RADIO
As we approach the start of the 2021/22 regular season the fantasy stakes get higher. That's why it's time to start unveiling all of our cards, make masterful plays, and edge the competition. And when that competition is part of a dynasty league, that means you not only have to count on present-day data but also projections for future performance with youth coming at a premium.
In order to find potential targets and fades for those of you continuing/starting your dynasty leagues, I have filtered data to give me only players who played last year at 23 years of age or younger. As I explored in my researching column, players aged 21 years old put up the best FP averages among all "young" players in the NBA, then most either leave the league or hit a sophomore-wall, and finally those who make it past age-23 enter a steady stage of improvement until the peak is reached at around 27/28 years of age.
You need to get some shares of super-young players (19-to-21 years old) to sell them high once they explode, or get some seemingly "declining" guys on the 22-to-23 clip to exploit their still-ahead best days. Obviously, the same goes in the opposite direction, avoiding risky players not looking good in terms of future upside. Today, we're exploring four young fades to avoid in dynasty leagues at the Guard positions. Let's get to it!
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Dynasty Fantasy Basketball Targets - Guards
Immanuel Quickley, PG - New York Knicks
Although there were 44 rookies labeled Guards to debut in the NBA last year, only 11 of them played more than 1,000 minutes as freshmen. One of those 11, Immanuel Quickley, was relegated to the second unit of his team as the backup point to Elfrid Payton in New York. Even then, you can't argue about this out-of-nowhere phenom who, arguably, was the third/fourth best rookie of the class even playing that off-the-pine role.
Now, entering 2022, the outlook is pretty much the same when it comes to Quickley and his role--the Knicks, if you missed on it, are bringing Kemba Walker to man the point after letting Payton go in free agency. Quickley will keep growing in the shadows and avoiding sky-high pressure, though, which is something I actually like in terms of his development. There were more than loud calls for Quickley starting, but HC Tom Thibs remained stubborn and sat Quickley on the bench for 61 of his 64 years. Quickley, though, was the main second-unit man logging a rather high 25.6% Usage Rate in his minutes on the court and putting up an 11-2-2 line with just 0.9 TOV per game.
How does that 11-2-2 average line look? Bad, right? If that's your opinion, think again. No rookie guard since 1993 has put up 10+ PPG while playing fewer than 20 MPG (Quickley logged 19.4 MPG last year). No one. Seriously. Harold Miner was the last to do it. That's bonkers. In terms of fantasy production, Quickley's 0.97 FP/min rank absolute-best among G with <20 MPG but 1,000+ MP over their rookie seasons. Only T.J. McConnell approaches that mark (0.94) in the past few years. Not a lot of players with Quickley's rookie numbers ended having great NBA careers (Baron Davis, John Starks, Richard Hamilton, Jamal Crawford, Kenny Anderson, and Allan Houston perhaps), but that speaks more to me about his unique (infra)utilization last year than anything else. Must-have player in any sort of dynasty format.
Kevin Huerter, SG - Atlanta Hawks
With studs such as Trae Young, Clint Capela, and John Collins in tow, it makes sense to find Huerter flying under the radar more often than not when it comes to Atlanta Hawks players. But that precisely--a solid core group signed for years to come and looking better by the year--boosts Huerter's already high upside going forward. Huerter, who has just completed his third season in the league, has started at least 48 games in every one of his three years as a pro, is a career 37.6 3P% shooter, and has attempted an average of 5.4 3PA per game in those three years combined (more than 55 percent of his total shots come from beyond the three-point line).
And it is not that Huerter's upside comes just on the three-point front. Huerter is one of only 52 players putting up a season (from Yr.1-to-3 in their career) of 11-3-3 averages and, in fact, he's done so two times already in 2020 and 2021 (only Stephen Curry has gone three-for-three doing it in all of his three first seasons as a pro). Huerter doesn't have to excel on ballhandling duties as Trae Young is the one leading the team, so Huerter is also a nice target for those in 9-cat leagues with a measly 1.1 TOV per game in 2021, giving him a 3.18 AST:TO ratio.
While it is true that Huerter is not going to excel in the per-minute department any time soon, that's mostly due to his absolutely nuts 30.8 MPG on a low 17.2 USG%. Sure things, he makes up for it with bulky counting stats thanks to that ample playing time. Huerter was one of only 15 players to finish 2021 averaging that 11-3-3 line and fewer than 2.0 TOV per game, 4.5+ 3PA and a 35+ percent 3P%; and the third-youngest at it (along with Haliburton and Herro).
Collin Sexton, PG/SG - Cleveland Cavaliers
I can't still believe I'm writing about Sexton in this column, but here we are. There are obvious picks to make in dynasty formats if you can, of course--the likes of Luka, Trae, Zion, Tatum,...--but there is still a wide feeling of unease among fantasy GMs when it comes to accepting Sexton as a bonafide star in the making. For reasons I don't truly get if I'm honest.
The Cavs will need to make a decision on Sexton's future with the franchise as soon as next summer when he would hit restricted free agency. Will Cleveland pony up to retain their soon-to-be fourth-year shooting guard, or will the Cavs let him go? I guess you know which position I'd take after I included him here. Sexton played a ridiculous 35.3 MPG last season in Cleveland, logged a massive 29 percent USG%, and even with all of those sky-high marks in playing time and usage, he was still able to finish the year producing 1.04 FP/min. That might look like no big thing, but you bet it is. The list of players to average that many (or more) FP/min in their age-22-or-younger seasons is a parade of Hall of Famers: Chris Paul, T-Mac, Kidd, Rose, Kobe, Iverson, Giannis... you name it.
It's hard to log 35 minutes as a freaking third-year man, let alone keeping up those ridiculous levels of play. Sexton broke into the top-24 G-eligible players for the first time in 2021, and he did so with a saucy 24-3-4-1 per-game line. Those averages allowed Sexton to enter a select group of eight players to get that average line over a single season at 22 years of age or younger. Only LeBron, T-Mac, and Luka did it more than once in their pre-23-yo seasons. You better not keep thinking that Sexton doesn't belong, folks, and he's still entering his 23-yo season. Whether it happens in Ohio or outside of the state, Sexton can't look better and should still be ways away from reaching his assumed peak in four or five years. The possibilities are endless.
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