NBA Fantasy Basketball Market Watch: DeAndre Jordan Is Moving On Up
L.A.’s “other” team is finally starting to develop some young, noteworthy talent that may move them from the back pages. One of the players in this youth movement is DeAndre Jordan (not to be confused with His Airness).
With only one year of college under his belt (Texas A&M) and one year of professional ball, Jordan is certainly making his mark as the starting center. In his most recent game versus the Jazz, he had seven blocks to go along with 14 points.
For the month of December, Jordan averaged almost 8 PPG/8 rebounds/2 steals on 71.4 percent shooting from the field. He’s only owned in 36 percent of CBS leagues so get on board before it’s too late.
There’s always a dearth of quality big men in the NBA and Jordan is doing a decent job of filling out the statistical categories.
Mr. Young, in his third year, became the forgotten guard in Washington. Between Agent Zero’s off-court issues and subsequent trade, and the Wiz drafting John Wall, Young was lost in the shuffle until recently.
Wall’s struggles have found him a spot on the bench and Young moved into a starting role after the Arenas trade.
In thirteen December contests, Young has scored in double digits in all but two of them with a high of 30 points twice for a 19.1 PPG average. He can shoot the ‘three’, dish out a few assists and even grab a couple rebounds.
Young may not be a starter for long, but he’s a key contributor in an unstable backcourt for a Washington squad in transition.
To say that it’s been a roller coaster of a season for Hakim Warrick would be a gross understatement. Warrick went from being a spark plug off the bench to starter to fantasy irrelevance all in a matter of weeks.
He’s put up a meager 24 points and 10 rebounds TOTAL over the last six games. To put this into perspective, Warrick’s averages in October and November were 10.0 PPG/5.7 rebounds and 13.4 PPG/4.6 rebounds, respectively.
Until Alvin figures out a rotation with his newly acquired players, it’s best to keep away from Warrick.
Mr. Haywood is lucky that Mark Cuban doesn’t have him arrested for stealing $40 million. This is the amount of money that Dallas is on the hook for through the ‘14-‘15 season after Haywood re-upped with Big D.
I’m sure everyone can agree that this is a preposterous contract for a backup center, which is what Haywood has become. He’s taken a back seat to
Tyson Chandler and has contributed little to nothing in terms of fantasy (or real) value.He has one game where he posted double-digit points (ten on 10/31 vs. the Clippers) and three games of double-digit rebounds on the season.
His averages sit at 3.8 PPG and 5.0 RPG. At this rate, he has about as much chance of reaching his $10 million ’15 – ’16 team option as Cuban does buying another sports franchise.
This edition of the Stock Watch’s Goat award goes out to someone you may recognize as a once up-and-coming big man – Mr. Hasheem Thabeet!
You may have forgotten that Thabeet is even in the NBA at this point. The 2009 second overall pick of the Grizzlies was supposed to anchor the middle and be a mainstay in Memphis for years to come. Instead, there are rumblings that the Grizz are ready to move on from this draft debacle. Even if they are able to unload Thabeet, they will not get much of a return on this investment.
Thabeet is averaging 1.3 PPG/3.0 rebounds/1.1 blocks this season. As bad as that may sound, his stats are actually down from his rookie campaign when he averaged 3.1 PPG/3.6 rebounds/1.3 blocks. It’s difficult to imagine that he could have regressed from last season, but that certainly does appear to be the case.
At this point Michael Heisey and Co. are stuck with a wasted top draft pick, something that takes years to recover from.
Good luck in your future travels Mr. Thabeet, as I’m sure there will be quite a few GM’s willing to take on a low-risk 7’ 3” reclamation project.
Tags: The Fantasy Fix, Fantasy Sports Advice, Fantasy Basketball Advice, Fantasy Basketball, 2010, NBA, Stock Watch, DeAndre Johnson, Hakim Warrick, Nick Young, Brendan Haywood, Hasheem Thabeet
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