Positional Fallers: Centers
Three obvious candidates stand out in a group of centers with changing value, and I’ll bet most can guess the first name that leads our list before reading another word.
Here are a few hints: He’s not guaranteed a role next season, but he is guaranteed more than $35 million over the next three seasons. He can’t block shots, is not a feared defender and has trouble moving with more active bigs at the position. Still stumped? It’s Nikola Pekovic, who is unlikely to be mistaken for anyone on this planet except for Jusuf Nurkic’s father.
Joining him are a couple of guys on this list for very different reasons, and in a league where teams are getting both their peripheral statistics and increased rebounding production from positions outside of center, perhaps some fantasy owners should wipe the slate clean and start retooling their outdated draft board.
ADPs can be found here. Here are links to all of the positional fallers:
PG | SG | SF | PF | C
Nikola Pekovic, C Minnesota Timberwolves
2014 ADP: 76.6 overall, Round 7.16
Key Stats: 12.5 points, 7.5 rebounds, 1.4 TO, 0.6 steals, 0.4 blocks, 42.4% shooting, 83.7 FT% shooting
Nikola Pekovic has never seen 82 games in his NBA career. Nikola Pekovic has seen his total games decline in three straight seasons since the 2012-13 campaign. Nikola Pekovic has admitted to having chronic ankle issues, and now the same Nikola Pekovic is coming off an Achilles debridement procedure - done in April - without a timetable to return to the basketball court.
Big Pek has done far more than watch his stock fall in fantasy circles. He’s quickly become a very real candidate for the worst contract in the NBA - a temporary title with the league’s salary cap set to explode over the next two seasons.
Pek’s minutes (and numbers) took a sharp turn in the wrong direction last season. He couldn’t even through make it half of a campaign’s worth of games, looked extremely limited in each outing and was not the bruising interior force that earned him a prominent role in the league. Instead, Pekovic was an inefficient big man incapable of running, stretching the floor or defending the rim at an above-average level. That’s not good in fantasy or reality.
Drafting Karl-Anthony Towns with the No. 1 overall pick was the right move for a lot of reasons - none of which are related to Pekovic’s future in Minnesota. His role is as murky as his health, and the former may not necessarily depend on the latter anymore.
David Lee, PF/C Golden State Warriors
2014 ADP: 53.77 overall, Round 5.16
Key Stats: 7.9 points, 5.2 rebounds, 1.0 TO, 0.6 steals, 0.5 blocks, 51.1% shooting, 65.4% FT shooting
David Lee’s role reduction wasn’t so much about a decline in skill so much as it was about wrong place, wrong time from Lee’s own perspective, and as his own personal role continued to shrink, his Golden State Warriors team around him took off to new heights.
With Draymond Green substituted in for Lee alongside Andrew Bogut, the Warriors’ small-ball (but not smallest ball) lineup led Golden State to a 67-win regular season campaign. Lee, who was healthy for most of it, was a spectator on most nights from his warmups in the bench. Now, after the Dubs successfully completed Steve Kerr’s rookie year at the helm with an NBA title, the expectation is that the club will attempt to move Lee this offseason. That could actually make him undervalued in fantasy drafts next season depending on his ultimate landing spot, and it’s almost certain that he’ll be taking his game to a more appealing situation. If nothing else, the veteran should be motivated to perform in what will be a contract season.
Lee isn’t going to put up the numbers he once did while serving as a staple on some entertaining New York Knicks teams, but he could wind up being a value pick if he finds himself back in a starting role. If not, then there’s no reason to take a chance on rehabilitating Lee’s stock.
Anderson Varejao, PF/C Cleveland Cavaliers
2014 ADP: 117.99 Overall, Round 10.64
Key Stats: 9.8 points, 6.5 rebounds, 1.3 TO, 0.7 steals, 0.6 blocks, 55.5% shooting, 73.3% FT shooting
Where are Anderson Varejao’s minutes going to come from next season?
LeBron James’ best position is power forward. Additionally, the Cavs are expected to bring back both Kevin Love and Tristan Thompson in free agency at big-money prices. Do you think it makes sense for Cleveland to invest significant money into its frontline and have sit on the bench? I don’t.
GM James - as in LeBron - has made it clear that Thompson will get a new deal worth at least $13 million per season. Love isn’t signing for a dollar less than a max contract no matter what the length of the deal winds up being. And we haven’t even talked about Timofey Mozgov, arguably Cleveland’s most important in-season acquisition, who will start at center on opening night for the 2015-16 season.
Varejao’s health is a constant question mark as he seemingly deals with an injury of some kind on a very consistent basis, and for the third time in the last four seasons, Varejao was limited to fewer than 30 games. It would have been four of his last five, but Varejao just avoided that designation by showing up for 31 games in the 2010-11 season.
As things stand now, selecting Varejao at any point - in any format - would be wasting a valuable asset in the form of your draft pick.
