Milwaukee Bucks forward Giannis Antetokounmpo won the NBA's MVP award last season and seems primed to do so again, as he has increased his scoring to a clean 30 points per game and increased his rebounding, and his team is cruising into the All-Star break with the sport's top record and championship expectations. Fantasy managers in points leagues love him, as Antetokounmpo was the most popular choice for top overall pick and he has certainly been worth it, currently leading the way in fantasy points by a nice margin.
As for roto formats, however, well, there is a problem. A rather large problem that nobody seems to want to discuss.
Way back in the day, at least according to our forefathers (cough, cough), dominant center Shaquille O'Neal bullied his way to myriad NBA awards in a Hall of Fame career that saw him carry many a fantasy manager to a championship. Or did he? O'Neal scored, boarded, blocked and shot (from the field) among the best in the sport, but he sure missed a lot of free throws along the way, and I recall more than a few fantasy managers avoiding him because of this fatal statistical flaw. In a roto league, it can be tough winning it all while tanking a category, and O'Neal, a career 52% shooter from the line, made you do just that.
Antetokounmpo entered this season shooting 74.2% from the free throw line in his first six seasons, with 6.2 attempts per game, and in his MVP-winning season of 2018-19, he went to the line 9.5 times per game and hit at a 72.9% rate. Frankly, there was nothing to discuss. Antetokounmpo was certainly not Mark Price or Ray Allen from the line, but he was not Shaq. He was average, just fine, unworthy of notice.
He is not just fine or unworthy of notice from the line this season and this is why the best player in points formats is currently No. 15 on the ESPN Player Rater, which covers roto leagues. I roster Antetokounmpo in each format, and yeah, there is a big difference. Sure, the missed freebies matter in points leagues, but not so much that they overshadow all else. This amazing player has scored 1,350 points in 1,381 minutes, hit 55.1% of his field goal attempts and aids us all in rebounds, assists, steals, blocks and 3-pointers. But he hurts us in free throw shooting -- his seven misses in Sunday's win lowered his season mark to 60.6%.
Quick math on the Rater shows us that if Antetokoumpo were merely average from the line, as he used to be as recently as last season, he might be second on the Rater behind only Houston Rockets guard James Harden, the only player averaging more points per game. Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James is merely average from the line and the rough difference in worth according to the Rater would thrust Antetokounmpo ahead of everyone else in value save for Harden. What happened? It sure seems odd to me that a player that had established such a safe baseline for performance in one area would all of a sudden fall apart in that area -- while still getting better elsewhere.
It is not just that Antetokounmpo is shooting a poor percentage on free throws. Others do that, such as Detroit Pistons center Andre Drummond -- one spot ahead of Giannis on the Rater! -- hitting 58.7% from the line, second worst among qualifiers to Oklahoma City Thunder center Steven Adams. Other All-Stars hurt the percentage too, like Utah Jazz center Rudy Gobert and Philadelphia 76ers All-Star Ben Simmons. The difference is that the weight of their incompetence is not nearly what it is for Antetokounmpo.
Gobert goes to the line 6.1 times per game, Simmons and Drummond 5.1 times. Giannis is second to Harden at 10.4 times per game. On Sunday, he might have really hurt those in weekly head-to-head formats by missing seven of 16 attempts. That has more weight than Drummond missing two of three in a game. O'Neal, in his heyday, was in double digits in free throw attempts each season. In 2000-01, he averaged 13.1 free throws per game, hitting a mere 6.7, or 51.3%. O'Neal was awesome but did incalculable damage by tanking a category for fantasy managers and, to my knowledge, never finished as fantasy's top roto performer for this reason.
Fantasy managers can obviously win a roto league with the anchor or Antetokounmpo's free throw percentage weighing them down. On Sunday alone, he combined for 30 points with 19 boards and 9 assists, just missing another triple-double. I have won myriad leagues across different sports while finishing last in a category, in one example justifying my drafting of Drummond a few seasons ago -- when he wasn't even sniffing 40% from the line -- because I had Golden State Warriors star Stephen Curry to balance things out, and it worked. Nobody is saying Antetokounmpo is not an awesome player.
Yes, I do think rostering the likes of Brooklyn Nets guard Kyrie Irving and Phoenix Suns guard Devin Booker -- topping the league at 92% and 91% from the line -- can help offset the damage Antetokounmpo does, and perhaps a fantasy manager can finish middle of the pack in free throw percentage and dominate elsewhere. I have seen it done with O'Neal. It just makes roster construction a bit tougher, and one has to wonder what changed with this player when all was well in free throw shooting just a year ago. Antetokounmpo is no longer the No. 1 roto option, and that reflects in my rankings, and unless we see a change these final few months of the season to harbor promise for the future, he cannot be top-five for the 2020-21 season either.