Every week, Chris Towers will take a look at the Fantasy landscape with either a trade values column -- here's last week's -- or a stock watch. This week, he looks at the players whose stock has risen or fallen over the past month.
| Player | Season rank | Last month rank |
|---|---|---|
Nikola Jokic
DEN PF
| 39 | 11 |
Joel Embiid
PHI C
| 47 | 31 |
Ricky Rubio
MIN PG
| 68 | 37 |
Tobias Harris
DET SF
| 55 | 34 |
Ben Simmons
PHI SF
| -- | -- |
Nikola Jokic: Jokic hasn't gone mainstream yet. The group of people who knows and cares about the Nuggets' sensational young big man basically consists of Denver fans, NBA advanced scouts, League Pass obsessives, and, of course, Fantasy players. Despite his status as the league's best-kept secret, Jokic was the No. 43 pick on average coming into the season at FantasyPros.com, and after a rocky start, he's beginning to look like a value at that price.
The Nuggets are rolling, and Jokic is at the center of everything they do. He is averaging 19.4 points, 9.4 rebounds and 5.7 assists per game since returning to the starting lineup 14 games ago, and he has the Nuggets at 8-6 in that stretch and in possession of the eighth seed in the Western Conference playoff race. Those numbers have been matched over a full season by just two players -- Kevin Garnett and Wilt Chamberlain -- and are even more impressive than they sound, because Jokic is also shooting 65.0 percent from the field during this stretch.
Jokic may not have the same Q rating as Joel Embiid, Kristaps Porzingis or Karl-Anthony Towns, but he is establishing himself as every bit their equal in the Fantasy world. Hold.
Joel Embiid: At this pace, Embiid may get a statue next to Rocky Balboa -- or maybe Ben Franklin -- by the time this season is over. The personification of The Process, Embiid has sped up the 76ers timeline pretty much singlehandedly, turning them into a respectable NBA team with his stellar play on both sides of the floor.
Embiid has held up well to an increased role, scoring 20-plus points in 10 straight games, while averaging 27.5 minutes per game. Even in something less than a full-time role, Embiid is averaging 23.6 points, 8.5 rebounds, 2.3 assists and 3.5 combined blocks and steals per game, production that makes it easy to overlook his 4.0 turnovers. Hey, nobody's perfect.
This has been an especially good time for Embiid Fantasy players, as he has missed just 14 of the team's past 16 games while contributing that elite production. However, the fundamentals haven't changed for Embiid, who is still not allowed to play on back-to-back sets, but the Sixers just haven't had many lately.
The problem moving forward is that they have 10 back-to-back sets in their final 42 games, all of which come before the end of March. That could be potentially disastrous for Embiid's Fantasy owners, who may only have him for 25 of 35 games through the playoffs. As dominant as he has been this season, this is the perfect opportunity to look to sell high on Embiid. Sell.
Ricky Rubio: We really should have seen the Timberwolves' early-season struggles coming. Everyone's favorite breakout team was still made up primarily of young players, and were introducing an entirely new coach and new systems on both sides of the ball. Of course they were going to struggle.
What was hard to see coming was just how much Rubio would be affected by those changes. Rubio has his flaws, and they aren't hard to miss, but he can be a very useful option when you put the ball in his hands and let him create for others. That wasn't how the Wolves' ran their offense early in the season, and Rubio's struggles were seemingly tied to the team's.
In the month of January, however, Rubio is putting up more than 10 assists per game, and his potential assists number has jumped from around 12 in November to nearly 17 in January. Turns out, when you put the ball in Rubio's hands and surround him with shooters and scorers, good things happen. It took the Wolves a while to figure that out, but I think it has sunk in by now. Buy.
Tobias Harris: The Pistons' struggles were a lot harder to see coming than the Wolves', but Stan Van Gundy responded to them in a pretty predictable way: He shook up his starting lineup.
It's an easy, relatively painless way for a coach to light a spark under an underperforming team, so it wasn't much of a surprise when Harris found himself benched in late December. Harris' fit in the Pistons' starting lineup has always been a bit awkward, and it was starting to affect his performance. During the 10 games before he was benched, Harris averaged just 12.4 points and shot 42.5 percent from the field, while the Pistons went 3-7.
To Harris' credit, he seems to have responded to the benching well, scoring 26 in his first game with the reserves and ultimately forcing his way back in the starting lineup by averaging 19.5 points per game over the past 13. He still doesn't contribute much in the way of secondary numbers, but with 2.1 3-pointers per game and only 0.8 turnovers, it's hard to argue with results.
Harris' shot may cool down, but this is a talented player finally playing up to expectations. There's no reason to think he won't continue to do so. Hold.
Ben Simmons: We're still not at the point where Simmons' return is imminent -- ESPN reported Wednesday he could return around the All-Star break -- but he is starting to ramp up his activity, which means it's time to talk about him. This is someone who could decide countless Fantasy championships down the stretch, and with reports coming out that he is starting to work out with the team on the floor, his arrow is certainly trending up.
Simmons has the kind of unique skill set that could make him a Fantasy star. His passing ability is incredible, and despite his 6-foot-10 stature, coach Brett Brown continues to talk about him as a point guard for the 76ers. That alone makes him a potential Fantasy difference maker, because we've seen guys like Sergio Rodriguez and T.J. McConnell rack up assists in the fast-paced Philadelphia offense.
Simmons' passing ability alone could make him a Fantasy contributor, without even getting into his stat sheet-stuffing potential given his athleticism.
Simmons is, of course, no sure thing. Even though he was the No. 1 pick, he's still an untested rookie coming back from a broken foot, so there's no guarantee he will hit the ground running when he does. He may face minutes limits and rustiness, trying to get up to speed when everyone else is already in the stretch run. Still, there aren't many players with his kind of upside out there, so if Simmons is available on waivers in any of your leagues, he is a must-add player, even if he might be a month away.
If you've been stashing him this long, there's no point in looking to trade him either, so just ride it out and hope he is as good as he looked at times in college. Buy.
| Player | Season rank | Last month rank |
|---|---|---|
Rudy Gay
SAC SF
| 33 | 32 |
D'Angelo Russell
LAL PG
| 119 | 135 |
Dwyane Wade
CHI SG
| 73 | 161 |
George Hill
UTA PG
| 38 | 127 |
Jeremy Lin
BKN PG
| -- | -- |
Rudy Gay: Injuries are always tough to see, but the one Rudy Gay suffered Wednesday night is an especially bad one for all parties involved. Gay, set to be a free agent this summer after declaring his intentions to opt out of his contract, suffered a season-ending ruptured Achilles, putting his long-term future very much in doubt. The injury also complicates things for the Kings, who probably very much would have liked to have been able to move Gay before the deadline, if they didn't want to make a playoff push with him. Now, both sides are stuck, with Gay facing a painful recovery from an injury that tends to derail careers, without any long-term security.
Gay is obviously someone Fantasy players can drop, and the Kings don't have an obvious in-house replacement for him right now. Matt Barnes will likely step into a larger role, and he can be helpful for Fantasy players, who should look to add him in category-based formats right now. However, the Kings would probably love to see Omri Casspi get back to health, as he recently went down with a calf injury that is expected to keep him out a week or two. If you can afford to stash him, Casspi might be the person to add here, as he gives the Kings some 3-point shooting they will desperately need. Casspi has had trouble getting into the rotation this season, but averaged 14.0 points, 7.0 rebounds and 2.3 3-pointers per game in 21 starts last season. Sell.
D'Angelo Russell: It's always tough to discuss young players, because you have to balance the short term considerations with their long-term upside. Russell is still just 20, and still has superstar potential, but it is also probably fair to say he has been a disappointment so far in his sophomore season. Overall, Russell ranks just inside the top-120 players overall in Roto scoring, and just hasn't improved as much as we hoped he would when he was No. 53 player off draft boards on average.
Russell hasn't taken off as a playmaker or scorer, improving his play on the margins, but not really taking a big step forward. His averages of 14.8 points, 4.5 assists and 1.3 steals per game are solid, but pretty replaceable at the deep point guard position. The future is still bright, of course, however in the short term, Russell just isn't where we hoped he would. He might be a solid buy-low candidate, though, if you can afford to gamble on the upside he still clearly has. Buy.
Dwyane Wade: Wade has held solid value for most of the season, ranking 73rd overall in Roto scoring, however things have taken a real turn for the worse of late. Through Dec. 18, Wade ranked as a top-50 player, as he was making up for a reduction in his per-game numbers with at least solid efficiency, including a surprising 80 percent mark from the free-throw line.
However, he has been in freefall over the last month, as his shooting has fallen off a cliff. Wade's 38.8 percent mark from the field is only exacerbated by the fact that he shoots a whopping 17.2 times per game. Over the last month, Wade has been a positive presence in assists and steals -- 4.2 and 1.2 per game, respectively -- but other than that, he has been a drain on your team. The Bulls are still trying to figure out how to make their pieces fit and, with Wade's age, there might not be much reason to expect improvement. Sell.
George Hill: There hasn't been a player with more rotten luck in the NBA this season than Hill, who seemed to be on the verge of a breakout but can't get past a series of nagging injuries. His most recent came when he rolled his ankle, yet another injury that could keep him sidelined for a while. When healthy, Hill looked like he really was taking his game to another level early in the season, averaging 20.0 points per game in his first 11 appearances, however even that has slowed down of late.
Hill has appeared in eight of the last 11 games for the Jazz, averaging 15.5 points, 4.1 rebounds and 4.4 assists per game. That is solid production, but it's little more than that for a player who has been solid for years. The hope was, a change of scenery could ignite Hill, however, that may be wishful thinking at this point. Even if he can stay on the floor, Hill is behind Gordon Hayward in the team's hierarchy, limiting his ceiling. Throw in the injuries, and Hill looks like just another run of the mill option at the point guard position these days. Hold.
Jeremy Lin: If you're looking for the player whose luck has been worse than Hill's, it might be Lin. Lin had a golden opportunity to re-establish himself as a starting-caliber point guard with the Nets, and looked to be doing so early in the season, averaging 16.3 points and 6.8 assists per game in his first four appearances. However, he injured his hamstring in game No. 5, and just hasn't been right since, playing just seven of the team's last 36 games.
I still think Lin has huge upside, and could be as much as a No. 2 guard in Fantasy on this roster if he ever gets right. However, with another hamstring injury that could keep him out for another few weeks, Lin is looking more and more droppable by the day. The way things have gone, this might end up being a lost season for Lin, unfortunately.. Sell.
