Fantasy Notebook: The Autodraft Hangover

Yes, yes, I know; autodraft is a cruel mistress. It’s a tale full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. It’s a lightning rod for venomous hyperbole. It is the cruel thumb of fate made all too real as it presses down to take from each of us any hope for individual agency, much less the occasional hollow victory. It may not be the most satisfying version of fantasy basketball but, as the saying goes, it’s the version of fantasy basketball that we have. Well, here at Cavs: The Fantasy League, at least.

Each of the twelve staunch and ready participants in the inaugural CtFL went to bed last night (except for Ben, who was probably just waking up) with dreams of sugar plums and LeBron James dancing in their heads, only to wake up faced with, in the immortal words of Mallory Factor, “DeMarcus Cousins and a pile of poo.”

Mr. Irrelevant, the final player taken in the autodraft, was former Cav C.J. Miles, who wound up on Team PESTAK.

And… well, full disclosure, yours truly wound up with the randomly generated (for serious!) first pick and the auto-LeBron selection. So… well… you know… that worked out.

As the season goes on, we’ll be piping in with some fantasy basketball content — updates on Cavs: The Fantasy League and podcasts which will, hopefully, provide some smidgen of insight on the actual basketball being played, as well as allow each of you a forum to tell us how much better you are than us at fantasy sports. Everyone wins.

A couple of quick jots to start our fantasy season:

•I no longer have to dream of what a LeBron/Andrew Wiggins team could have been. I’m now staring at it on my fantasy roster. But I’m not sure just how happy I am that it worked out that way.

While it’s reasonable to expect Wiggins to put up numbers on a bad Wolves team, he scares me as a first-year fantasy player. During the preseason, Wiggins shot just 41% (16-39) from the field and that includes a very misleading 60% from three in which he only took five shots, making three. Also, while he offset his shaky shot in his debut by getting to the free throw line 10 times for eight points, he only shot nine free throws for the rest of the preseason in which he saw his production drop in each of his four games. Wiggins will not shoot 60% from three for the season — in fact, the odds of him cracking 35% are slim — so, what you have in him from a fantasy perspective is a guy who will likely kill your FG% stats and maybe help your FT%. Wiggins will have to score at a clip that he probably isn’t ready for in order to make him a solid fantasy option. Most of his impact — on defense and in highlight dunks — unfortunately, aren’t fantasy stats just yet.

•Here’s a question: how much do you value Player Efficiency Rating (PER) when looking at your fantasy team? If you are looking for players who may provide your team an unexpected lift (or, rather, an unexpectedly high lift), looking at PER — especially as you try to achieve a good, balanced roster — isn’t a bad place to start. Sure, looking at last season’s top 20 in PER looks very similar to any fantasy pre-draft top 20 list, except for two players. Coming in at 19 and 20 of last year’s tops are Minnesota center Nikola Pekovic and then Sacramento point guard Isaiah Thomas, both of whom are quite a ways down from the top 20 on the majority of draft boards.

Now, Thomas has gone from playing over 34 minutes a game with the Kings last season to a back-up role in Phoenix, so his exact fantasy impact remains to be seen. But if you expect him to be instant offense off the bench and to contribute as efficiently as he did a season ago, there is real value in him as a balancing force on your fantasy roster.

Pekovic, on the other hand, might suffer from an increased role now that Kevin Love is no longer playing beside him. If not, though, you might be looking at a center prospect who could deliver Dwight Howard-level points and rebounds production without being an absolute killer to your FT% stats.

Happy start of the fantasy season, everyone! And happy start of the real, live NBA season, as well!!