Five underappreciated players who are outpacing stars like Embiid, PG
The same thing happens in fantasy basketball. Players who are considered superstars, who we’ve seen on TV and SportsCenter 100 times, who have played for championships or even led our fantasy basketball teams to championships over the years tend to get a boost in our estimation.
We draft them earlier, we put a premium on them in trade talks (if we’re even willing to trade them at all), and we give them the benefit of the doubt that they will hold their value or even improve as the season goes along. It’s a benefit of the doubt that they’ve earned over time, but that doesn’t necessarily always play out in the box scores.
And ultimately, the box score is the most important place — the only place — that matters, really, when it comes to evaluating fantasy players. I know that player values can change over time, and in fact the last two articles in this space have delved into players off to hot starts whom you might want to trade away and also players off to cooler starts whom you should trade for.
Today I’ll go a different way and compare pairs of players where one is a star (a brand name with the attendant name-recognition boost) and the other a less-appreciated player who has actually been posting very similar statistical production so far this season.
And in fantasy basketball, to quote the esteemed contemporary philosopher Dwayne Carter, also known as Lil Wayne, “Women lie, men lie, numbers don’t lie.”
Whiteside: 16.2 PPG, 12.5 RPG, 2.4 BPG, 25.2 FPG (fantasy points per game via ESPN scoring)
Gobert: 14.7 PPG, 13.5 RPG, 1.7 BPG, 24.9 FPG
Gobert has earned esteem and cool nicknames like “The Stifle Tower” with back-to-back Defensive Player of the Year Awards, and he has paired that defense with high-efficiency, moderate-volume scoring and dominant rebounding to earn a spot in the top two rounds of fantasy basketball drafts (ADP of 19.9 this season).
Whiteside seemingly fell into disfavor at his previous stop with the Heat, and though he was getting a fresh start with the Trail Blazers, he still was a middle-round selection in most fantasy leagues. However, he has flourished to average more points, blocks and fantasy points per game than Gobert thus far.
There is the long-term question as to what happens to Whiteside if and when Jusuf Nurkic returns from injury, but in the meantime, he is producing just like his second-round counterpart.
Adebayo: 15.3 PPG, 10.5 RPG, 4.4 APG, 23.9 FPG
Embiid: 22.7 PPG, 12.4 RPG, 3.1 APG, 26.4 FPG
Embiid is the most dominant center in the game, and he entered this season as a dark horse MVP candidate. However, he is scoring very inefficiently this season and is also load managed. He has missed five of 25 games thus far this season after missing 18 games last season and 19 games the season before, a trend in which he misses about 20 percent of his games.
Meanwhile, Adebayo is a candidate for Most Improved Player this season and is only 2.5 fantasy points per game behind Embiid. Adebayo has also played in all 24 of the Heat’s contests this season, after playing in all 82 games last season. As they say, availability is the best ability, which gives Adebayo an argument as the better option moving forward, even over the sky-high upside of Embiid.
Hayward: 17.5 PPG, 6.9 RPG, 4.1 APG, 22.3 FPG
George: 23.2 PPG, 6.4 RPG, 3.6 APG, 22.3 FPG
George finished third in MVP voting last season, and when he decided to join Kawhi Leonard on the Clippers, it almost broke the internet. George had offseason surgery on both shoulders that kept him out of the first month of the season and now has to share touches with Leonard, but he was still is one of the first forwards off the board in fantasy drafts with an overall ADP of 22.9.
Hayward and George share the unfortunate experience of having to rehab and recover from horrific leg injuries, but Hayward’s was more recent, and he entered this season still needing to prove that he could play at his old level. Two months into the season, Hayward has done just that, averaging exactly the same number of fantasy points as George so far.
Both players have some injury risk, but Hayward has packed box scores at George’s level despite being drafted much later (94.8 ADP).
Brown: 19.3 PPG, 6.9 RPG, 1.9 APG, 20.2 FPG
Mitchell: 24.9 PPG, 4.8 RPG, 3.6 APG, 19.7 FPG
Mitchell (ADP 34.9) is the much-higher-volume offensive player, with an aggressive style and a green light that gives him the upside to potentially lead the NBA in scoring one day.
But Brown (ADP 107.1) is also dropping 20 PPG but doing so in a much more efficient manner. Brown is also the better rebounder, which has actually made him the better overall scorer in ESPN points leagues.
Graham: 20.0 PPG, 7.7 APG, 3.7 RPG, 18.7 FPG
Paul: 15.7 PPG, 5.9 APG, 4.1 RPG, 19.2 FPG
Graham has exploded as a sophomore and become a consistent lead option for the Hornets in a sustainable role. Paul has the name and pedigree, but he also has a history of injury issues that actually make him the bigger risk of the two for fantasy rosters.
Paul is arguably the best point guard of his generation, and at his peak, he produced combinations of volume and efficiency as both a scorer and a passer that made him one of the top picks in fantasy leagues. Even this season, despite the age and injuries that have taken him far from his peak production capabilities, he still had an early-mid-round ADP of 69.8.
Graham, on the other hand, entered his sophomore season as a relative unknown on a Hornets team that Vegas pegged as the worst in the league. And he has absolutely taken the league by storm. Graham looks like a star in the making, averaging more points and assists than CP3 this season. I recently received this question on Twitter:
“Do you think that Devonte’ Graham is just steadily working towards a ridiculously high selling point or do you think that he’ll maintain his production throughout the remainder of the season?”
If anything, Graham seems to be ramping up. He’s been one of the best guards in the Eastern Conference through six games in December, averaging 26.0 PPG, 7.7 APG and 4.3 RPG, and he is coming off a 40-point explosion on Wednesday in a win over the Nets. The Hornets needed a leader, and Graham seems to have stepped firmly into the role with no signs of a let-up in sight.
Knowing the difference between player perception and reality is one of the keys to pulling off strong fantasy trades.
If you have the big-name guy, you could try to get the small-name guy plus added value in a trade based on brand-name markup. If you have the small-name player, you’ll want to lean heavily on the stats case and potentially package your guy for more stable superstars.
These types of considerations, plus strong powers of persuasion, can lead to championship-caliber trades.