Every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, we pose a question to a panel of ESPN fantasy basketball experts to gauge their thoughts on a hot topic.
Today's contributors are ESPN Fantasy's André Snellings, Kyle Soppe, Joe Kaiser and Jim McCormick.
John Wall's average draft position was No. 10 overall, but he currently ranks just 49th on the Player Rater, based on averages. Will he finish the season in the top 15?
André Snellings: I don't see Wall finishing the season in the top 15 of the Player Rater after his slow start, because the competition is just too stiff for him to have ceded this much ground this far in. According to the rater, Stephen Curry is currently ranked 16th with a score of 11.09, and Wall is nowhere near that level. Besides, it's not like Wall is currently narrowing the gap -- it's actually been getting wider.
Wall's score on the rater for the season is 3.83, but for the last 30 days it is only 1.10. He's shown some flutters of life this week, with back-to-back games of 20-plus points with nine assists, and he certainly could be a reasonable "buy-low" candidate if he settles into his normal level as 2018 progresses. But for those that drafted Wall and are staying with him, the best hope is that he gives you top-15 value moving forward.
For the season, however, his opportunity to finish as a top-15 player is a ship that's already sailed.
Kyle Soppe: The answer to the question, as posed, is simple. No, there's too much ground to make up. However, could he be a top-15 guy the rest of the way? That I think he can accomplish, as the majority of his advanced metrics line up with last season's effort, when he finished No. 10 on the Player Rater. His jump shot is improving, but he's still attacking the rim, with roughly 50 percent of his shots coming from inside of 16 feet. I see no reason he can't approach the 20/10 stat line that we've come to expect from him.
Add in some nice defensive numbers, and you've got a do-it-all point guard who is a top-15 option the rest of the way, though probably not for the season as a whole.
Joe Kaiser: I don't think Wall will finish in the top 15 for several reasons. For starters, he has a lot of ground to make up, ranking as low as he is as we near the midpoint of the season. On top of that, the top 15 is stronger than ever this season, so even if Wall starts playing better and putting up more solid numbers, it's unlikely that he'll be able to crack the top 20, let alone the top 15.
The top 10 is just about set, and then you have guys like Victor Oladipo, Jimmy Butler, Russell Westbrook, Damian Lillard and Paul George who play a ton of minutes. All of them are going to be pretty tough to leapfrog. For Wall to move up the Player Rater, he's going to need to shoot far better than his current 41.7 percentage, dish out more assists (8.7 APG) and pull down a lot more rebounds (3.7 RPG). Unfortunately, through 27 games this season, the 27-year-old is below his career average in scoring, rebounds, assists and steals.
Jim McCormick: Wall is taking a ton of difficult shots this season and settling for low-percentage jumpers versus driving. That's why he's also making 20.3 percent fewer free throws per game compared to last season. I suppose the struggles extend beyond shot selection, as he's also dealing with career-low rebound and steal rates, and his lowest assists rate since 2013-14.
Based on all that, you might think I'd recommend you try and get out from Wall while you can. However, the truth is that, since returning from injury in mid-December, he's actually returned to his usual steal and rebounding rates. I'm willing to accept that Wall's atypically low statistical rates have been largely influenced by injury, and that he's due for a positive correction across multiple categories.
While I don't think Wall will finish in the top 15 on the Player Rater by averages or totals, given the hole that he's dug for himself to date, I do think he's a viable top-25 asset going forward and would be willing to "buy low" on a player who has established an otherwise high floor for steals and assists.