: 12.7
ppg: 177.3
rpg: 64.7
apg: 36.4
spg: 11.4
bpg: 7.3
TO: 17.7
You can plug in projected averages for your team, add them up, and see how they do in comparison to the winning totals.
The thing is, those averages are coming from a very small sample size.
I was wondering if there’s any kind of database out there that keeps track of stuff like this? I sure would be curious what the average winning numbers were across all the 1000′s of leagues out there. And, is this information that you would use?
Hey i did the same thing you did.
a real important question for you is how many teams and how many spots in your league?
I did 10 mock drafts in 12 team 13 deep settings, and matched up the numbers of EACH of the teams I drafted.
my best draft was draft 10, I had these numbers
FG- 47.5 (2nd out of my 10 teams)
FT- 80.2 (3rd out of 10)
3P- 970 (2)
PT- 225 (1)
RB- 78 (1)
AS- 37 (10)
BK- 9.5 (3)
ST- 13.5 (1)
TO- 27.8 (7)
The best numbers achieved in all the drafts in each individual cat (the 1 out of 10) was
FG-48.8 FT-82.4 3P-1080 PT- 225 RB-78 AS-54 BK-11.1 ST-13.5 TO-25.3
A few things: first, I don’t understand your numbers on 3pm… is that a total? It would be more consistent to go with 3pm/per game average since all your other numbers are that. And your TO’s are really high from my experience… high enough to lose you the category entirely, especially in public leagues where people abandon. Try drafting different sets of players and see if you can get closer to 20.
Second, some of your totals are extremely high. It makes me wonder if you are adding up the numbers of all 13 players. If you are, you should backtrack and just go with the best 10, and that should give you a more accurate total since you’ll only be able to play 10 at a time and only 82 in each position.
Lastly, my “winning paces” were the actual end-of-year averages in the leagues I played in. So while they are a small sample, it gives you a rough idea of what it takes to win in a sustained effort throughout an entire year. That often means making trades, swapping players, and shifting strategies throughout the year. For example, if you build a 30 block lead on the 2nd place person in that category, it might be time to sub in another player who can help you make ground in steals, where you and 3 others are clustered within 10 of one another.