NBA Fantasy Basketball Early Review: Devin Harris And The New Jersey Nets

Alan Harrison · December 30, 2010

Starting the season at 9-23 the New Jersey Nets are almost past the woeful number of games that they won all of last season (12). While New Jersey isn’t a team that should be counted on to make the playoffs, there are a few players that are worth considering adding to your fantasy squad.. along with some that aren’t.

An average of 17.2 ppg and 6.7 assists and 1.0 steal is great for fantasy basketball, but not great for an elite NBA point guard. You can’t blame Devin Harris for putting up these numbers because often times he’s forced to take the lead of a team with only five players averaging more than ten points per game. Harris often finds himself driving to the basket for a score and not distributing the ball. The offensive load forces Harris to jack up more shots and thus inflating his scoring average.

Harris is shooting 45 percent from the field and is taking 12.2 shots per game. That field goal percentage is Harris’ highest since joining the Nets, but is scoring four points lower than he did in 2008-09 at 21.3. The drop in scoring could be partially attributed to him taking two less shots per game (while also playing less minutes), despite shooting over 30 percent from beyond the arc. This could also be the byproduct of Harris not having a great shot selection.

Because Harris tends to hold on to the ball a little longer than he should it makes him susceptible to turnovers at a rate of 2.9 per game.

This season has been a season of lows for Brook Lopez in a lot of areas with scoring being the only bright spot. While Lopez is averaging a career high 19.3 ppg (22nd in the league), he’s averaging a career low of 6.2 rebounds. Kris Humphries is averaging 9.2 despite only playing 24.9 minutes per game. The seven-foot Brook has posted double digit rebounding figures only twice this season and the last time this happened was on December 1st. Only in one of those games Brook managed to get a double-double, a far cry from 33 double-doubles last season.

Playing without Vince Carter has definitely hurt Brook since teams are now more apt to double team him without a consistent outside threat for him to pass to or another big man that would keep the defenses honest. Note that the only Nets player in the top 100 NBA three point shooters is Anthony Morrow; he’s #32 on the list with 41 percent from beyond the arc.

Despite playing only 25.1 minutes per game Kris Humphries is the type of player that warrants fantasy consideration. Kris makes up for his scoring deficiency, 8.0 ppg, by pulling down 9.2 rebounds per game, which is good for 14th in the league despite playing less minutes than the 13 players ahead of him. Add to that 1.1 blocks a game and 53 percent from the field. Although Kris is shooting 69 percent from the free-throw line, this shouldn’t really effect your teams overall percentage since he’s shooting less than two free-throws a game. As long as he’s starting games (24 out of 32 this season) and putting up double-doubles (nine so far this season) you should expect steady numbers.

If the Nets are able to land Carmelo Anthony, a long shot by any standards, without losing Devin Harris, such a situation would actually benefit Brook’s stats by giving defenses a shooter to worry about. However, Harris’ scoring would certainly go down a bit as he would have to adjust to Melo and Brook being the top two scoring options for the Nets.

It looks like Anthony Morrow has finally acclimated to playing in New Jersey since being traded from the Golden State Warriors. He’s been steady source of 12 points, but this is not enough for him to be a must have player except in deep leagues.

Morrow has scored more than 16 points nine times this season, which means he’s having a problem with staying consistent. Morrow could one day average around 14-16 points per game, but I don’t see it happening with Harris running the point.

On top of that Morrow is currently nursing a hamstring injury and could be out until January. Consider adding Jordan Farmar if he will be the one replacing Morrow in the starting lineup since he’s averaging 15.5 ppg, 6.8 asst in 37.5 minutes in four games as a starter this season.

Derrick Favors has certainly been a disappointment for Nets as he’s averaging 6.4 ppg, 5.3 rbs and 0.5 blk and Avery Johnson certainly doesn’t think that the 3rd overall pick in the draft warrants more playing time with what he has shown up until this point. Don’t expect things to change until Favors changes his attitude about playing hard-nosed basketball.

Another major disappointment has been the prized free-agent signing of Travis Outlaw. Despite playing 31.8 minutes a game, Outlaw is only averaging 10.4 ppg. If Outlaw’s shooting funk continues any longer, then you can deem the five-year, $35 million year contract he signed with the Nets a bust of an investment.

(Stats as of 12/29/2010 and courtesy of espn.com and basketball-reference.com)

Written by Artem "Professor Dunk" Altman exclusively for the www.thefantasyfix.com You can follow Artem on Twitter.com/ProfessorDunk

Tags: The Fantasy Fix, Fantasy Sports Advice, Fantasy Basketball, NBA, Artem Altman, Professor Dunk, New Jersey Nets, Devin Harris, Derrick Favors, Anthony Morrow, Brook Lopez, Carmelo Anthony, Travis Outlaw