THE EWING TRADE 9/24/00   As most know by now Patrick Ewing was traded to Seattle, Glen Rice went to New York, and Horace Grant went to the Lakers. There was a lot of other salary cap fodder players and worthless draft picks (lottery protected) also involved. Glen Rice had wanted to go to a team where he would get more playing time but that may not necessarily happen in New York. The Knicks, a team already light in rebounding before it traded away it's leading rebounder, might find it difficult to have Rice sharing the floor with Latrell Sprewell and Allan Houston at the same time. It would seem logical for there to be a subsequent trade that might restore some confidence that Rice will get major minutes (say Spree + Camby for Mutombo) but for now fantasy owners should not expect Rice to put up his Charlotte type of numbers. As it stands, the new leading rebounder for the Knicks might very well be the King of the Weak Side Swat Marcus Camby. If he can stay healthy and the Knicks keep their roster, he could see a substantial increase in fantasy value. I don't expect Ewing to have a much bigger role in Seattle than he did in New York. Any increase in fantasy value he realizes over last season will come from him simply staying healthy. The arrival of Ewing, someone who wants touches, and departure of Grant, someone who doesn't know what to do with a touch, may slightly slow down the development of Rashard Lewis as he waits for Payton, Baker, and Ewing to pass him the rock. In Los Angeles, the arrival of Horace Grant puts an end to any speculation of Robert Horry slipping into the starting power forward job and somehow being a draft day sleeper. At the same time it may put Rick Fox at the starting small forward position and make him a serviceable fantasy player. On another note, a ran across a fantasy writer ranking the top 40 guards at the following web site; http://www.sportingnews.com/voices/brian_doolittle/index.html The author confessed that it was a subjective list based mostly on experience and some qualitative research of statistics. For a list made in this rough manner it is really excellent but you should hope your opponents use a similar approach unless of course you prefer to be in a challenging league. The author does not give a scoring system although a number of stat categories are referenced. One category is turnovers, although I know most leagues don't use that category. If you were to supplement your qualitative projections with some number crunching the difference in fantasy value for a player such as Mike Bibby in an eight category PARSB 3 FG% FT% league versus a five category PARSB would be apparent (and striking). And I might add that each ranking would place Bibby in the top 15 guards much better than the 23rd ranking shown in this article. The same goes for a player like Mutombo. His big strengths are rebounds and blocks. In the five category league the importance of doing these two categories amplifies his fantasy value since it is 40% of a players value versus only 25% of a players value in an eight category league. I don't want to be too hard on this ranking, but I would just like to add one last comment. It is mentioned in the article that the top guard is a toss up between two players, Gary Payton and Kobe Bryant, but I feel there is one other player in their class (for just about all scoring systems). To know who this player is and to get a ranking of players tailored to the scoring system used in your league order the HoopsKlyce preseason player rating report. In October I get busy with preparing the draft reports and may not post too many more of these articles before the season begins. After the season begins most of the writing I do goes into the FastBreak emailer which is sent to subscribers. You could order this as well at the order page. Main Archive Next Article Copyright © Hoops Klyce 2000 - All Rights Reserved Website Designed by Lelnet Failed to execute script '../cgi-local/ax.cgi': Win32 Error Code = 2