Five stars to pass on in drafts
There are many reasons we avoid certain players in fantasy basketball. It can be as simple as not liking the team they play for, to trust issues, to their field goal percentage. While I’m guilty of all of the above, the main reason I avoid players is that I just don’t trust them.
Being injury prone, or having a diverse injury history, usually doesn’t sit well with me and if you play in head-to-head leagues, it’s hard to win if your guys are missing games — especially the guys you took with early draft picks.
Keeping that in mind, here are five big-name guys I’m probably not drafting this season, starting with one of the most notorious game-missers in the past 20 years.
Joel Embiid, C, Philadelphia 76ers
Watching Embiid lumber up and down the court for Team USA in the Olympics, with the exception of the one game where he played well, was painful. His injury history is extensive and diverse, Paul George is now in Philadelphia and is going to need the ball in his hands a lot, and Tyrese Maxey still has another level he can climb.
The Sixers need a healthy Embiid to get through the playoffs and we can probably add “load management” as another concern for the upcoming season. With Maxey at the helm, the Sixers need to get out and run and I don’t think Embiid is going to be capable of keeping up. Yes, I’m fully aware that he puts up obnoxious fantasy numbers when he’s on the court, but I simply can’t trust him.
Despite the built-in risk, he’s going to be taken in the first or second round of every draft in the land. There are just too many red flags flying over Embiid’s head for me to put him on a fantasy team this season.
Jimmy Butler, SG/SF/PF, Miami Heat
I’ve never been a Jimmy Buckets guy and the fact remains that “Playoff Jimmy” isn’t going to help your fantasy team after your season has ended. The Heat didn’t exactly love “Playoff Jimmy” last season as they were bounced by the Celtics 4-1. Pat Riley isn’t thrilled, Erik Spoelstra probably isn’t either and we’ve been able to expect this guy to miss about one game every 10 days.
He hasn’t played in at least 70 games since 2016-17 and the risk that comes with drafting him seems way more dicey than possibly getting 55 games of 20 points, five rebounds, five assists and less than a 3-pointer per game. I don’t get it and I don’t want him on any of my teams.
I think some folks are going to draft Butler thinking he might be out to prove that he can make it through an entire season this year, but the history just doesn’t support it. And, honestly, the stat line just isn’t that impressive. And if Jaime Jaquez Jr., Nikola Jovic and Tyler Herro step up their games this season, Butler could be wildly disappointing.
Kawhi Leonard, SF/PF, LA Clippers
Things were going so well for Leonard and his managers last season. He wasn’t missing games, was playing at an incredibly high level and was carrying teams to the fantasy playoffs by the handfuls. But then just as the fantasy playoffs were about to ramp up, Leonard went down with a right knee injury that we didn’t have much information about and fantasy dreams were shattered.
Then he was removed from Team USA, despite supposedly being healthy and participating, replaced with Boston’s Derrick White. So all of the promise that last season held for us was thrown out the window, we still don’t know if he’s really healthy or not, and he’s now played 68, 52, 0, 52, 57, 60 and 9 games in each of his past seven campaigns.
Sure, losing Paul George as a teammate might help Leonard get to a whole new level, but most of us who have been burned by him before don’t want to go along for the kind of roller coaster ride that is likely coming. Do yourself a favor and let someone else draft him.
Jayson Tatum, SF/PF, Boston Celtics
Tatum’s numbers don’t really support taking him late in Round 1, where he is taken every single year in fantasy. Much like we saw with Mikal Bridges last season, some guys just aren’t built to be the alpha dog on their NBA teams. And I don’t think that Tatum should be the alpha on your fantasy team, either.
He makes much more sense to me as a third-round pick, based on the numbers. Don’t get me wrong; Tatum is a great player, but his projected numbers of 27.5 points, 8.2 rebounds, 4.8 assists, 1.0 steals, 0.6 blocks and 3.1 3-pointers just doesn’t cut it when we’re talking about a potential first-round pick.
Domantas Sabonis, PF/C, Sacramento Kings
Sabonis is a walking triple-double threat every time he steps on the court. However, I like my big men — especially those I take early in my drafts — to block shots, steal the ball and maybe even hit some 3-pointers. While Sabonis checks the boxes in points, rebounds and assists, he only shot 70.4% from the line last season and added a paltry helping of steals (0.9), blocks (0.6) and 3-pointers (0.4) to his stat line.
In my opinion, your early-round picks need to rack up steals, blocks and 3-pointers, and when you add in the hazy free throw shooting, I just can’t do it anymore. And then when you add in the arrival of DeMar DeRozan to the Kings, things start to get really dicey.
If you’re cool with drafting a big man early that isn’t going to at least get you blocks, let alone steals and triples, go for it. But it’s very tough to win a fantasy league if Sabonis is one of your top picks. And drafting Tatum in Round 1 and following him up with Sabonis in Round 2 is a recipe for a true fantasy disaster.
