Dwight Howard
While D-How has shown flashes of brilliance in his career so far, he has failed to produce consistently on high level. He’s been hyped as the next coming of Shaq so the bar was maybe set too high, but many people don’t realize he’s still only 21. His ceiling is sky high and at this time, at least, everything points to him having stellar career. But when it comes to fantasy basketball, he is one of, if not, the most overrated player out there. His average draft position last season in yahoo leagues was 25.6 which ranked him 24th overall. I play in some very competitive leagues, but even there he went as high as 2nd round. Why do I believe he is so overrated? Well let’s take a look at his stats(averages):

-1.9 blocks ranks him tied for 12th (along with Dalambert)
-60.3 fg% is a great percentage but it doesn't help as much as it could with just 10.7 field goal attempts (FGA); he ranks 3rd amongst players who are relevant to fantasy basketball on percentage alone
-17.6 pts ranks him 43rd
-no three pointers
-0.9 steals, solid for a big man but not great, not in the top 100 in the league
-1.9 ast which is mediocre at best, for a big guy
-12.3 rebounds ranks him 3rd in the NBA

And then there are 2 major weaknesses:
-58.6 free throw (FT)% on 8.1 attempts (FTA), 383rd best in the NBA
-3.9 turnovers which is 3rd worst in the NBA

If you look a little deeper and consider strategy of building a team around him there is more bad news. His rebounds are superb, but that’s about it. For his fg% to make more of a difference he needs to score more. His blocks aren't top ten and points are barely top 50. As for 3ptm and assists he is not really a factor. So far we have 1 dominant category, 1 great, 2 good ones, 1 solid and 2 non factors. If your league plays offensive & defensive rebounds, he gains some value but not too much. And then you get 2 killers (of Shaq-like proportions) in FT% and turnovers. In roto leagues Dwight hurts you as much as he helps you (same as Shaq did, and continues to do when healthy) and unless you can work wonders with compensating for his deficiencies you are probably better off without him. He looks better in h2h leagues because you can (and probably in most cases even should) tank some cats and try to excel or be very good at the rest of them, but FT% and TO with relatively weak PTS is not the best combo to tank. Spending your 2nd rounder on a guy who scores just 17.6 ppg will make it very tough to excel in pts. His lack of contributions in ast, stl and 3ptm puts you in even worse situation. Getting another relatively weak scorer, who helps in some of those cats (like Kidd, AK47, Ben Wallace, Josh Smith, Paul, Odom etc.) in top 5 rounds means tanking points (or being mediocre at best) which you can’t afford after already tanking 2 cats. Paring him with great scorer(25+ ppg), except for LeBron, isn’t ideal solution either, as most of those have great FT% which is wasted this way. I’m not saying it can’t be done but you’d have to devise a prefect scheme with very limited flexibility since there are not many players who play to his strengths and that is a problem as failing to draft(or trade for) just one key player can leave your team in ruins. And for all your trouble you get just rebounds out of him which is one of the easiest cats to be good at (there are usually solid rebound specialists on free agent lists like Evans, Foster etc. all year long).

Even if you completely disregard problems concerning building around him the fact remains that volumes of his production just don’t cut it for a 2nd rounder. On the plus side he has been injury free and as I mentioned earlier has huge upside which is probably why people keep taking him so high. But drafting high picks based on expected improvement and waiting for them to bust out is likely to end in failure. From your top picks you need consistent contribution above all else. In keeper leagues his upside plays a more important role but his value still depends on number of keepers and league settings because you need to find a balance between having high upside players vs. having players who contribute immediately, you don’t want to get stuck in everlasting rebuilding a la the Atlanta Hawks.

The arrival of Rashard Lewis might help some, since his outside shooting could keep teams from double teaming D-How and thus reduce his turnovers, but I’m not going to move him significantly on my draft-sheet on that alone. Some people go to other extreme and dismiss him completely, believing he is as good a fantasy contributor as he can get and compare him to Shaq, again. Shaq was the dominant player of his time, but never fantasy top 10 (I wasn’t actually playing fbb at the time he was at the peak of his career but those FT%, TO and injury problems must have been just as bad). Their mistake is losing sight of the fact that he is not even 22 yet.

For me, his upside is not in question and he has plenty of time to improve, but he must improve in many areas before he can be considered fantasy elite and that can not happen over night. My guess is we’re looking at, at least, 2-3 more years of work in progress with no guarantee that end product will be great fantasy player. In my draft-sheet he won’t make top 50 come next draft day, that’s for sure

Nick's note: Howard was ranked 83rd at the end of last season using Rotofreak's formula

Eddy Curry
Thought of reviewing him would never have crossed my mind had there not been for one discussion where someone mentioned that his stock might have risen so much over the year that he will be considered as a 4th rounder by some people come next draft day. The fact is that players who can score usually are a little overrated both in real NBA and in fantasy basketball, but to suggest Curry is 4th round material, well overrated would be an ultra-understatement. I just can’t allow that all the hype around his low post scoring ability fools people into wasting a high pick on a player who was (and still is) considered by many to be a fantasy killer even during his break-out campaign. Let’s start the analysis by looking at his numbers:

-19.5ppg – 29th in the league
-57.6 FG% on 7.2 FGM, 9th fantasy relevant player in the league
-no treys
-61.5 FT% on 5 FTM - 359th in the league
-7.1 reb - 45th overall
-0.8 ast – around 50th amongst center eligible players only
-3.6 to – 6th worst in the league
-0.4 stl – around 50th amongst center eligible players only
-0.5 blk – around 100th in the league

After a very promising start in pts and FG% the rest is all bad. The truth is there are not many high scoring centers so that’s a plus but 50+% shooting is expected out of all centers. Still, with 12.5 FGA he would provide solid a anchor here. While you can’t really hold lack of treys against him (except for that game winner against the Bucks, if I’m not mistaken, which gave him 100% for the season) it’s not unheard of amongst centers so it would have been nice bonus. Most centers shoot a bad FT% but few of them shoot enough free throws to seriously hurt your fantasy team. Curry is one of them with his 8.1 attempts per game. 7.1 reb would be good if he didn’t average 35 minute per game as a starting center without a real backup and without dominant rebounder on the roster. Also compared to last season he played 10 more minutes and managed to increase his rebound average by just 1.1. He is average but no more then that. Ast and stl numbers are appalling, he ranks around 50th amongst centers only in both cats. That puts him out of top 200 in the league. Assists are not something you expect to get from your center but all good and great centers give you 2 or more, so 0.8 is pathetic. It is incredible that someone who gets double-teamed so much can’t average one measly assist in 35 minute per game. And where does the ball go on all those impossible possessions? You can find out by looking at his TO numbers. 3.6 ranks him 6th worst in the league. All other players who commit 3+ tos give you much better stats across the board. But that’s not all, I saved the best for last: 0.5 blocks per game ranks him around 100th in the league, which is just ridiculous. This means that he blocks a shot once per every 70 minutes(2 games) he spends on the court. For a center, that is just embarrassing. So we have 2 good cats, 1 solid, 2 non-factors and 3 appalling cats (such severe lack of blocks from a starting center just has to hurt on value alone even if you are tanking blocks). There is one interesting curiosity: Curry ranks decisively first in Matt Buser’s "Curry Line," as the guy who has the worst turnover to ast+stl+blk ratio with 3.6 – 1.7 meaning that for every 2 turnovers he commits he records less then one positive stat (out of assists, blocks and steals).

To make things even worse, the Knicks traded for Zack Randolph giving Channing Frye in return. Frye’s impact on Curry’s stats was minimal as he struggled through his sophomore campaign which downgraded his worth to the Knicks from untouchable to expendable. Randolph on the other hand is a player who demands the ball in the low post, where Curry usually resides, and he’s a high maintenance player who won’t be happy if he doesn’t get his shots. Also he is terrific rebounder so in addition to taking pointts from Curry (the only thing Curry really gives you in the first place) he’ll be taking from those few rebounds he gets as well.

So, where does all of this put him on the draft sheet? He is clearly not good enough to be taken in early-rounds(1-4). If it does happen in one of your leagues, I suggest you leave it, if possible, because the GM who drafts Curry that high probably doesn’t know too much about fantasy basketball and as such is major liability to the integrity of the league. Mid-rounds (5-9) could be where he goes in some public leagues, though I think this is still way too soon, but all the hype surrounding his potential all-star appearance probably bought him few picks in this range (by beginners or people who don’t care much for stats). I myself would think very seriously about him after 120th pick has been made but only if he fits in with my strategy. Problem with taking Curry is that he is too good in some cats to pass on in 10th round, but at the same time he hurts you in others way too much for a late pick. You don’t usually get so many FT attempts out of 10th rounder so if you didn’t either tank or absolutely dominate FT% he could tip the scale against you. Same is the situation with TOs. On the other hand if you tank both ft% and TO and get your blocks elsewhere he becomes a 3 cat contributor with no negatives. I think he would be great complement to a team built around Dwight Howard since he can help you make up for Howard’s relative lack of scoring relatively late in the draft and allow you to fill other needs with your high picks. However this strategy can backfire because there are not too many other players who fit in well with this strategy.

To sum up, his lack of overall production combined with arrival of Randolph who will cut into his stats make him very risky choice. As such he is not worthy of a high pick and should only be taken in late rounds and then only if he fits in with your strategy.

Nick's note: Curry was ranked 259th at the end of last season using Rotofreak's formula

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Aleksander is a new column writer for RotoFreak.com. If you'd like to comment on the article, please chime in on the boards.