Tip-In Points: Top 20 Shooting Guards, 2009-10 Fantasy Hoops
We’ve got a bit of a Good News / Bad News situation. The Bad News is that the NBA regular season is finished, and with it, your fantasy team – rendering all your sweat and strategery as useless as a neck full of Mardi Gras beads in March. The Good News is that it’s never too early to plan for next season. So we’ll be here all summer scrapin’ and scrappin’ and eatin’ scrapple in order to bring you the best fantasy basketball advice this side of the Mason/Dixon Line. But Adam, I don’t know which side of the Mason/Dixon Line you’re on. Doesn’t matter. I’m everywhere.
So for the next week or so, we’ll be looking back at the year that was – continuing today with the 20 best shooting guards of 2009-10.
Sadly, Tip-In Points was a mere glimmer in my drunken glazed eye at the start of the season and so I never made formal pre-season projections to which we can compare, but we’ll have them this time next season. So if you’re not excited about the start of next season, pretend you’re the 2008-09 Knicks and get giddy about the end of it.
Note: Each player’s season averages use the following pattern:
FG% / FT% / 3PTM / PTM / RBD / AST / STL / BLK / TOV
Live it. Love it (she’s just a woman).
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1. Dwyane Wade, MIA He is what he is and he do what he do. There just aren’t any surprises with this guy … except maybe that he doesn’t shoot more threes. Or that the “a” comes after the “y” in his first name. That’s pretty surprising.
Preseason Rank: #1
Final Numbers: 77 games, .476 / .761 / 0.9 / 26.6 / 4.8 / 6.5 / 1.8 / 1.1 / 3.3
2. Stephen Curry, GS I’m not saying Curry is the second-best shooting guard in the league. I know it looks like I am, but I’m not. His stats, like every other starter on the Warriors, are greatly inflated by the amount of minutes they were allowed to play this season. He averaged the eighth most minutes among SGs (36:11) and almost 39 minutes per game in the last 50 games of the season. Curry’s good, but most players would be good if they averaged 39 minutes over 80 games.
Preseason Rank #15
Final Numbers: 80 games, .462 / .885 / 2.1 / 17.5 / 4.5 / 5.9 / 1.9 / 0.2 / 3.1
3. Kobe Bryant, LAL No one pressed harder this season than Kobe, which is bizarre because no one had a more stacked team than Kobe. He mostly looked weaker and less efficient all season, but here we are at season’s end and only his free-throw percentage was lower than its normal average.
Preseason Rank: #2
Final Numbers: 73 games, .456 / .811 / 1.4 / 27.0 / 5.4 / 5.0 / 1.5 / 0.3 / 3.2
4. Manu Ginobili, SA I just wasn’t sure if a healthy Manu still had the stuff that a healthy Manu had a few years back. He does. In fact, he might be better than ever. He averaged his second-highest number of points, threes and free-throw percentage while averaging a career-high in assists.
Preseason Rank: #10
Final Numbers: 75 games, .441 / .870 / 1.8 / 16.5 / 3.8 / 4.9 / 1.4 / 0.3 / 2.1
5. Stephen Jackson, CHA Little known fact: Stack Jacks has a “play no fewer than 38 minutes per game” clause written into his contract. This is how he manages to average 21 points on the fifth slowest team in the league while shooting 42 percent from the floor. Dang. That’s a mighty smart clause he’s got.
Preseason Rank: #6
Final Numbers: 81 games, .423 / .779 / 1.6 / 20.6 / 5.0 / 3.7 / 1.6 / 0.5 / 3.2
6. Ray Allen, BOS He matched his career-high in field-goal percentage last year (.480) and I thought, “t’ain’t no way he’ll do it again.” I was right, he didn’t. But he did average his second-highest field-goal percentage of his career, partly because he attempted the fewest threes in a decade. So you tell me, how much is Ray Allen worth if Ray Allen sinks one fewer three per game?
Preseason Rank: #7
Final Numbers: 80 games, .477 / .913 / 1.8 / 16.3 / 3.2 / 2.6 / 0.8 / 0.3 / 1.6
7. Joe Johnson, ATL I wanted better things for Johnson this year; thought he’d have a career-year. Instead I got a digression in every stat except field-goal percentage, rebounds and turnovers.
Preseason Rank: #3
Final Numbers: 76 games, .458 / .818 / 1.7 / 21.3 / 4.6 / 4.9 / 1.1 / 0.1 / 1.9
8. Jason Richardson, PHO A major beneficiary of Leandro Barbosa’s lingering injuries all season. Richardson didn’t give up as much time as I thought he might. Still, he averaged a career-low in minutes and tended to accumulate stats in bunches. As anyone who owned him will tell you, it was impossible to know when those bunches would start or end.
Preseason Rank: #14
Final Numbers: 79 games, .474 / .739 / 2.0 / 15.7 / 5.1 / 1.8 / 0.8 / 0.4 / 1.2
9. O.J. Mayo, MEM The Grizz were better, but Mayo was worse. O.J. was the Brandon Jennings of last season’s rookie class. He started the season like gangbusters the faded by season’s end. Therefore, I’m picking Brandon Jennings to do slightly worse in most categories next season. See? Basketball is easy.
Preseason Rank: #9
Final Numbers: 82 games, .458 / .809 / 1.7 / 17.5 / 3.8 / 3.0 / 1.2 / 0.2 / 2.1
10. John Salmons, MIL During the preseason, I picked Chicago Salmons (not as good as Chicago bratwurst) to win The Most Improved Player Award by year’s end. By December, I dropped him and his .385 FG%. Then Chicago Salmons became Milwaukee Salmons and resembled the player Preseason Adam picked him to become. He pulled this nonsense last season being traded from Sacramento to Chicago. From now on, I’m not looking at this guy until a week before the trade deadline.
Preseason Rank: #8
Final Numbers: 81 games, .441 / .830 / 1.5 / 15.4 / 3.3 / 2.8 / 1.2 / 0.3 / 1.5
11. Caron Butler, DAL First he gave up Mountain Dew, then he quit chewing on straws and eventually he quit whining about his lot in life and started playing the third fiddle role he was meant to play. Weirdly, playing third fiddle in real life gives him the worth of a second fiddle in fantasy hoops. His stats were down across the board. Like fellow third fiddle Shawn Marion, Butler’s master fiddle status is likely behind him.
Preseason Rank: #5
Final Numbers: 74 games, .428 / .838 / 0.6 / 16.3 / 6.2 / 2.1 / 1.6 / 0.3 / 2.2
12. Trevor Ariza, HOU He was handed the keys to the kingdom in Houston, but Trev’ was all confused because he thought he was given the keys to the King Dome. Then he was told by his family that Seattle’s King Dome was demolished years ago. So then he didn’t know what the keys were for. By the time he realized he was supposed to be running the Rockets, he’d already missed 10 games and was on his way to averaging a ridiculous 39 percent from the floor and 65 percent from the line.
Preseason Rank: #16
Final Numbers: 72 games, .394 / .649 / 1.9 / 14.9 / 5.6 / 3.8 / 1.8 / 0.6 / 2.2
13. Anthony Morrow, GS Someone double-check my math, but I’m pretty sure the 2009-10 Golden State Warriors were made up entirely of a dozen 6-foot-4 guards who enjoy scoring points.
Preseason Rank: NR
Final Numbers: 69 games, .468 / .886 / 2.0 / 13.0 / 3.8 / 1.5 / 0.9 / 0.2 / 1.2
14. Vince Carter, ORL Vince was supposed to run all over the Eastern Conference this year and it just didn’t happen. He didn’t even replace Hedo Turkoglu’s output from the previous season. And this is why people tend to, um, dislike Vince Carter – because Carter doesn’t want to run over anyone. Ninety percent of the time, he’s happy to blend in. Well, congrats Vinctipated, you blended right into the middle of this list.
Preseason Rank: #4
Final Numbers: 75 games, .428 / .840 / 1.6 / 16.6 / 3.9 / 3.1 / 0.7 / 0.2 / 1.4
15. George Hill, SA Gregg Popovich likes George Hill and I like Gregg Popovich. I also like Angie Harmon. Adam, that makes no sense. It will two sentences from now. I had the feeling all season that I was watching San Antonio’s future when George Hill was on the floor. It was the same feeling I had after Angie Harmon replaced Carey Lowell on “Law & Order.”
Preseason Rank: #17
Final Numbers: 78 games, .478 / .772 / 1.0 / 12.4 / 2.6 / 2.9 / 0.9 / 0.3 / 1.3
16. J.R. Smith, DEN Career-highs in steals and points, but career-lows as a Nugget in all percentages. Slight improvement is likely, but this is who he is.
Preseason Rank: #11
Final Numbers: 75 games, .414 / .706 / 2.1 / 15.4 / 3.1 / 2.4 / 1.3 / 0.3 / 1.9
17. Corey Brewer, MIN From here until No. 20 is proof at how sneaky shallow the SG position was this year. No Kevin Martins, no Ben Gordons, no Rip Hamiltons, no … well, no Detroit Pistons at all. Instead, you get Corey Brewer, who probably wasn’t owned in your league, coming in at 17. I hope for your sake you had a Top 10 guy and a forward with SG eligibility.
Preseason Rank: NR
Final Numbers: 82 games, .431 / .648 / 1.0 / 13.0 / 3.4 / 2.4 / 1.4 / 0.4 / 2.0
18. Courtney Lee, NJ I ranked Courtney Lee lower than he ended up finishing by season’s end. But I also thought the pool of shooting guards was going to be much deeper. In the end, Lee’s numbers were closer to what I imagined the 25th best SG would have. So, yeah, I’m disappointed. What else is new, Jersey?
Preseason Rank: #20
Final Numbers: 71 games, .436 / .869 / 1.1 / 12.5 / 3.5 / 1.7 / 1.3 / 0.3 / 1.1
19. Kirk Hinrich, CHI Please don’t make me say anything about Hinrich.
Preseason Rank: NR
Final Numbers: 74 games, .409 / .752 / 1.4 / 10.9 / 3.5 / 4.5 / 1.1 / 0.3 / 1.5
20. Eric Gordon, LAC I’d like to think the Clippers’ 2009-10 season is like the 2004 Presidential election: things happened unsuccessfully, none of it made sense and now it’s all over. Ignore it. The future has something better in store.
Preseason Rank: NR
Final Numbers: 62 games, .449 / .742 / 1.9 / 16.9 / 2.6 / 3.0 / 1.1 / 0.2 / 2.3
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Photo courtesy of Yahoo! Sports via Getty Images
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