PRESEASON NOTES THE FIRST WEEK OCTOBER 30, 1999 October 3 to October 11 The follow is a compilation of notes that I made during the preseason. They were delivered daily to subscribers during the preseason. To subscribe to the regular season 'Fast Break' Emailer and receive similar timely notes delivered to you personally (almost daily) go to the HoopsKlyce Order Page. 10/3/99 The Houston Rockets traded Scottie Pippen to the Portland Trail Blazers for Kelvin Cato, Walt Williams, Stacey Augmon, Ed Gray, Brian Shaw and Carlos Rogers. A number of the players received by the Rockets will probably be waived immediately. Most likely Gray, Rogers, and maybe Shaw. Last season Pippen averaged 40 mpg for the Rockets. Playing for the deeper Trail Blazers he will not see this kind of playing time and his fantasy value will be reduced. Before the trade Detlef Schrempf was the most likely starter at small forward. Now he will come off the bench reducing his playing time and value. In addition to Pippen and Schrempf, the Blazers have Steve Smith, Damon Stoudamire, Rasheed Wallace, Brian Grant, and Arvydas Sabonis who can score. All will serve to dilute the others fantasy value. In Houston, Walt Williams stands to end up a fantasy winner. Last year he averaged only 22 mpg but this will certainly go up. During the last season where he received substantial playing time, the 96-97 season with the Raptors, he averaged 16.4 ppg. He can contribute a little in all the categories with a strength hitting the trey. A concern with Williams is that in every season where he has had to average substantial minutes he has missed significant portions of the season with injuries. For this reason you don't want to jump too soon to acquire him. The other potential fantasy significance in this trade is Kelvin Cato. In the past he has been buried on the Portland bench. In Houston he stands a chance to earn some playing time above his 13 mpg career average. If he two year career stats are projected to 30 mpg he would average 8.3 ppg, 7.7 rpg, and 2.9 bpg. The rebounds are significant and the blocks are impressive. Cato would be a nice late round pick -- you might be able to get him with your last pick or even as a free agent if he gets some playing time during the season. Steve Francis will have a little more fantasy value without Pippen there to rob him of assists and some points. 10/4/99 The Magic waived Michael Smith. This was surprising to me since I thought he was one of the better players on their roster. The Wizards then signed Smith and he will compete with Aaron William for the starting power forward position according to team officials. Juwan Howard presumably would be at small forward with Ike Austin at center. Aaron Williams was signed as a free agent from Seattle where he received little playing time. The Wizards will be his sixth team in six seasons. If Williams career stats were projected to 30 mpg he would average 11 ppg, 7.1 rpg, and 1.5 bpg. Michael Smith is a slightly better rebounder which is what the Wizards may be looking for. His career stats projected to 30 mpg would be 7.5 ppg, 8.9 rpg, and 0.75 bpg. He is also better than Williams in steals, assists, and field goal percentage although he is terrible from the free throw line. I anticipate that Smith will win the starting position. Whether he is able to average 30+ minutes through the season is not certain though. Williams may present competition and the Wizards may decide to start Richard Hamilton at SF and move Howard to PF. But Smith should be a decent late round pick in your draft for boards. 10/5/99 The fantasy value of players who missed much of the previous season can be difficult to predict. The extent they have recovered from their injuries will determine to a large degree what their value will be. Training camps, which just opened, offers the first real opportunity to determine the condition of these players. Many fantasy managers may have forgotten about players such as Gheorghe Muresan who have been off the court for a while. This opens the opportunity for that player to become a draft day steal if they have recovered. The following players missed much of last season with injuries and could become attractive picks if they have recovered. Terry Mills - Could start if Dele retires. He played in only one game last season. Christian Laettner - Should start for the Pistons but can he handle more minutes than last year? Gheorghe Mursesan - Has not played much of the last two seasons but the Nets have a gaping hole in the middle that someone will need to fill. Jim McIlvaine is another long shot candidate who was hurt last year. Anthony Mason - He missed the entire 98-99 season. Zydrunis Ilgauskas - He played only five games last season but I have read he is fully recovered. Raef LaFrentz - He played only 12 games last year. Could be a future fantasy star if he stays healthy. Sam Cassell - He should do well with the NBA rules if he decides to suit up and play. I will be watching the preseason games for these players to see if they can handle the major minutes. If so, they could be potential steals if other managers have forgotten about them. 10/6/99 Isaiah Rider got off on the wrong foot by missing the start of the Atlanta Hawks training camp. The reason given for his absence was missing flights. Last season, his sixth in the NBA, Rider averaged a career low of 13.9 ppg. He was on the Blazers which did not need him to score so much. But for his career he has averaged 18 ppg showing he is an outstanding offensive player. In Atlanta he will be counted on the be the best offensive player. He could crack the 20 ppg mark. The fantasy owner can't ignore this potential for production. In each of his seasons he has been in some sort of behavioral trouble. For the fantasy owner this translates into an annoying game missed he and there. On the bright side, his absences are isolated and he rarely strands an owner for an entire week (you know - the guy who sprains an ankle on the first day of your fantasy week). The time that Rider misses is largely publicized. But there are guys who routinely miss more games annually and receive no attention - Horace Grant, Robert Horry, In this years rankings I have projected Rider will play 75 games, missing 7 for being a bad boy. If he comes up on your depth chart (with that discount already considered) he would be a good pick. Note he usually doesnt miss that many games but I used 7 anyway. In addition to points, he provides a decent number of rebounds (for a guard) and some assists. 10/7/99 One of the many training camp battles for a starting position is Sean Elliott's replacement at small forward in San Antonio. After Elliott went out and Will Perdue signed with Chicago I thought Malik Rose had a decent shot to earn substantial minutes. The signing of Samaki Walker and Chucky Brown made Rose's minutes a little less certain. Other candidates for the starting position are Jaren Jackson, Jerome Kersey, and Mario Elie. News coming from training camp makes me think Rose again does stand a good chance of getting some minutes and therefore becoming a good late round draft pick. In the off season Rose has been working on adapting to the small forward position realizing he does not have the size to get substantial playing time at power forward. He has the quickness to play small forward but his outside shot is lacking. Last year he impressed me with his hustle and his ability to rack up some stats in a short period of time. Projecting his stats from last year to 30 minutes per game (I like to use the 30 minute projection for potential emerging players - this is the typical minimum playing time for a player to have fantasy value) he would average 14 ppg, 9 rpg, 2.1 spg, 1.2 bpg and 4.9 ftpg. Note that half of his boards are offensive which is a big help if you have that particular category. These are some potentially nice numbers. The following can be said about Rose's competition: Brown and Kersey are both too old and slow. Elie and Jackson are best suited to off guard. Walker has a significant injury history and couldn't earn playing time on the lowly Mavericks. I am back to thinking Rose is a potential sleeper. 10/8/99 The Pacers announced that Chris Mullin would not be starting this season. His replacement has not been set yet but the leading candidate is Jalen Rose. This will elevate Rose's value somewhat although the ratings I have done presumed this transition would occur this season. Another potential candidate is young Al Harrington who played in only 21 games last season. Rose should be a decent mid to late round pick this year (note that I usually refer to a draft player dispersal method -- those in an auction system need to translate this to a mid to low dollar range). Rose can contribute a little in all the categories. At one time he had a strength in assists but he has not played point guard in a couple seasons and his assists have dropped. Rose's strongest category is scoring but he needs to improve his field goal percentage. He is guilty of taking more trey attempts than he is capable of making -- last season he made only 17 of 65 three point attempts. Harrington has much potential but is unproven. Last year he shot only 32% from the field but showed he could rebound well. Chance are he will struggle to have any fantasy value this season but those who can store players in a keeper league may want to eventually consider him. Chris Mullin should be left off your team. He will have minimal fantasy value but still has a good reputation which might make other managers take him at too high a price. This applies to similar players such as John Stockton as well. 10/9/99 Pat Riley has stated that the Miami Heat is done with roster moves for now. That means that the starting shooting guard position will belong to either Voshon Lenard or Dan Majeure. Voshon Lenard missed all but 12 games last season with a stress fracture in his leg. In the 12 games he did play he averaged only 16 mpg. As result of this obscure season he may not be rated very highly by other managers. As a full time starter Lenard could be a potential sleeper in your league IF your league has the three point category. He could average 12 PPG and hit 2 treys per game if he is healthy (and if he beats Majerle out for the starting job). Last season Majerle played about 34 minutes per game but averaged only 7 PPG and played with a sore back that prevented him from practicing much of the time. He will be 34 this season and I feel he will not be able to handle the minutes of a starter. He also could play some at small forward particularly if Mashburn gets hurt again. According to an article published by The Sporting News, Vladimir Stepania could be the starting small forward for Seattle with Horace Grant starting at center. It look as if Grant will be the center with Baker at power forward -- the training camp battle will be for small forward. Although 7 foot, Stepania has sufficient quickness to play small forward. Projecting Stepania's averages to 30 mpg he would average 12 PPG, 7.3 rpg, and 2.2 bpg. His weaknesses are foul shooting and personal fouls. Other small forward candidates are Reuben Patterson, Rashard Lewis, and Lazaro Borrell. Lewis reportedly played well in summer leagues. The battle at the small forward position will be observed during training camp. If there is a clear winner that player will be a potential sleeper pick -- right now Stepania is the leading candidate. 10/10/99 A point touched on in the player rating report is the value of a players position. Most leagues require that two centers are started often on a roster of 10 players. This means 20% of you active players would be centers. Below is a list of the centers who came up in the top 100 for an arbitrary scoring system (I used rotisserie-P,A,R,S,B,FG%,FT,3 which typically rates the big men highly) I assume Tim Duncan is a forward. Shaquille Oneal Alonzo Mourning Hakeem Olajuwon David Robinson Elden Campbell Dikembe Mutombo Vlade Divac Shawn Bradley Zydrunas Ilgauskas Matt Geiger Patrick Ewing Greg Ostertag Only 12 centers came up on the list and note that I would be hesitant to draft Patrick Ewing this year considering the injuries which still linger. So about 12% of the supply of players are centers. The decision of the fantasy manager is how much do you elevate a center on your depth chart or do you not do that at all. I think the answer is that it depends. Last year I jumped at a mediocre center in the mid rounds of a draft (Dean Garrett) for fear of having nothing at the position and I regretted it the entire season. In his case it was a drag on my teams performance throughout the year. I probably could have waited until near the end of the draft to get him but I 'panicked.' Another possible approach could be to elevated the rating of a center by the factor of 20%/12%=1.67. Realistically though I would think you would want round that number down since other managers probably don't elevate center ratings that much and there no need to 'pay' more than you need to. You could use your first round pick to grab the best available center. But if Shaq and Alonzo are gone may be left with a guy not on your first round depth chart. Your season could be ruined by jumping at a David Robinson or a Hakeem Olajuwon might struggle this year with injuries because of their advancing age. I don't know all of the answers on this center issue. I just wanted to reemphasize some of the aspects that the fantasy owner should consider which will have a great impact on their season. I have had success both ways. Scraping by with marginal centers and picking a stud. I also got burned once with a bad center as I mentioned before. 10/11/99 Your player ratings have two players who probably rate in the top 20 despite a fairly significant discount for injury history. Those players are Chris Webber (projected to play 73 games) and Keith Van Horn (projected to play 75 games). Van Horn has actually played in only 80% of the Nets games his first two seasons due to sprained ankles and broken toes and fingers. Based on this history a 75 game projection is generous. Chris Webber has missed fairly substantial portions of his first six years in the NBA. If he will projected to play in all 82 games he might be number one on your depth chart (unless you have FT% as a category). I just wanted to point out these two players. Should you feel these players were unfairly penalized you could move them up on your depth chart. I feel you would be taking a risk considering their history (more so with Webber). The preseason opened yesterday as the Spurs played the Sixers. David Robinson sat out the game with a sore back. The following is taken from the 10/9 TSN report regarding Robinson: "Though Robinson's back is always a cause for concern, over the past few seasons he has generally needed the full month of training camp to loosen up and get in playing shape. The Spurs coaches have been careful not to overwork him the first week." The article suggests that this is not a serious concern but I was already leery of the possibility of Robinson missing games. I will follow his condition in training camp. Potential sleeper Malik Rose started for the Spurs but was only 1-6 in 32 minutes. Samaki Walker played 36 minutes and had 23 pts, 7 reb, 2 stl, and 2 blks. Fairly impressive despite this just being a preseason game. For the Sixers, potential sleeper Larry Hughes had 19 pts, 6 reb, 4 ast, and 2 stl. Billy Owens was 0-5 in 12 minutes. In the next two days there are eight more preseason games, all of which should provide more information regarding players health and playing rotations.   Previous Article Next Article Copyright © Hoops Klyce 1999 - All Rights Reserved Website Designed by Lelnet Failed to execute script '../cgi-local/ax.cgi': Win32 Error Code = 2