Fantasy Notebook: Fantasy Bad

In fantasy basketball, there is almost always a silver lining to be found on the NBA’s bad teams. On even the worst teams, someone has to score the points, grab the rebounds and fill up even the most uninspiring of box scores.

A great example of this right now is Tony Wroten of the Philadelphia 76ers. In spite of the Sixers’ 0-6 start, Wroten has been fantasy gold turning in 22.5 points, 4.5 rebounds and 7 assists in 33.8 minutes a game. Wroten is benefiting from the same quick Sixers pace that buffed Michael Carter Williams to a shine last season, as well as from being the only Philadelphia starter (my apologies to former Cav Henry Sims) with even the slightest track record of putting a ball through a basket.

As historical context, think what kind of numbers Ricky Davis would have put up on the 2002-03 Cavs if the rest of his team had been composed of slightly-better-than-D-Leaguers instead of…

Okay, maybe not the best example. Still, if you were out in front of Wroten-mania, you’re sitting back and reaping the fantasy benefits at least until MCW returns (he’s practicing now). Even then, it’s likely that Wroten will continue to be a useful fantasy player because… well, historically teams have occasionally fielded more than one effective player at a time.

I know, Philly. Just wait for it.

But, occasionally, reality bad and fantasy bad collide. In Cavs: The Fantasy League, for instance, I made the calculated decision to include team wins as a category. My logic was this: if you somewhat mitigate the advantage of having a player on a last place team putting up strong fantasy numbers, there’s an extra element of strategy to consider. It makes Courtney Lee’s 15.8 points, 3.8 rebounds, 2.4 assists points for the 6-1 Grizzlies a bit more competitive with, say, Gordon Hayward’s 18/6.3/5.3 for the three win Jazz. As the season goes on and the good and bad teams make themselves a more known, team wins could act as either a sweetener or a poison pill in trades and waiver wire pick-ups.

And then you have situations like what I’ve got with the Denver Nuggets.

After Sunday night’s 116-100 loss to the Portland Trailblazers, the expected-to-be-respectable Nuggets dropped to 1-5. And I have the good fortune to be wind up with five — yes, count ’em, five — Nuggs on my Cavs: The Fantasy Team roster.

Somehow (for the actual how, please refer back to my previous piece on the infinite wisdom of the autodraft) my team, Waiters Invaders, wound up with Ty Lawson, Kenneth Fareid, Arron Afflalo, JaVale McGee, and Wilson Chandler (that is, until I dropped him for the soul crusher that was O.J. Mayo’s tantalizingly brief hot start — for more on why I thought O.J. Mayo’s hot start might have a bit of meat to it, see Wroten, Tony). Yes, I know, common fantasy logic this is not. One of the keys to fantasy success is having a diverse and balanced roster and loading up on players playing unevenly for a struggling team might be the draft’s final joke for my landing the number one pick and LeBron James. As with any good joke, though, this one contains a grain of truth to it. The truth? When it comes to your fantasy team, run far, far away from the Denver Nuggets.

In fact, the problem with the Denver Nuggets in terms of fantasy impact is much the same as what’s nagged at the team ever since they traded away Carmelo Anthony: too many better-than-average players, but no stars. When the Nuggs were good, this was spun as “a different player can beat you any night” which, it should be known, is anathema to building a good fantasy team where what matters most about a player is that his production, whatever it is, be consistent and expected.

These Nuggets have had four different leading scorers in their first five games: Faried, Lawson, Afflalo and Randy Foye, twice. Foye, a reserve, currently leads the team in scoring at 12.8 per game. Faried gives your team rebounding, but is shooting a Tristan Thompson-ian 45.7% from the floor — not a great number from the power forward spot. In fact, Thompson stacks up respectably against Faried (do not tell Rich Paul I wrote that) getting 10.4 points, 6.6 rebounds a game and finally shooting over 50% from the field to Faried’s 10.2/9.0 in similar minutes per game. Thompson can still be had in many leagues.

Lawson, who missed Friday night’s game against the Cavaliers due to a sore ankle, should eventually put up good scoring and assists numbers and it’s a good bet that Afflalo eventually becomes this team’s go-to(ish) scorer. But, for right now, it’s Foye or nothing from Denver. And, yes, that’s why Mallory’s The Factors of Love put a straight-up beating on Waiters Invaders this week.

Notes:

•Congratulations to Ben Werth’s Team The Deutschiest for a dominant opening week of Cavs: The Fantasy League. Ben rode Pelican’s forward Anthony Davis to an 11-2 Week One victory, best in CtFL. Cavs fans will, of course, be rooting against Ben’s line as the Cavs take on said Pellies tonight at The Q.

•Week Two belonged to David Wood’s team, Alex Dirk. Team The Deutschiest racked up another strong week, but David’s team, who narrowly lost out on the Week One top spot to Ben, notched a 10-3 win over Team PESTAK.

•Looking ahead to Week 3, keep an eye on Tim Hardaway Jr. Recently moved into the starting lineup for the New York Knicks, Hardaway Jr. is averaging 17 points per game over his last three. Besides the nice bit of scoring from (who should be) a waiver pick-up, he also chips in nearly two three-pointers a game and is shooting 44.8% from deep. The Knicks have four games this week, all against teams with losing records.