Use It or Lose It
We didn’t have a great weekend in the NBA world, especially at the guard spots. Kobe Bryant is out for the season with a torn rotator cuff, Brandon Jennings isn’t a lock to start next season with a torn Achilles, and Kemba Walker is expected to miss the 6-8 weeks from surgery on his torn lateral meniscus. The Hornets haven’t said 6-8 weeks yet, but that’s the usual prognosis for a lateral tear — a medial tear is 4-6 weeks. The loss of those three guys will be our focus for the column today.
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Kobe Bryant is second in the NBA in usage rate while his 30.0 assist percentage is the second-highest of his career and third among shooting guards this season (James Harden and Dwyane Wade). He is also second among shooting guards in touch time per game. Translation: That’s a big hole to fill.
So what happens now? Well, this is a tougher question to answer because of coach Byron Scott using two completely different rotations in his last two games without Kobe Bryant. Plus, those two rotations are not like the ones on the nights Kobe rested. Still, let’s take a look at the lineups used in those last two games. It’s important to remember Nick Young was benched after just eight minutes on Sunday, and Jeremy Lin was a DNP-CD on Friday:
OK, so where do we start? As mentioned, this doesn’t hold a lot of weight. In fact, coach Scott used only two lineups in both games for 34 of the 96 minutes. That is extremely unusual. It’s almost too unusual to even track which combos worked for Scott. On the whole, the Lakers actually run at a slower pace without Kobe (barely), but they have a higher offensive rating without him. Let's go over the remaining perimeter options one by one:
Jordan Clarkson - He’s probably the biggest beneficiary from a percentage standpoint. Clarkson was basically a start-up company and now he finally has some investors. Back in summer league, coach Mark Madsen raved about him and said how he’s capable of hitting his teammates. Clarkson also has really been great at getting free from his defender because he’s quick like a cat (his friends do not call him Whiskers, but maybe they should because he was a Missouri Tiger?). He hasn’t been too efficient, but let’s break down how he’s been scoring. Here’s his shot chart in January:
The shot selection is right where you want it to be and 68.8 percent at the rim is superstar stuff from a guard. The MIZZOU product is at just 41.3 percent from the field in that span, but he’s shooting a very respectable 48.7 percent on his two-pointers. Clarkson was actually at 45.5 percent from deep before January and he was a 42.1 percent shooter in Las Vegas, but he is not a 3-point shooter based on his 32.2 percent from deep in college. Still, he has a decent chance to be close to a 50-54 effective field goal percentage (eFG%) guy.
OK, so we looked at where he scores. Let’s look at how it’s done this season (this is a lot of data, I know):
The first thing that jumps out to me is his performance on two-plus dribble shots. Those account for 69.4 percent of his shot total, but his efficiency is down at just 35.7 percent from the field. It’s worth mentioning he’s on the upswing there with more makes. Plus, all those multiple-dribble shots suggest he’ll have a high usage rate, which stands at an encouraging 21.7 in 2015.
OK, so we all know the Lakers want to lose games and they’re going to give the young guns minutes. Clarkson won’t be putting up huge lines for probably a month or so, but he’s someone owners in deep leagues should stash. For Daily Fantasy Sports (DFS), Clarkson should have fantasy points in the 18-30 range. If the matchup is right, he’ll be a very nice GPP guy. I plan on using him tonight against the Wizards.
Jeremy Lin - This is a big mystery here with his DNP-CD on Friday. Despite making only 2-of-9 from the field on Sunday, Lin attacked the basket for 14 attempts at the line. Coach Scott has been saying he is going to take a play-it-by-ear approach on who is going to back up Clarkson. Scott also said he doesn’t want to go with more than a 10-man rotation, so that is not good news for Lin either. The Lakers did use two-PG lineups for 11 minutes on Sunday, so that'll help his chances for minutes.
If you play fantasy football, you know all about RBBC (running back by committee). The Lakers are basically going to be a PG2BC behind Clarkson, so that’s especially scary for his consistency. Unless the Lakers bump their two-PG lineups to closer to 15 — a possibility because Clarkson can definitely play SG — Lin is going to be tough to own. Until we hear Scott says something before a game to tip his hand, it’s going to be tough to use Lin in DFS.
Ronnie Price - He only played seven minutes on Sunday. Maybe it was because the Lakers didn’t need a defense-first point guard with Patrick Beverley running the point for the Rockets (Beverley is having a nice offensive season, but he doesn’t break down defenses). Although, it’s somewhat interesting to see that Price has been worse on defense compared to Lin based on the SportsVu data:
The less than 10 feet stuff is bad and Price is allowing easy buckets within six feet — even though it’s not a high volume. Personally, I think the stats are lying a bit here because the Lakers bigs are getting killed on pick-and-roll, so it’s not all Price’s fault. That said, he should be better than this if Scott is going to use him basically as a defense-only point guard.
Price hasn’t scored more than five points in any game in the past two weeks and he only has a usage rate of 11.2 in that span (four games). His minutes will probably be in the teens, which means he’s nowhere near being on the fantasy radar.
Nick Young - Ah, Swaggy P. First and foremost, he's not expected to play Tuesday. He leads the NBA in shoe houses and shoekeepers, but he would be dead last in two-point percentage if he qualified. It’s not even close either because Young is just at 35.8 percent on twos and Kobe Bryant is last among qualifiers at 40.1 percent.
Coach Byron Scott said that Young “didn’t want to be here” on Sunday, which sounds about right based on how disinterested he was on defense. This video sums it up pretty well.
The Lakers are going to have to play Young for the entertainment factor, so Scott benching him was more of a heads-up. I think it’s basically Scott saying Young needs to cool it with the contested/bad shots. He’s going to take at least six per game, but Scott wants to keep it under 10. As much as the Lakers are tanking, Scott doesn’t want to ruin his rep.
As for his standard-league fantasy value, he’s been outside of the top 150 in the past month on per-game value. That’s obviously due to his making only 33.3 percent from the field, and I think it’s clear he won’t be cracking 40 percent from the field on the season. Swaggy is not going to be a reliable guy in DFS at this point with only putting up stats in points and treys.
Wayne Ellington - He’s basically the gunner in the starting unit now. In his past two games, Ellington had a 21.1 usage rate and changed his style up with nine two-point attempts in each game (season high). If you look at his stats off the dribble, it’s like night and day (last two games on top, before that is below):
The last two games are completely different in his career too. In fact, 65.9 percent of his shots were without a dribble last season. It’s tough to tell if this create-his-own-shot thing is going to continue, but he’s probably going to with the lack of play makers.
So, if he’s going to keep his usage rate around 20 and play in the mid-20s for minutes, he should flirt with top 125-150 value. If the matchup is right, he’s certainly a guy who can put up 20-30 points in DFS. I don’t think it will happen tonight against the Wizards because they have been shutting down a ton of SGs this season.
Wes Johnson - It’s not clear where he is going to fit in right now, but Johnson might be the safest bet for 30 minutes on the entire team. He’s been very good at adding stats and it usually translates to fantasy value. In fact, Johnson and Paul Millsap were the only players to register 1.0 in blocks, steals and treys last season.
Compared to last season, his usage and efficiency are both down. He is probably going to see his usage see a noticeable increase, which could get him to 11-12 points per game. Johnson should be a low-end guy in standard leagues, but he just doesn’t score enough to be an option in DFS right now. We’ll see how he does with Nick Young out.
Ryan Kelly - A couple hamstring strains derailed the start of his season. Kelly was on the chopping block, but he seems to be safe and should get minutes in the low 20s. Amazingly, the second-year forward is actually worse on his two-pointers than Nick Young. Swaggy P has him in shoe houses, though.
He didn’t score more than 10.1 points per game in any month last season and doesn’t do much outside of that either. We can ignore him in just about all leagues unless the Lakers lose another guy to injury. Sadly, that seems likely.
OK, that’s enough Lakers talk and hopefully Byron Scott doesn't do something else out of the ordinary tonight. How about some Pistons?
D.J. Augustin - He exploded on the scene on Sunday with 35 points, four rebounds, eight assists and five 3-pointers on 12-of-20 from the field and 6-of-6 from the line against the Raptors. Advanced stats wise, that’s good for a 77.3 true shooting percentage and 27.3 usage rate.
On the season, DJA has a very solid 21.9 usage rate and he did have a 20.3 usage rate in 35.5 minutes per game in the three games without Brandon Jennings earlier this season. So even if we call the 35-point explosion an outlier because the Raptors have suddenly forgot how to defend point guards, he averaged 13.3 points, 6.3 dimes, 0.3 steals and 1.3 triples on 37.5 percent from the field in his three previous starts. Besides the percentage, fantasy owners will take that every day. Maybe the inefficiency was due to Josh Smith, too (reaching, I know).
Another interesting aspect of DJA has been his passing. Here’s a look at who he’s been passing to this season:
This isn’t the most telling stat because the vast majority of DJA’s run came with the second unit. That said, in his four starts, only nine percent of his passes went to Andre Drummond and only 29-of-104 passes resulted in a dime. Augustin also likes to hit 3-point shooters because he can beat his man in ISO until the defense collapses on him. Again, the Josh Smith effect is a factor, but here’s a look at Jennings’ passes since the J-Smoove waive:
Jennings doesn’t pass much to Drummond, but he makes it count when he does. That's not quite the same for Greg Monroe, but about 40 percent of his passes leading to shots is a good thing. He also rarely kicks out to shooters because taking contested jumpers is his favorite thing to do.
In their last game, it’s interesting to see DJ had most of his passes go to Kentavious Caldwell-Pope at a whopping 27.8 percent. Jodie Meeks was No. 2 at 19.4, which makes sense because DJA isn’t a great pick-and-roll point guard because he’s so small. I wouldn’t say this is going to continue, but it’ll be something to watch. The Pistons run their offense at around three possessions less per game while Augustin is on the court, but we can’t draw conclusions from that either.
OK, so bottom line time. The Pistons overpaid on Augustin in the offseason because he provided a nice scoring punch with the Bulls last season. DJA is going to be a fantasy stud in points leagues and DFS, but his FG% will probably make him a 75-100 guy in standard. KCP and Meeks could see a slight uptick with more on-the-ball responsibilities in the offense. I wouldn’t tweak Drummond or Monroe’s projections much at this juncture.
Brian Roberts - Last season, Roberts was a big letdown in New Orleans following the Jrue Holiday injury. That was a much different scenario, though. Tyreke Evans ran the offense and it basically made Roberts a shooting guard. Plus, coach Steve Clifford is better at getting his point guard clean looks compared to coach Monty Williams. After all, Kemba’s shot selection has improved quite a bit since Clifford joined him.
Roberts has seen his usage rate climb to 18.5 in his last five games, which is right where he needs to be. His steals aren’t there yet, but the dimes and treys are just fine. Expect him to be around his averages in his three starts, scoring 13.0 points, 4.0 boards and 1.0 treys. He’ll need to shoot the ball better from the field, though. If you need a point guard and DJA is gone, grab him.
Lance Stephenson - This season, he played off the ball quite a bit before because Kemba is a ball-dominant guy. That wasn’t the case last year with George Hill doing a lot more spot-up shooting. Stephenson should run more pick-and-roll sets, so that should help his assists and allow him to shoot the ball closer to the basket. Here’s a look at his shot chart this season:
Yeah, that’s not good. Last season, he had 42.3 percent of his shots come at the rim and he converted 67.4 percent of them, too. There’s really nowhere to go but up with Lance and we should see his usage rate increase. He was at 21.2 on Saturday with a very impressive 40.0 assist percentage. The efficiency will hurt, but he could turn it around. If we drafted today, I still wouldn’t take him in the top 100 because of his groin issue, which was a problem on Saturday.
You can find all of this data on NBA.com/stats. Thanks for reading and good luck!
