Duncan is taking a breather in the midst of one of his best statistical seasons in years
I wrote a few weeks ago about how this is the Dog Days period of the season, and that one of the things to look for was veteran star players whose production might wan at this time of the year before ramping up again for the playoffs. For examples I gave you Kevin Garnett and Vince Carter, but last week a new name was moved to the top of the "caution" list: Tim Duncan.
Duncan has been enjoying a throwback statistical season, posting three-year highs in points and blocks and a career-high in field goal percentage. His relatively low cost to start the season had made him an NBASE bargain at the end of 2009, and with the Spurs struggling to stay competitive in the rough-and-tumble West it appeared that Duncan would have to show up big every night just for the Spurs to guarantee themselves a playoff spot.
In the last few weeks, though, the Spurs went on a run and now find themselves back among the league leaders in overall record and point differential. As such, Coach Greg Popovich felt justified in sitting Duncan on the second night of a back-to-back last week so that his star could get some rest. Pop has announced that he plans to continue this throughout the year, and Duncan has endorsed it.
As such, it is time to sell Duncan and stay away. In the back-to-back situation this weekend he played both games, but in one of them he scored only 10 points. This time, though, it was the first game in which he struggled and the second game in which he shined. It is too difficult and stressful to have to plan every week for one of your best players to possibly miss game action or underproduce, and since it could be either end of the back-to-back it is dangerous to even speculate. Duncan's price tag had risen to the point that he was no longer a huge value anyway, and with this added wrinkle you are much better off to put your 20-something dollars into David Lee, Pau Gasol or Gerald Wallace and let someone else worry about whether or not Duncan will play on a given night.
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 your entire budget on the high priced players isn't the best use of your money.
In a carbon copy from last week, once again LeBron James, Chris Paul and Dwyane Wade posted dominant scoring weeks to lead the field. But due to vagaries in the schedule all three of them have seen their prices drop by several dollars since last Monday. Dirk Nowitzki also finally snuck above the cost threshold to briefly join the team, though he has already fallen back below $35. Meanwhile Kobe Bryant is now the highest priced player in the game despite the fact that his numbers have suffered recently due to finger and back injuries. But such is life, simply take advantage of it and stack your squad to defeat those that are overspending on Kobe, who actually brings down the average production of the High Priced Crew this week (average cost $46.62) enough to be competitive with the Budget Squad.
The Budget Squad (average cost $12.90) was headlined this week by Stephen Jackson, the only player to compete with LeBron, Paul and Wade at the top. Every one on this squad outproduced Kobe last week, and all except for Billups did more than Dirk, Dwight Howard or Carmelo Anthony as well. With Corey and Maggette and Samuel Dalembert both on the team with single-digit price tags, the Budget Squad this week checked in at about one fourth of the average cost of the High Priced Crew.
- Stephen Jackson $13.59 (Kobe Bryant $64.47)
- Antawn Jamison $15.26 (LeBron James $63.99)
- Samuel Dalembert $8.16 (Dwight Howard $42.06)
- Corey Maggette $8.40 (Dwyane Wade $40.88)
- Chauncey Billups $14.65 (Chris Paul $40.85)
- Joakim Noah $15.30 (Carmelo Anthony $38.93)
- Al Jefferson $14.93 (Dirk Nowitzki $35.14)
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 (1/18 - 1/24): Almost everyone (21 teams) plays four games this week, so it is easier to list the teams that only have three (Hawks, Celtics, Cavaliers, Nuggets, Rockets, Grizzlies, Knicks, Spurs). And with so many teams playing so many games, it is hard to support carrying anyone on the Jazz (two games) this week.
Daily Prospectors: There are three days this week with fewer than six games:
Tuesday (1/19) two games: Pacers/heat, Raptors/Cavaliers
Thursday (1/21) two games: Lakers/Cavaliers, Clippers/Nuggets
Sunday (1/24) three games: Mavericks/Knicks, Clippers/Wizards, Lakers/Raptors
Back-to-back schedule:
Monday/Tuesday
Two games: None
Zero games: Nuggets, Jazz
Tuesday/Wednesday
Two games: Pacers, heat, Raptors
Zero games: Rockets, Lakers, Knicks
Wednesday/Thursday
Two games: Nuggets, Clippers
Zero games: Rockets, Knicks
Thursday/Friday
Two games: Lakers
Zero games: Jazz
Friday/Saturday
Two games: Bobcats, Bulls, Pistons, Warriors, Rockets, Pacers, Heat, Bucks, Timberwolves, Nets, Hornets, Thunder, Magic, 76ers, Suns, Trail Blazers, Kings
Zero games: Clippers
Saturday/Sunday
Two games: none
Zero games: Hawks, Celtics, Grizzlies, Spurs
Sunday/Monday
Two games: Clippers
Zero games: Pistons, Warriors, Bucks, Timberwolves, Nets, Thunder, Kings
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. This week we have a true "value" stocks section, as all but one of these players are less than $10 but have shown the ability to be as explosive as players with price tags four times as large.
Kevin Martin ($14.30): Martin returned from injury last week, and though his numbers will likely be a bit more conservative now than they were at the beginning of the season it should be noted that Martin was averaging more than 30 points per game on excellent percentages in the few games before he went down.
Corey Maggette ($8.40): Maggette has been extremely consistent as an efficient 20 point scorer for months now, but in the last week he upped that even further with averages of 29.7 points on only 13 shot attempts.
Samuel Dalembert ($8.16): Dalembert has finally found some consistency, pulling down about 15 boards per over the last couple weeks with big block numbers and even double-digit scoring. He plans to travel to his native Haiti next week, but is not expected to miss any game action.
Randy Foye ($7.48): Foye had really stepped up his game in the first week of Gilbert Arenas' suspension, averaging more than 20 points and seven assists in the first five games. He has since cooled down with two subpar games, but at this price tag it is worth taking the flyer that he picks it back up again soon.
Boris Diaw ($6.91): Diaw continues to be up and down as a scorer, but his all-around game which includes strong nightly contributions in rebounds and assists makes him a nice value for under $10.
Corey Brewer ($5.92): Brewer was styled as a defensive role-player type, but over the last several weeks he has been one of the leading scorers for the Timberwolves. Matching upper-teen scoring with decent across-the-board contributions in rebounds, assists, steals and blocks makes Brewer a solid pick-up for as long as this scoring streak lasts.
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