NBA First Half Recap: Risers, Fallers, and Frivolities at the Guard Position

Antonio Losada looks back at the first half of the season and comes up with some statistical frivolities, risers, fallers, and other fantasy basketball takeaways at guard to have in consideration before the home stretch tips off as we gear up for the postseason.

Welcome to the RotoBaller NBA Recap. Welcome, also, to the weirdest review in the history of pro basketball in the USA as the league is trying to pull off the feat of completing a "full" season in the middle of a pandemic. So far, so good, though. There have been some games missed here and there, but we're in the All-Star break with 49% of the season on the rearview mirror, and although the second half looks like it'll be a true grind, we're surely getting there.

In this three-piece series, one per each G/F/C position we're accustomed to working within fantasy leagues, I will highlight a few key fantasy basketball takeaways from what has happened in the league through the midway point of the 2020-21 season. I will highlight some feats, drop some statistical frivolities, write down some names of surprising and upsetting players, etc...

Fantasy basketball has a lot of moving pieces with all the different scoring settings that are possible to play under, so I will always do my best to spotlight where players gain or lose value in certain game types. For the sake of simplicity and consistency, every time I mention Fantasy Points in these articles I will be using DraftKings' scoring system, which goes as follows: 1*PTS, 0.5*3PM, 1.25*RBD, 1.5*AST, 2*STL, 2*BLK, -0.5*TO. On top of that, bonus points are awarded for Double-Doubles (+1.5) and Triple-Doubles (+3), only one per player at a time. Without further ado, let's get right into what happened for the past three months and change around the Association!

Risers, Fallers, and Frivolities at the Guard (G) Position

Since the day the season tipped off all the way back on December 22, I have been building a daily database that includes every fantasy-eligible player of each day slate of games along with his stat line on those matches. It's been a little over three months of games, and at this point (49%) into the season, my dataset already contains 11,304 individual entries!

Of those total stat lines, 5,212 (46% of them) belong to players tagged with the SG or PG position in the games they played. More than enough to try to find some relevant information about that massive mountain of data, Let's get to it!

Best Fantasy Performers and Performances

The first category covers some incredible games put up by different players through the first half of the NBA season. There have been a lot of games and individual outings out there, so it's impossible to go through everything here. That being said, the following lines definitely caught my eyes.

• Luka Doncic has the three best games of the season for a guard. The only other player other than Luka to have one 80-FP game was James Harden, and he didn't get there until March 1. Luka's averages in those top-three games: 39-12-14 with three stocks per game, shooting 49% from the floor on 28 FGA and hitting 82% of his freebies. The usage in those three games went up to a massive 40 percent on average.
• James Harden has three of the next four-best games to his name, with Bradley Beal the only one able to break that Luka-Harden pairing of excellence.

• There have been four kinda-under-the-radar players to reach 60+ FP in at least one game this season: LaMelo Ball (22-12-11-1), Danny Green (29-10-6-2-2 with 9 triples), Collin Sexton (42-5-5-2-1), and T.J. McConnell (16-4-13-10-1).
• Keeping on the valuable/surprising beat, here are some other players with 45+ FP games through the first three months of the season that came seemingly out of nowhere: Nickeil Alexander-Walker (37-8-1-1), Cameron Payne (17-5-10-3-1), Jalen Brunson (31-5-7-1), Malik Monk (36-5-2 with 9 treys), Reggie Jackson (20-7-8-2-1).

• Fred VanVleet and Steph Curry are the only two players with an 11-triple game in the first half. FVV went for 77 FP on the day against the Magic, dropping a 54-3-2-3-3 stuffed line. Steph finished with 75 FP against Dallas to the tune of a 57-2-5-2 line. Both guys played 37 minutes in those matches.
• Players at the G position have logged 115 games with at least 10 rebounds, only 2.2% of the total. Josh Hart has the season-high so far with 17 boards against Houston on Feb. 9. Doncic (x2) and Ben Simmons are the only other players to pull down 16 in at least one game.
• On the assists front, both Chris Paul and Kyle Lowry share the season-high mark with 19, although CP3 reached that number in just 31 minutes against New Orleans compared to Lowry's 40 facing Boston. Harden comes in third already two dimes down, with 17 against Portland.

• Among G-eligible players with 20+ games played, the top-performers in average FP per game are, in order: Harden, Doncic, Damian Lillard, Russell Westbrook, Beal, Curry, Trae Young, Kyrie Irving, Zach LaVine, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, De'Aaron Fox, Donovan Mitchell, VanVleet, Simmons, and Malcolm Brogdon.
• Among the same group of players, the top-performers in average FP per minute are, in order: Doncic, Harden, Westbrook, Curry, Lillard, Beal, Young, Irving, LaVine, Lamelo Ball, Mitchell, Simmons, Shai, Ja Morant, and Fox.

• Undervalued players (min. 20 games played) averaging the highest FP/G: Tyrese Haliburton, Darius Garland, Jordan Clarkson, Delon Wright, Dillon Brooks, Eric Gordon, Terrence Ross, Goran Dragic, Anthony Edwards, Kendrick Nunn, Kevin Huerter, T.J. McConnell, Derrick Rose, Tim Hardaway Jr., Eric Bledsoe.
• Undervalued players (min. 20 games played) averaging the highest FP/min: Clarkson, Rose, De'Anthony Melton, Immanuel Quickley, Hamidou Diallo, Haliburton, McConnell, Tyus Jones, Dragic, Nickeil Alexander-Walker, Lou Williams, Delon Wright, Jalen Brunson, P.J. Dozier, Ricky Rubio.

Worst Fantasy Performers and Performances

Time to look at the other end of the spectrum and highlight some of the worst performers and performances of the year. This is not meant to just count the goose eggs that took place during the first half of the season, but rather to look at performance against expectations. That way we can get a better idea of who truly underperformed and to which extent.

I'm exclusively looking at single-game stat lines in which players logged at least 20 minutes of playing time, so that way we avoid most injury-related duds and we get a better outcome and set of data to analyze and extract nuggets of information from.

• Although it is hard to find the absolute worst fantasy performance of the first half, as that is a little bit subjective, there have definitely been some horrid top-tier performers out there: John Wall (14 points shooting 25% on 16 FGA with no other stats and 5 TOs), Fox (10-2-2 line in 25 minutes), Young (7-5-3-1 in 35 minutes), and Jamal Murray (9-4-1-2 in 34 minutes) put up some very serious duds in those games.
• Fox has had the most games below 20 FP with three inside the bottom-8. The average line he put up in those reads 12-1-3 in 24 MPG. Also in the bottom-10 single-worst-performances list: Wall, Young, D'Angelo Russell, Paul, Westbrook, Murray, and Brogdon.

• I was interested in looking at some of the worst shooting performances, so I filtered the data to include only 15+ FGA player-games. The worst true shooting percentage belongs to Kyle Lowry (28%) who shot 25% from the field on 16 FGA and no free-throws in 37 minutes for 9 points against Atlanta.
• Only two more players attempted at least 15 shots while finishing their games with a true shooting below 30%: Donovan Mitchell and Steph Curry. Mitchell was, along with Lowry, the only player to score fewer than 10 points on 15 FGA. That Curry game is the only one below 20% shooting from the floor (he finished hitting just 13% of his 16 FGA for 11 points, though 6 of them came via free-throws).

• The only negative fantasy statistic is turnovers, taking 0.5 FP from the total score per each TO committed. Interestingly, James Harden is the only player with 9 turnovers in a single game this season at the G position, and even then he did so in a 79-FP game, one of the best performances of the year in which those mistakes remove 4.5 FP from his tally.
• There are eight games in which a G committed 8 turnovers, including the likes of Devin Booker (x2), Curry, Young (x3), Westbrook (x2), Lillard, and Doncic (x2). Booker had the absolute-worst game among those, finishing with a 22-2-2 line against Denver while turning the ball over 8 times for just 25 FP.
• Although not directly involved in fantasy score, personal fouls are another negative statistic as they limit the players' upside leaving them off the court for larger spells. Only three times has a G fouled out, those being Fox, Simmons, and Murray. As many as 29 times has a G committed 5 PFs through the first half of the season (Fox leads all G with four such games on top of his 6-PF piece).

• Among G-eligible players with 20+ games played and averaging 25+ MPG, the worst performers in average FP per game are, in order: Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Dwayne Bacon, Theo Maledon, Garrett Temple, Derrick Jones Jr., Lonnie Walker, Danny Green, Monte Morris, Luguentz Dort, Alec Burks, Seth Curry, Jae'sean Tate, Patty Mills, and Duncan Robinson.
• Among the same group of players, the top-performers in average FP per minute are, in order: KCP, Temple, Robinson, Green, Bacon, Jones Jr., Dort, Lonnie, Maledon, Curry, Justin Holiday, Gray Trent Jr., Josh Richardson, Monte Morris, and Will Barton.
• Overvalued players (min. 20 games played, 20+ MPG) averaging the lowest FP/G relative to expectations: Buddy Hield, Coby White, Mike Conley, Kemba Walker, Jrue Holiday, D'Angelo Russell, Terry Rozier, Collin Sexton, Dejounte Murray, John Wall, Jamal Murray, Ja Morant, Victor Oladipo, Devin Booker, and Chris Paul.
• Overvalued players (min. 20 games played, 20+ MPG) averaging the highest FP/min relative to expectations: Hield, White, Sexton, Rozier, Murray, Holiday, Malcolm Brogdon, Conley, Kemba, Booker, Lowry, FVV, Russell, Dejounte, and Oladipo.

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