Undervalued Centers - 2021-22 Fantasy Basketball Draft Values

October 12, 2021

Antonio Losada's undervalued fantasy basketball centers and draft sleepers for the 2021-2022NBA season. Consider drafting these centers earlier in your drafts.

If you are a long-time fantasy player, you know how does it feel to getting sniped in a fantasy draft. You know how it goes: you enter the lobby with a few players to draft in mind, have everything planned for you to build the perfect roster, and just a couple of picks before the one where you expect to target your next great asset, some other GM snatches it from you.

Those "undervalued" players you are targeting late, then, might be worth drafting earlier instead of waiting a little too much for them and ending losing them. At the end of the day, not every GM is undervaluing great plays, so you have to be aware and stay a step ahead!

Today, let's talk about some undervalued players at the center position. For whatever reason most fantasy GMs are making them sit at lower-than-they-should ADPs, offering you a great chance to draft some gems late. Don't sleep on your laurels, though, if you don't want to miss on them to another savvy GM!

Enes Kanter, Boston Celtics

As much as we hope for another top-10 season from Kanter, odds are that doesn't happen if only because he won't be starting in Boston with Al Horford around... Or will it? Kanter is getting drafted with an ADP of 134+ in Yahoo yet he's coming off an overall 52nd-best finish in last season's fantasy leagues starting just 35 of his 72 total games and playing 24.4 MPG. Odds are those numbers don't move a ton once he hits the floor running with the Celtics. Kanter's usage rate fell below the average 20% sitting at only 17.4%, but the good thing about the big man is not his shots/scoring, but rather his fantastic 60.4 FG% and 77.4 FT% to go with the league-wide fourth-highest TRB% at 24.2 percent.

Kelly Olynyk, Detroit Pistons

With Mr. Plumlee out of Detroit and Kelly Olyny arriving in Motown for the 2022 season, I don't know how fantasy GMs out there are just valuing Olynyk at a low 104+ ADP in most leagues. Olynyk, in case you missed it last season, was a demolition-man for the Houston Rockets once he moved West from Miami in a mid-season trade. On the year, Olynyk finished 10th at the C position (above Kanter; read above) and was also a top-50 player overall. Olynyk is primed to start all 82 games this season if he can stay healthy after going 62-of-70 on starts last year. While Olynyk fell three boards short of dub-dubbing for the season (13-7-3-1 per-game line) he did so on an average 19.7 USG% and attempting a healthy 10 FGA a pop. The golden nugget? Olynyk was one of only seven pure-centers last season to dish out 2.9+ APG and one of only two (along with Nikola Vucevic) to turn the ball over 1.8 or fewer times per game with such volume of assists.

Mason Plumlee, Charlotte Hornets

Remember Mr. Plumlee, from Olynyk's blurb above? Well, Mason has moved places and will now play in Charlotte for MJ's Hornets. That's not bad in any way, mostly because he will be starting games daily (he already went 56-for-56 in Detroit last season), playing his 26 MPG, and even though the usage rate might be on the ugly side of things he still made the most of his 16.3 USG% rate last season. Obviously, the short minutes per game and the fact that he played only 56 games overall killed Plumlee's total FP on the year and dropped him to the low 90s in the overall ranks. His FPPG mark, though, ranked 18th at the position. Plumlee's 3.6 dimes per game ranked fifth among true-centers and he was this close to putting up a dub-dub line after finishing 10-9-3-1-1 on the year with only 1.9 TOV a day. Also, the environment is way better in Charlotte than in Detroit and that should boost Plumlee's upside.

Andre Drummond, Philadelphia 76ers

I know what you're thinking but bear with me for a minute. Drummond is a backup center for one of the best big men of the whole freaking NBA. There is no clear path for the 76ers given the whole Ben Simmons trade saga, and who knows how the team will look like in just a couple of weeks. Anyway, Embiid is adept at getting injured, so snatching Drummond could be a big-time win for any of yall out there drafting him. Drummond, even on a down year, still logged a 27.6 USG% last season in CLE/LAL and finished the year averaging the 11th-most FPPG among C players in 2021. Even if he goes from 27 MPG starting to 20 MPG off the pine, I'd still bet on Dre dub-dubbing for the season (he's coming off a sound 15-12-2-1-1 year in Hollywood). Three players got TRB% and BLK% rates above 24 and 3 percent respectively, Drummond among them. One of those three? Dwight Howard, pretty much 2021-Drummond playing in Philly on a similar role to that Andre might be taking on this season.

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