One of the things to which all Fantasy NBA team owners comes to a realization at some point in their lifetime is that no matter how bad a team is, someone has to score the points.
I had a strategy several years back that I was only going to pick players in the draft whose teams were in the bottom half of the league for wins. My premise was that the one or two good players on those teams score almost all of the points and the rest of the players, who are really more of role-players anyway, defend and collect rebounds but don’t take the shots. I didn’t stick to my guns all the way, but I did pick the majority from those teams and I did very well in points. (I did horrible in FG%, assists, and other categories, and learned that I needed to balance my team a little better.)
That’s not to say that anybody should really adopt that strategy, but if you are currently lacking in points, there is an important lesson to be learned, and it is this…
Every NBA team scores a minimum of 90 points per game on average, no matter how bad they are. With the 24 second clock running each play and the porous defenses that seem to abound in the NBA these days, a team can’t help but put up and make shots. The players are the cream of the crop coming out of college and overseas, and most of them can make a shot given enough attempts. Given the way scoring goes on a bad team, usually you have one player averaging over 20 points a game, one player averaging somewhere around 17 a game, and the rest filling things out from 11 on down , which eventually add up to 90 or more points. On better teams, the scoring is usually a little more well-balanced because there are more good players who want their points.
Now that the draft is already over, we can see who those players are on all of the teams, so it’s a little late for picking up a draft day sleeper, but there are still some guys with potential over the season. Injuries tend to hit every team throughout the season, so watch for one of the top players go down with a serious injury (one that takes months to heal). It’s a bid morbid, but when an injury bites, you need to figure out quickly who will pick up the scoring slack and pick them up before someone else does.
Ray Allen is out. Will his replacement pick up the extra scoring slack, or will the points be picked up by one or two of his fellow starters (e.g. Luke Ridnour and Rashard Lewis)? Ray Allen has been out before, and if you remember, Flip Murray came in and scored 20 points per game until his lack of defense finally got him benched.
Kobe Bryant started the season injured. Someone had to score. Lamar Odom came out on fire.
Allen Iverson and Chris Webber have been bothered by injuries of late. Who is picking up the slack in their absense?
If another high scorer on a bad team goes down with an injury, will you be ready?
After all, someone has to score the points.
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