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 some young targets to consider in dynasty leagues at the Forward positions. Let's get to it!
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Dynasty Fantasy Basketball Targets - Forwards
Marvin Bagley III, PF/C - Sacramento Kings
Controversial pick of the column right to kick it off, folks. Bagley's infamous career was marked the very day he was drafted by the Kings above the likes of Trae Young and Luka Doncic. Yes, you read that right. There is no point in comparing those two to Bagley three years into their careers, as much as it might pain you. Doncic is already a yearly MVP candidate, and Trae was this close to throwing his Hawks into the NBA finals. Bagley, well, has played for a three-years-and-running lottery team. Ugh.
But I haven't given up on Bagley yet. Call me stubborn, but the kid just has everything to become at least a viable/good NBA player in the next couple of seasons. While Bagley could only play 43 games last season and that limited his season-long fantasy upside (he finished as the 19th-best third-year player and was only the 64th-best forward leaguewide), the truth is that he performed quite nicely on a per-minute basis. Bagley's 1.03 FP/min were obviously below the marks of both Doncic and Trae, but they were on par with Ayton's (1.06) and Wendell Carter's (1.04) marks as members of the same draft class.
Bagley already had a rough season in 2020 when he could only log 6 starts in 13 GP all year. His averages have been similar this past three seasons at a 14-7-1 per-game line from 2019 to 2021. The dual F/C eligibility works in Bagley's (and his fantasy GMs) favor, and so does the fact that the Kings aren't precisely loaded at the interior positions with Richaun Holmes the only viable starter among the franchise's group of big men. If Bagley truly explodes and reaches his potential, he might do so in another place as he's entering his contract year this season. He's a restricted FA next summer, so Sacto could still pony up to retain him for longer, and I'm of the opinion he'll have his best breakout year in 2022 while trying to prove his worth before hitting the open market; obviously, with steady improvement still to come, making him an appealing dynasty target.
Saddiq Bey, SF - Detroit Pistons
It can't be said that Saddiq Bey came absolutely out of left field for the Pistons last season--he was the 19th draft pick of the 2020 class--but the truth is that no one was expecting such a productive debut as that of Bey last year. There surely were some growing pains, of course, but that doesn't take from his rookie exploits. Bey became one of only 12 F-eligible rookies since 1990 to put up an average 12-4-1 per-game line while logging a usage rate below 20%, and the only player to do so in fewer than 30 MPG.
You might think it's a stretch to say that Bey was at, for example, Jayson Tatum's rookie levels of play, but that's actually the truth. Tatum, playing and starting 80 games his first year as a pro, was always going to finish above Bey on the overall FP leaderboard, but their per-minute production was virtually the same (0.85 FP/min) while Bey edged rookie-Tatum in TOV% and TRB% while finishing on par when it came to AST% (7.6 percent to 8.3).
Knowing what we know about Tatum now, it's a little bit uncautious to say Bey will follow his path toward stardom, but there will be nothing blocking him from doing so as he should retain the starting SF nod in 2022 and going forward while growing next to the likes of Cade Cunningham, Isaiah Stewart, and (to a lesser extent) Jerami Grant in Motown.
John Collins, PF/C - Atlanta Hawks
Collins is on the older side of things here, and his early-dynasty days are over as he enters his age-24 season. But he's still young enough to prove a more than a valuable asset in such formats. As expected, the addition of Clint Capela to the lineup this season obviously cut into Collins' numbers (mostly his rebounding stats) although that also helped Collins take on a very clear PF/floor-stretching role as his 3PA per game stayed high at 3.3 compared to his 3.6 from 2020.
It's been back-to-back seasons of 40% three-point shooting for Collins, and three years in a row in which he has posted PPG marks of 17+ (from 19.5 to 21.6 to 17.6) while grabbing at least 7.4 RPG in each of those campaigns (from 9.88 to 10.1 to 7.4). The Hawks faced the decision of extending Collins this past offseason or letting him go, and you bet they did the intelligent thing bringing him back to the ATL.
The Hawks are one of the best young teams in the league, and the Capela-Collins partnership works fantastically together--let alone how they fit with a point as great as Trae Young manning the floor. Collins averaged the fifth-highest FPPG mark among F-eligible players aged 23-or-younger in 2021, and he ranked 15th-best F in FP/min (no age restrictions) last year with a 1.08 mark--right above him: Tobias Harris, Pascal Siakam, Khris Middleton, and DeMar DeRozan averaging 1.14 FP/min or fewer. Bonafide star with seasons of production still to come and in theory three/four years away from reaching his true peak.
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