Every Wednesday this season, I will publish my top-130 fantasy basketball rankings for the remainder of the season.
These rankings are based on season-long rotisserie formats. That means that players who excel in one or two categories will be ranked higher and those who fail miserably in percentages will be ranked lower than they would be in a points system.
So, a 3-point specialist like J.R. Smith gets a bump, while a young star like Andre Drummond, who misses a ton of free throws, sinks. You will want to adjust accordingly based on your league's scoring system.
These rankings are forward-looking. If you want to know where players stand based on what they have done thus far this season, check out the ESPN Player Rater.
My goal here is to give you an idea of how much I value each player for the rest of the 2015-16 campaign. In its most basic sense, I am asking myself if I would rather have Player X over Player Y through April. If so, I rank him higher.
As always, I value your feedback, so feel free to hit me up @AtomicHarpua.
Unfortunately, as we head into the All-Star break, I am forced to bring you the "Major Injury Edition" of my rest-of-season rankings this week, as a trio of major fantasy studs have been felled by injuries and several others carry serious long-term health concerns.
Let's start with Jimmy Butler, who is expected to miss the next 3-4 weeks due to a strained left knee. The good news is that in fantasy terms, it's really just 2-3 weeks, because the NBA is off for the next week for the All-Star break. With that in mind, I'm not dropping him too far down my rankings. He is a statistical beast when he is healthy, so he remains in my top 25 for now.
That said, a knee strain for a player who is on the court 38-plus minutes per game, has dealt with injuries in recent seasons and plays with reckless abandon, is a legitimate concern. He is the kind of player you may want to deal when healthy if you have a highly competitive team and don't want to deal with the risk he brings. On the other hand, if you need to take a risk to win, you may want to buy low on him now.
I'm not altering Derrick Rose's ranking, because he presumably will take on a higher usage rate in the short term, which is not a good thing for his frail body -- to wit, he missed Monday's game with "general body soreness." E'Twaun Moore debuts in my rankings, because he should be relevant in the short term and there is at least a chance that the injury-prone Butler and Rose will miss more time down the stretch.
The next injury that popped up this week is to Marc Gasol, who is out indefinitely with a broken right foot. Any fantasy veteran knows that you never want to hear "foot injury" connected to 7-foot-1, 265-pound player, especially when he is in his 30s. "Indefinitely" could well mean the rest of the season.
I already had slid him downward in recent weeks, because his production was waning (6.1 RPG, 43.1 field goal percentage in January). Now, I have to drop him way down, because it's anyone's guess when or if he will be back on the court at full speed this season.
As a result of Gasol's injury, I have Zach Randolph taking a big leap, because he should get a big bump in usage and is capable of doing something significant in scoring and rebounding. I can't push him too high up, though, because he does little else in the box scores and at age 34, the extra work could wear him out.
Jeff Green has been on and off of my list this season, but he should be a viable fantasy scorer going forward, though he doesn't offer much else in his stat lines. Matt Barnes is worth keeping an eye on, too, though he'll need to prove himself with Gasol out before cracking my top 130.
Rounding out this week's trifecta of impact fantasy injuries, Tyreke Evans will undergo surgery on his troublesome knee and miss the remainder of the season. The writing was on the wall in recent weeks, as he was battling swelling and pain in the joint after undergoing a pair of surgeries on it in the past year. His long-term career in the NBA surely has to be of serious concern and something to which we will have to give much thought when drafting next season.
Evans' long-term absence solidifies Jrue Holiday's value going forward, but I'm not moving him up any, because he remains an injury risk due to his own leg issues. The real beneficiary from a fantasy standpoint will be Norris Cole, who should be locked into well over 30 minutes per game for at least the rest of this month, while Eric Gordon is recovering from a broken finger. And considering Gordon's lengthy injury history and the trade buzz surrounding him, Cole could continue to play big minutes one way or another the rest of the way. Cole isn't a fantasy beast, but he is a viable option if you need point guard production.
Another injured player about whom I am very concerned is Carmelo Anthony. A 31-year-old player with a massive amount of mileage on his body, who is playing big minutes with a large usage rate on a sore knee is the definition of a red flag for fantasy owners. The New York Knicks' coaching change may give them some hope of pushing toward a playoff spot, which would presumably keep him on the court, and should be considered a plus for his fantasy value. But it's just as likely that the Knicks fall out of the race and they shut Melo down. He has fallen out of my top 50 due to those concerns.
Speaking of guys who give their fantasy owners a perpetual ulcer due to fear of another absence from their lineups, Bradley Beal appears to be back to form as an impact player, so I am moving him up in my rankings. He cracks my top 50, and the longer he stays healthy, the higher he will go -- but we should probably put an asterisk next to his name to denote the fear his owners have about his health every day.
On the opposite end of things, one player who has gotten healthy and hit his stride lately is Jeff Teague. I've noted plenty of times that I'm not as high on Teague as others, because he doesn't crush it in any one category, so he really needs volume for his overall production to pay off as an impact fantasy asset. Well, he looks terrific now and has that volume workload, so I bumped him up significantly. We should be somewhat concerned about trade buzz surrounding him, especially if he ends up in some sort of a backup role. For now, keep riding him.
One more injury I will touch on is the mighty unfortunate one sustained by Manu Ginobili. Ouch. He wasn't a real fantasy factor, but with the veteran expected to miss at least a month, the door has opened for Danny Green to make some noise -- and he has done just that lately. The rebounding, steals and blocks have been there for a while, but now that he has found his stroke in an increased role, the scoring and 3s are there, too. Don't hesitate to add him to your rosters immediately.