Last week, I marked All-Star weekend with the unveiling of a new fantasy stat: Generated Fantasy Value.
GFV is based on a weighting style similar to the NFL's Draft Value Chart, assigning a value to draft position that tips the scales toward early-round picks.
GFV folds in generated Player Rater production into a player's properly weighted average draft position. Basically, it is Player Rater ranking crossed with average draft position. We're left with a point system that spits out a total that gives us an idea as to how a player is overperforming or underperforming versus his (again, properly weighted) ADP.
For All-Star weekend, I focused on the positives, compiling an All-Star team made up of the highest GFV scores by position. Your GFV All-Star starters: Lou Williams, Victor Oladipo, LeBron James, Taj Gibson and Enes Kanter.
The nice aspect of this stat is that it conflates and rewards big first-round picks along with endgame grabs. GFV is all about pure fantasy production relative to where the player was drafted.
On an imaginary All-Star team bound by this imaginary metric, LeBron stood tall and proud alongside Gibson. Name value doesn't matter.
Last week was easy. Success stories are fun to document. But what about the misses? The duds versus their average draft position?
What fuels a fantasy failure?
Unless you're talking about a player who comes off the waiver wire, a player's fantasy season is filtered via the prism of ADP. And what overinflates a player's ADP? What causes a player to go way too high on draft night?
Three factors:
1) Fantasy expert overhype
2) Prizing volume over efficiency
3) Over-reliance on name value
Item No. 1 is on us, the Fantasyland cognoscenti. Just as we should be lauded for pushing forward otherwise unheralded players, fantasy experts need to be accountable when it comes to the misses. And every preseason, we're guilty of a few where group think supplants more rational valuation.
As soon as a player is tabbed as a "hot sleeper," he immediately begins to shed the moniker. The attention paid begins to attract attention from other writers. Soon, the sleeper becomes the slightly overhyped.
The result: overdrafting. And in the opening rounds, even overdrafting by a few slots can spell the difference between fantasy success and failure. The higher up in a draft, the more weight shifts toward every individual draft slot.
Item No. 2 -- the prizing of volume over efficiency -- speaks to the ingrained bias of the basketball fan. On its surface, basketball is a points-driven enterprise. We're programmed to prize scoring at all costs. Only with time do we realize that points scored is, at its most altruistic, a byproduct of other, more efficiency driven statistics.
If a player is generating points per game at a clip that outperforms his other numbers, the player becomes what I call an "empty points player." A player whose relatively high-scoring output is an outlier versus his more pedestrian statistics. These players also get overdrafted at a high clip.
Item No. 3 -- the over-reliance on name value -- is produced by being susceptible to the glories of past seasons. As a player builds a career, he builds a brand within fantasy. He becomes a trusted producer.
But inevitably, said player ages and his production begins to fall off. Or a player leaves his old team for a new, less fantasy-friendly situation.
Either way, the result is the same: fantasy enthusiasts get fooled by the name, without paying attention to the name's age or system. These big names also get over-drafted.
With these three factors in mind, let's take a look at our GFV All-Disappointment Team.
Point guard
Starter: Russell Westbrook, Oklahoma City Thunder (-316 GFVs)
Dennis Smith Jr., Dallas Mavericks (-170 GFVs)
Goran Dragic, Miami Heat (-169 GFVs)
At this position, we see all three factors of over-inflation at work.
Westbrook is a trusted name but had to deal with a new playing situation with two big new pieces (Paul George/Carmelo Anthony). And as is the case with high-volume/low-efficiency players like Westbrook, when volume is disrupted, efficiency suffers.
The floorboards dropped out beneath Westbrook's already shaky free throw and field goal percentage. As Westbrook's triple-doubles came harder, the turnovers were magnified.
Westbrook has rounded back into form during the past month. But as it stands, Westbrook is second-round production on an early-first-round price tag. Weighting the importance of high draft picks, it means Westbrook is perhaps fantasy's most disappointing player of the 2017-18 campaign.
The Fantasyland brain trust fell victim to rookie hype and fell in love a little too hard with Smith. He's in a fantasy-friendly situation: a competition-bereft position battle for a tanking team. However, he has been plagued by two common rookie maladies: a lack of consistency and a suspect outside shot (32 3FG%, 39 FG%).
Shooting guard
Starter: Andrew Wiggins, Minnesota Timberwolves (-309 GFVs)
Dwyane Wade, Miami Heat (-204 GFVs)
CJ McCollum, Portland Trail Blazers (-68 GFVs)
Wiggins' fantasy appeal hit a crater with the arrival of Jimmy Butler. Take away a few shots (down 3.4 per game from 2016-17), watch the PPG dip way beneath 20 (17.5, Wiggins' lowest average since his rookie season) ... and suddenly, Wiggins looks very pedestrian.
Wiggins is still relatively young, but he hasn't developed any supporting stats of real note. He's an empty-point, high-volume underachiever whose fantasy appeal has been overrated due to his No. 1 overall status and high PPG average.
Wade has had the archetypal season for veteran big name coming up short in a new situation. He's back in an old/new situation in Miami, where his numbers should see a slight uptick ... but his fantasy upside remains deep-league at best.
Small forward
Starter: Carmelo Anthony, Oklahoma City Thunder (-263 GFVs)
Jae Crowder, Utah Jazz (-235 GFVs)
Giannis Antetokounmpo, Milwaukee Bucks (-217 GFVs)
At this stage, Anthony has been reduced to a points-plus-3s fantasy player. For the season, Anthony has really presented only a slightly more efficient version of Wiggins ... which isn't saying much. His usage rate and PER are both on track to hit new career lows.
Crowder posted three nice games before the break, which portends well for his new role on the Jazz. One key stat to watch: Crowder's 3-point percentage. He hit only 33 percent from distance in Cleveland, seven points down from last season's career high. He's at 37.5 percent through three games in Utah.
At sixth overall on the Player Rater, Antetokoumpo looks like he's having one of the better seasons in fantasy. But when measured up against a 1.9 ADP, the Greek Freak's campaign has registered as underwhelming. He has one of the lowest GFV scores in fantasy, underscoring the importance of even four errant draft slots ... when those slots hit in the first round.
Power forward
Starter: Myles Turner, Indiana Pacers (-299 GFVs)
Hassan Whiteside, Miami Heat (-187 GFVs)
Brandon Ingram, Los Angeles Lakers (-79 GFVs)
Despite all the hype, I've reserved enthusiasm when it comes to Turner. My reason: comparatively low rebounding totals. I look to rebounding as a hustle stat that points toward a player's level of overall motor. The blocks and occasional 3 are nice, but Turner's 6.6 rebounds per game is borderline anemic for a PF/C.
To be fair to Whiteside, I computed his GFV based off of his Player Rater average to take some of the divot out of his injury-dinged season.
Ingram barely charted as a disappointment at a relatively strong position ... he wouldn't have made the team as a small forward.
Center
Starter: Brook Lopez, Los Angeles Lakers (-340 GFVs)
Jusuf Nurkic, Portland Trail Blazers (-213 GFVs)
DeAndre Jordan, LA Clippers (-104 GFVs)
There are a lot of Lakers on this team. Counting reserves, the Lakers landed four players amongst the ranks of the most disappointing. All of the negative GFV is a blend of Lakers exceptionalism and lack of consistent improvement from the Lakers' young core.
Jordan always goes a couple of rounds too high. The reason? As long as the blocks and boards are there, fantasy managers are predisposed to overlook poor free throw percentages in their bigs. And even though Jordan is having a career campaign from the charity stripe, he's still shooting only 59 percent.
The uptick in free throw percentage and rebounds has failed to mask an alarming drop in blocks: Jordan's 1.0 blocks per game is nearly a block below last season's average. Obviously, Jordan should improve with Blake Griffin gone, but he really needs to be above 1.5 blocks per game to have any hope at returning his ADP.
Reserves
Lonzo Ball, Los Angeles Lakers (-101 GFVs)
Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Los Angeles Lakers (-67 GFVs)
Harrison Barnes, Dallas Mavericks (-76 GFVs)
Markieff Morris, Washington Wizards (-71 GFVs)
Marcin Gortat, Washington Wizards (-85 GFVs)