Fantasy Basketball Dynasty Weekly: Evan Mobley starting season off strong

While it is important to not overreact to the first few games of a season, it certainly doesn’t hurt to react to what has happened. That means, don’t make drastic moves because of a few bad games. However, we can acknowledge what has happened and how we should feel because of it. It’s tempting to throw everything out the window early in the season if things don’t go the way you expected them to, but a large part of having success in dynasty leagues is remaining patient and sticking to your beliefs in certain players.

We can still be excited or frustrated with the start of the year. We’ll go through five players that I’m happy with how they’ve started and five that I’ve not been as optimistic about. Then we’ll decide whether or not it is sustainable. Taking the time to analyze multiple aspects of a player’s start allows us to make the best decision.

Five players I’m excited about:

Cam Thomas 

On a tanking Nets team, the expectation was that he’d put up a ton of shots, and if they went in, he’d make a big impact in fantasy basketball. It’s early, but the results so far have been great. In the past, Thomas has had some huge scoring nights, but he wasn’t able to do much else in category leagues, so when he had bad nights, he was ineffective. He hasn’t had any major duds this season, but his field goal percentage to this point is 44.8%, which is right on par with his career average. So, despite becoming the unquestioned top scoring option with Mikal Bridges gone, Thomas has posted career-highs in points, rebounds, steals, 3-pointers, free throw percentage and shot attempts without sacrificing his shooting efficiency. This isn’t some insanely hot shooting start where he’s making 60% of his 3-pointers. This percentage is absolutely sustainable, which is encouraging moving forward. However, his long-term value is more of a question mark. Win-now teams should take advantage, but rebuilding dynasty teams should be looking to sell-high on Thomas.

Jordan Poole

Much like Thomas, Poole was expected to dominate on a bad team. Well, that was also the expectation last year, and we all know how that went. Clearly, things are different this time, and the main reason for that is that he is now orchestrating the offense more as the team’s point guard. Poole has been a top five player in 9-cat leagues so far, which may be inflated through three games. He’s averaging 5.3 triples and 3.0 steals while making 51.2% of his field goal attempts and 61.5% of his 3-pointers. Is that sustainable? Probably not, but the expectation was never a top five season from Poole. He has been much better than he was last year and has reminded everyone of how talented he is. I’m happy that he’s playing this well, and I’m hoping he can keep it up, even if I’m not optimistic that it will be quite as good as his first three games.

Christian Braun 

The shooting guard battle in Denver came down to Braun and Julian Strawther, with the winner of the battle landing in an excellent role that should play well in fantasy hoops. However, that didn’t necessarily mean that the production would be based on talent, but that the opportunity would be enough for the starter to provide standard league value. The early returns suggest that Braun is going to be more than just a beneficiary of a large role. So far, he is averaging 14.0 points, 5.3 rebounds, 1.0 steal, 1.8 blocks and 1.0 triple in 35.4 minutes per game while making 53.8% of his shot attempts. The Nuggets have been disappointing to start the season, but Braun has been excellent, which has played well in 9-cat leagues. If he continues to play at this level, Denver won’t have to look elsewhere for a new shooting guard for a while.

Evan Mobley

It was always destined to happen, but the Mobley breakout appears to finally be here. On offense, he continues to expand his range outside the 3-point line, he’s creating his own shot off the dribble, he’s running the floor in transition, and he knows how to move without the ball to get easy shots at the rim. Ideally, managers have been wanting him to play center, but he has been able to take advantage of smaller fours by overpowering them and bigger fives by using his quickness to get by. Mobley has generally been a subpar free throw shooter, but after shooting 71.9% last year, he has knocked down 88.2% of his attempts from the charity stripe on 4.3 shots per game. He’s even shown some fun playmaking prowess. On defense, he has been the absolute monster that we knew he could become. Not that he was bad before, but the numbers have been excellent to start this season. There have been a lot of positive signs of development from Mobley so far, and it’s showing up in the box score.

Payton Pritchard

With Kristaps Porzingis sidelined until December, Pritchard has been Boston’s sixth man to start the year, which has allowed him to play a large role. He shot poorly in the season opener, but he has been on a tear since then. He’s averaging 16.3 points and 4.8 triples in 25.0 minutes per game off the bench, and he has made over 60% of his shots during their last three games. He’ll continue to be overshadowed by the stars in Boston, but he has been effective in his role, which has allowed him to produce top-75 value in 9-cat leagues to this point. More minutes has helped, but he’s just been better overall offensively this season. It’s unclear when he’ll truly get the opportunity and role that he needs to provide value in more categories, but it’s good to see him playing to this level early in the year.

Five players I’m frustrated with:

Tyrese Haliburton

Monday night’s loss to the Magic went much better for Haliburton, but prior to that, there were certainly some concerns. He was averaging 9.3 potential assists per game (a number which is now up to 10.0 after Monday’s game) after averaging 17.8 per game last year. Was Monday’s 10 assist game simply the result of his teammates hitting shots and not Haliburton setting up more open shots? If that’s the case, that number won’t stick, and Haliburton won’t match his assist average from last season. Nothing changed with Haliburton’s talent, but it seems like the Pacers are putting the ball in Andrew Nembhard’s hands more and using Haliburton away from the ball. I’m not worried about Haliburton yet, since defenses are obviously keying in on him early, but for a guy drafted in the top ten in both redraft and dynasty formats, this start has been suboptimal. (I’m attaching an excellent tweet thread that goes way more in depth on how Haliburton has been used).

Scoot Henderson

It would take a lot to make me give up on Scoot, but inefficiency continues to be a major issue for him. This isn’t the type of inefficiency where he is making up for it with crazy counting stats either. He is simply shooting a low percentage and turning the ball over a lot. It’s better than his rookie year, so things are trending in the right direction. His field goal percentage is up from 38.5% to 41.2% and he’s only turning it over 3.3 times per game, which is certainly better than 4.3. Henderson has been playing better this year, but it just hasn’t shown up in a way that benefits fantasy managers yet. We’ll continue to be patient though, because learning to play point guard in the NBA takes a long time.

Jalen Johnson

Atlanta made Johnson the team’s second option this summer, and defense’s treating him like a No. 2 scoring option has impacted his play early on. Before finally figuring things out on Monday night, Johnson had been shooting 29% from the floor. He’s 3-of-13 on 3-pointers, and he took a lot of floaters and mid-range shots that simply weren’t falling over the first few games. My frustration wasn’t with the percentage directly, but with the shots he was taking. JJ has developed enough of an offensive game where he can do a little bit of everything and score from all three levels. However, that doesn’t mean that the bread and butter of his game isn’t still attacking the rim and getting vertical. He has taken a few 3-pointers that felt early or rushed, and while the fading floaters are shots that he can make, he is athletic enough to get to the rim for a stronger finish. He was better about that against Washington on Monday, which is encouraging for managers moving forward.

Jonathan Kuminga

Last season was a strange one for Kuminga, as he vocalized frustrations with the organization’s inability to develop him any further early on. He ended up figuring things out and finished the year incredibly strong. However, his start to this season hasn’t been what we expected. He has been starting at small forward in a taller lineup for Golden State, but he hasn’t been his typical efficient self. Kuminga has taken a few extra 3-pointers, but his field goal percentage has been 33.3% through their first three games, which is down from 52.9% last year. I don’t expect that number to stay that low, but another concern is that lack of minutes. Their first two games were blowouts, so he played less than 20 minutes, but he only played 22 minutes against the Clippers in a close loss on Sunday. Steve Kerr ended up bringing him off the bench for Tuesday’s game against New Orleans, but he had his best game of the season in 28 minutes. It may seem like a demotion, but Kerr attributed the move to lineup configuration and spacing, and the early returns are positive.

Amen Thompson

It was always going to be difficult for some of Houston’s young guys to carve out a large role this season, but it felt like Thompson was good enough to make that happen. However, Ime Udoka has favored Dillon Brooks over Amen, playing him 33.7 minutes per game to Thompson’s 21.1. In those minutes, Amen hasn’t been as productive as we were hoping, which I can partially blame on Udoka as well. Thompson’s half-court offensive game may be limited at this point of his career, but there has to be better ways to utilize him than having him sit in the corner. One way that Udoka has tried this is by having Amen be the screener in PnR plays, which has yielded mixed results. On defense, the stocks simply haven’t been there. Am I giving up on Thompson? Not even close. Am I a tad frustrated by the way he has played and how the Rockets have used him? Absolutely.