Fantasy Notebook: The Ones That Got Away

A couple of weeks ago, we took a look at how a couple of former Cavalier point guards — Jarrett Jack and Mo Williams — were fairing in fantasy this year.

Not to be outdone by the attention to Jack and Williams, several other former Cavaliers are coming out to join the 2014-15 Fantasy Roster Viability Party, specifically former backup big men Tyler Zeller and Marreese Speights.

Zeller has recently moved into the starting lineup for the Boston Celtics, who acquired the NC grad from the Cavs this past summer in what amounted to a salary dump by the Cavs to clear room to sign LeBron James. Zeller took his fair share of whips from Cavs fans and opponents alike in his two years in the wine and gold. This year, however, his defenders (which… cough, cough… included myself) are feeling vindicated. In seven games since December 1, Zeller is averaging 12.9 points, 7.7 rebounds and .9 blocks a game. What’s more, he’s doing it shooting nearly 65% from the field. Also, on the season, Zeller is hitting 83% from the free throw line. He’s had point totals of 24 and 18 in the past five games and seems to really be thriving playing for Celtics coach Brad Stevens.

While his stats are nice, it’s the ridiculously high shooting percentages that make Zeller particularly valuable to fantasy rosters. He’s having a jewel of a stretch right now and the Celtics play four games this week.

Speights, meanwhile, has been flourishing off the bench for the league standard Golden State Warriors. In the last 10 games, Speights has been averaging 12.5 points and  6.4 rebounds a game in just under 20 minutes a night. The knock on Speights as a fantasy option is his 44.6% shooting from the floor during that stretch, which is lower than you’d like from a PF/C. On the season, though, Speights is hitting 53.2% of his FGs, chipping in almost a block and is an above average free throw shooter for a big man at 77.8%. The real value in Speights though, as Cavs fans remember, is that, every now and a again, he gets really hot. For instance, in the span of less than a week in late-November, Speights went off for 28 points at Oklahoma City and 27 at Charlotte.

Of course, real-life Speights is more valuable than fantasy Speights, since he is getting all of this work done in limited minutes — which can actually hurt his fantasy value, if you happen to be in a league with a minutes category. That fact is also what makes watching real-life Speights and real-life Zeller hurt Cavs fans just a little bit more.

CtFL Update:

A week after we saw some pretty even contests throughout Cavs: The Fantasy League, Week 7 was all about the lopside.

My own Team Waiters Invaders kept up its steady climb in the standings with a 9-4 win over CtB reader Jonathan Kropko’s Team Throwing The Hammer Down, setting the stage for a big 3/5 matchup as my WIs take try to keep Cols and Team Buckets Don’t Lie from having any more reason to flood the comments section.

Ben Werth’s Team The Deutschiest found a chink in the previously unchinkable armor of David Wood and Team Alex Dirk, winning the week 8-5. “Just trying to keep some pressure on [Wood],” Werth said*, when reached for comment. Wood, however, brushed off the December set-back, blaming his sluggish week on his team nutritionist’s recommendation of late-night carnitas nachos.

“A lot of people would point to themselves and say ‘I could have done more of this or that,'” Wood said, speaking to Fantasy Notebook as his private plane touched down at his private island fortress.** “But we just gotta lay off the nachos.”

A big CtFL congratulations to Week 7 winner Tom Pestak and his Team PESTAK who crushed Team Krolik 11-2. Team PESTAK played the whole week like vintage LeBron James, while Krolik had to settle for playing like 2014-15 LeBron-on-defense.

Tom was like:

Not to be completely overshadowed by his fellow CtB Associate Editor, Nate Smith and Team Stark Delly Treys is our Week 7 runner up! Smith’s TSDT, clearly inspired by their namesake’s return to the court last week, lay the hurt on Mallory’s Team Factors of Love by a factor of 10-2-1.

Sometime early Sunday morning, Nate stood up, looked around at the crowd and signaled that this was going to happen:

Have a great week, Cavs and Fantasy fans alike.

*He did not say this… but you can imagine how he could have.

**While this conversation is made up… Wood’s private island fortress is very, very real.