There is no NBASE-viable reason for so many people to have Kobe on their teams. He is an outstanding player in real life, but the NBASE cares only about statistical production and statistically Kobe is just one of a large group near the top.
Kobe Bryant is not among the top-10 in NBASE points for the season, yet his $55 price tag is the second highest in NBASE with a huge gap over the next player on the list. Bryant has exactly 1.66 more NBASE points than Dwyane Wade despite playing in an extra game, yet Wade is $25 cheaper than he is. For the amount of money that you would have to spend on Kobe, you could have Marcus Camby AND Steve Nash, both of whom have more NBASE points than Kobe as individuals. I look at who is producing the best stats every week for the Team Building section below, and Kobe is almost never among the top few producers in a given week. Are you seeing where I'm going with this?
There is no NBASE-viable reason for so many people to have Kobe on their teams. He is an outstanding player in real life, but the NBASE cares only about statistical production and statistically Kobe is just one of a large group near the top. It is a stretch to have LeBron James on your team either because of his high price tag, but at least he has a pretty big lead on everyone else in NBASE points scored so there is some justification. With Kobe, you can't even hang your hat on that.
I wrote a blog this week about the part that media coverage and fan bias might have in how we view players, and to me this is a great example of that. Kobe Bryant is probably the most popular player in the NBA. The argument can be made that he is even the best player overall. And he, along with James, definitely gets more media coverage than any other player in the league. But none of these things matter even a scrap in the NBASE world. Here it is all about the numbers. And the numbers tell us that if you are spending $55 on Kobe, you are not using your money to the fullest. A similar phenomenon is showing up with Carmelo Anthony and Kevin Durant, as they are also brilliant young scorers that are finding their names in the headlines but are much further down the list of NBASE producers than their price tags warrant.
Bottom line: keep your eyes on the numbers and not on the names when building your team. Fantasy sports is the one arena where stats really don't lie.
Team Building: Weekly scoring trends for bargain shoppers
Through this season I will identify the highest priced players in the league, and then give you alternative players that produced at a similar level but with a much lower price tag. The point is to show that spending all of your budget on the high priced players isn't the best use of your money.
Because I formalized a max price of $17.50 last week for players on the Budget team, the High priced team had a slight edge in production over the past week. If I could have included Tim Duncan ($22.66), Gerald Wallace ($24.23) and Marcus Camby ($24.49) the Budget crew would have won, but alas their prices missed the threshold. Nevertheless, the Budget guys still held their own and gave very similar production for about a fourth of the price (average cost $14.48) as you would have had to pay for the High Priced guys (average cost $52.43).
Side notes: LeBron James' price has gone through the roof in the last few weeks, from the upper-$50s up into the mid $70s. Also, Zach Randolph and Gilbert Arenas are on the Budget team for the second straight week which indicates they have been consistently producing with the big boys.
- Zach Randolph $14.40 (LeBron James $73.26)
- Luol Deng $13.74 (Kobe Bryant $55.79)
- Chris Kaman $13.89 (Dwight Howard $40.68)
- Kevin Love $13.81 (Carmelo Anthony $39.97)
- Gilbert Arenas $16.54 (Chris Paul $36.93)
Beating the Market: the week ahead
Two short-term strategies have emerged to try to beat the market. One is to pick up players that are going to play a lot of games in a given week, to maximize short-term profit vs. production without having to worry much about player locks and rising commissions. The other is to schedule on a daily basis, paying attention to players that play back-to-back games and/or play on days with not very many games scheduled that might see daily spikes in price. Each strategy can be good for making money in a hurry, but you need to really stay on top of things for it to work. So in this space, I will give you the information that you need to adopt either strategy for the upcoming week.
Weekly prospectors (12/21 - 12/27): Because there are no games on Christmas Eve there are only six teams with four games this week (Cavaliers, Rockets, Pacers, Clippers, Suns and Spurs). There are also six squads with only two games this week (Bobcats, Grizzlies, Nets, Hornets, 76ers, Raptors). Everyone else plays three times this week.
Daily Prospectors: There are no games on Thursday, and on two other days there are fewer than six games this week:
Monday (12/21) five games: Bucks/Pacers, Jazz/Magic, Kings/Bulls, Clippers/Spurs, Cavaliers/Suns
Friday (12/25) five games: Heat/Knicks, Celtics/Magic, Cavaliers/Lakers, Clippers/Suns, Nuggets/Trail Blazers
Back-to-back schedule:
Monday/Tuesday
Two games: Bulls, Pacers, Clippers
Zero games: Nuggets, Heat, Nets, Hornets, Raptors
Tuesday/Wednesday
Two games: Hawks, Pistons, Warriors, Rockets, Timberwolves, Thunder, Trail Blazers, Wizards
Zero games: None
Wednesday/Thursday
Two games: None (no games on Thursday)
Zero games: Celtics, Bobcats, Bulls, Mavericks, Pacers, Clippers, Lakers, Grizzlies, Knicks, 76ers
Thursday/Friday
Two games: none (no games on Thursday)
Zero games: everyone but Celtics, Cavaliers, Nuggets, Clippers, Lakers, Heat, Knicks, Magic, Suns, and Trail Blazers
Friday/Saturday
Two games: Lakers, Suns
Zero games: Pistons, Raptors
Saturday/Sunday
Two games: Mavericks, Rockets, Pacers, Spurs
Zero games: Magic, Trail Blazers
Sunday/Monday
Two games: Celtics, Nuggets
Zero games: Hawks, Bulls, Timberwolves, Hornets, Magic, Jazz
Value stocks
The market moves so fast that by the time this article comes out many of the player values will have already changed. Nevertheless, these are some players worth keeping your eyes on.
Marcus Camby ($24.49), Baron Davis ($19.07) and Chris Kaman ($13.89): The Clippers are a very fantasy-friendly team right now, with all three of these players among the top-20 producers in the last week. Camby is dominating the defensive stats, Kaman the traditional scoring big man categories, and Davis the scoring point guard areas. Until Blake Griffin returns from injury and upsets the apple cart there is no real reason to expect any of these guys to slow down.
Gerald Wallace ($24.23): Wallace missed Sunday night's game with severe headaches after a fall in his last game, so keep an eye on that. When he's healthy, though, he has been as hot as any swingman in this game while routinely producing LeBron-like fantasy point totals in the last few weeks.
Tim Duncan ($22.66): Duncan is producing numbers like it was 2004, a time period when he was routinely one of the highest drafted players in fantasy. The Spurs have been struggling as a team, forcing Duncan to step to the forefront and carry a heavier load than he has had to for awhile.
Tyreke Evans ($15.14) and Jason Thompson ($11.87): For as long as Kevin Martin is out, the majority of the Kings' production rests with Evans and Thompson. Evans is a nightly 20/5/5 guy and Thompson a nightly 20/10, both of whom come with a reasonable price tag.
Chris Duhon ($7.95): Duhon has been the big beneficiary of the benching of Nate Robinson in New York, as he no longer has much competition for playing time. He is shooting better and scoring more points of late while remaining among the better sources of assists in the league, a nice combo for less than $10.
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