By Dan O’Shea
Okay, definitely nothing else left to say that impacts the fantasy football outlook for next season – only my prediction that Mewelde Moore and Steve Breaston score more touchdowns than either Willie Parker or Larry Fitzgerald. Enjoy the Super Bowl and the off-season.
Now let’s join the fantasy basketball season in-progress and ponder Jason Kidd; then we’ll take a stab at an early first-round draft prediction for the upcoming fantasy baseball season.
Kidd Skid
Jason Kidd is having a strange season. He has traditionally been a hugely valuable fantasy player because of his ability to land triple-doubles or almost-triple-doubles with great frequency. This year, he is averaging less than 10 points per game and only has couple of triple-double performances.
The key to his value this year comes from two things: Despite his allergy to double-digits, he still has delivered 55 more rebounds than any other point guard and still is fourth in the league in assists per game. The other key lies outside the main stat categories. Kidd is stealing the ball, making three-pointers and blocking shots at a modestly higher rate than he has in the last few years. He also is committing slightly fewer turnovers. It’d hardly measurable, but the result is overall great balance.
Here’s some other fantasy gossip: Gilbert Arenas, originally slated to be back around the end of next month, may not be back at all. It’s a good thing we skipped him in the draft, but what does this mean for next year from a guy we would have listed as a top 5 player just a couple years ago? Right now, I’d put him as a late second-round pick for next year, though maybe not ahead of Kidd.
* Yahoo!’s Big Board has Kidd at No. 11, but check out Kevin Durant at No. 23 and Kevin Martin at No. 35. Durant is starting to look like a veteran scorer; Martin started the season in injury limbo, but is fulfilling much of the hype the followed him before he got hurt. If you need to trade for points, target one of these guys.
* Yahoo!’s Fantasy Basketball SOS notes that it is about time for hot rookies to start cooling off, and wouldn’t you know it, that has happened to some degree already with D.J. Augustin, Derrick Rose and O.J. Mayo. Kevin Love, however, has been carving himself a nice workmanlike niche, and only seems to be getting stronger, as long as you don’t need anything else to go with his points and rebounds.
* RotoEvil dishes out awards for inconsistency, with one of the categories being players who came into the season with expectation for high blocks averages but have not delivered. Josh Smith is one of them, averaging only 1.4 blocks per game after getting almost three per game the last two seasons.
Baseball Beckons
We’ll do a proper round-up in a few weeks as spring training starts, but here’s a quick, off-hand attempt at a first round:
* Hanley Ramirez, SS
* Alex Rodriguez, 3B
* Albert Pujols, 1B
* David Wright, 3B
* Jose Reyes, SS
* Ryan Braun, OF
* Miguel Cabrera, 1B/3B
* Grady Sizemore, OF
* Josh Hamilton, OF
* Ian Kinsler, 2B
I know, not really any surprises there. I think A-Rod may have a huge year, despite his old manager picking on him in print.
I’m worried about Pujols, Reyes and Hamilton living up to their draft position. I listed Braun higher than I think most mock drafts would have him, but I like him as the sleeper of this group, capable of near-triple crown numbers and at least 20 stolen bases.
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Dan O’Shea’s Fantasy Fix appears every Wednesday. Tips, comments, and suggestions are welcome.
Posted on January 29, 2009