Every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, we pose a question to a panel of ESPN fantasy basketball experts to gauge their thoughts on a hot topic.
Today's contributors are ESPN Fantasy's Jim McCormick, Kyle Soppe and Joe Kaiser.
The Denver Nuggets lost Paul Millsap due to left wrist surgery that may cost him three months. Which players will see their values rise the most in his absence?
Joe Kaiser: Looking closer at the usage numbers with the help of nbawowy.com, the two players who are most impacted when Millsap is off the court this season are Nikola Jokic and Emmanuel Mudiay. Jokic's usage jumps from 20.8 with Millsap to 24.3 without him, while Mudiay's goes from 22.5 to 24.5.
Those two players will certainly see more scoring opportunities while the veteran power forward is out, and I expect Jamal Murray and Will Barton -- the team's two other high-usage players -- to also carry a bigger load.
One player whose usage hasn't waivered with or without Millsap this season is Gary Harris, and that tells me his role will probably remain similar as Denver's third or fourth scoring option the majority of the time he's on the court.
Kyle Soppe: The loss of Millsap is a massive one for the Nuggets, and the ripple effect figures to impact the fantasy world in a big way. I think there are a handful of players who will see a minor uptick in their fantasy value in the coming months, but Wilson Chandler (expected back Wednesday after missing a game with a back injury) is the player I'm most bullish on.
He was already getting plenty of run (30.9 minutes per game this season), but his usage currently ranks him 43rd among small forwards, a rate that has plenty of room for growth. Even with the low usage, his rebound-plus-assist average is right in line with his career norm, and we've seen him find his scoring touch a bit (shooting 54.1 percent from the field and averaging 14.8 points over his past four games).
Chandler's ability to stretch the floor is going to be even more important now that the Nuggets can't punish you on the interior they way they have all season (third most points in the paint per game), making him a savvy add in the 52 percent of leagues in which he is available and a nice trade target in leagues where he is already rostered.
Jim McCormick: An injury of this magnitude influences an entire rotation, as we've seen Murray, Harris, Jokic and Barton surge in usage rate when Millsap is off the floor. This quartet's fantasy stock doesn't shift much, but it's safe to say they'll need to do more to approximate the spacing and scoring void left by this injury.
Kenneth Faried will likely start and had the second-best rebounding percentage of his career last season (19.7 percent), but that's about it -- he's a one-trick pony and should still be limited to around 20 minutes per game, relegating him to deep-league appeal only.
Juan Hernangomez, Mason Plumlee and Trey Lyles will also see a jump in minutes and touches, but I feel like the overlap in skill could serve to curb the enthusiasm for any one of these stretch bigs. The key statistical beneficiary, then, is Chandler. He's played small forward almost exclusively this season but is best served as the small-ball power forward; with the ability to get to the rim on the drive and leverage mismatches against wings and power forwards who guard him.
Chandler had a rewarding usage rate of 22 percent last season and is down to a lowly 14 percent this season despite playing the same minutes. I believe he can approach a 20 percent usage rate and enjoy surges in scoring and rebounding going forward.