NBA First Half Recap: Risers, Fallers, and Frivolities at the Center Position

March 8, 2021

Antonio Losada looks back at the first half of the season and comes up with some statistical frivolities, risers, fallers, and other fantasy basketball takeaways at center to have in consideration before the home stretch tips off as we gear up for the postseason.

Welcome to the RotoBaller NBA Recap. Welcome, also, to the weirdest review in the history of pro basketball in the USA as the league is trying to pull off the feat of completing a "full" season in the middle of a pandemic. So far, so good, though. There have been some games missed here and there, but we're in the All-Star break with 49% of the season on the rearview mirror, and although the second half looks like it'll be a true grind, we're surely getting there.

In this three-piece series, one per each G/F/C position we're accustomed to working within fantasy leagues, I will highlight a few key fantasy basketball takeaways from what has happened in the league through the midway point of the 2020-21 season. I will highlight some feats, drop some statistical frivolities, write down some names of surprising and upsetting players, etc...

Fantasy basketball has a lot of moving pieces with all the different scoring settings that are possible to play under, so I will always do my best to spotlight where players gain or lose value in certain game types. For the sake of simplicity and consistency, every time I mention Fantasy Points in these articles I will be using DraftKings' scoring system, which goes as follows: 1*PTS, 0.5*3PM, 1.25*RBD, 1.5*AST, 2*STL, 2*BLK, -0.5*TO. On top of that, bonus points are awarded for Double-Doubles (+1.5) and Triple-Doubles (+3), only one per player at a time. Without further ado, let's get right into what happened for the past three months and change around the Association!

Risers, Fallers, and Frivolities at the Center (C) Position

Since the day the season tipped off all the way back on December 22, I have been building a daily database that includes every fantasy-eligible player of each day slate of games along with his stat line on those matches. It's been a little over three months of games, and at this point (49%) into the season, my dataset already contains 11,304 individual entries!

Of those total stat lines, 1,722 (15% of them) belong to players tagged with the C position in the games they played. More than enough to try to find some relevant information about that massive mountain of data, Let's get to it!

Best Fantasy Performers and Performances

The first category covers some incredible games put up by different players through the first half of the NBA season. There have been a lot of games and individual outings out there, so it's impossible to go through everything here. That being said, the following lines definitely caught my eyes.

• Who else, other than Joel Embiid, could have logged the best fantasy-game of the season through the first three months of play? JoJo dropped a 92-FP piece on Chicago to the tune of a 50-17-5-2-4 insane line in just 35 minutes, shot 65% on 26 FGA, scored 15-of-17 freebies, only committed 2 TOs, and logged a monstrous 42% usage rate.
• Only Nikola Jokic (50-8-12-1-3) has been able to join Embiid in the top-3 single-game best performances, as JoJo also holds the third spot. Those are the only three games by a center in which they reached more than 78 FP.
• Although Embiid has two of the top-3 best games, the truth is that Jokic has been better all across the season: Jokic has eight of the top-16 performances to his name compared to Embiid's four in that same 16-game span. Jokic's average line in those eight games: 36-13-10-1-1 for 75 FP.

• There have been three kinda-under-the-radar players to reach 60+ FP in at least one game this season: Deandre Ayton (26-17-3-0-5), Jarrett Allen (26-18-2-0-4), and Jonas Valanciunas (27-20-3-1-1).
• Keeping on the valuable/surprising beat, here are some other players with 45+ FP games through the first three months of the season that came seemingly out of nowhere: Frank Kaminsky (12-13-8-1), Hassan Whiteside (26-16-1 with 5 blocks), Clint Capela (227-26-2-1-5), Kelly Olynyk (18-10-7-1 with 4 treys), and Al Horford (26-7-8-2-3).

• The League is about Unicorns these days, and Vucevic is the OG one. He's the only center with more than one game (two) hitting 6 treys, and he's joined by John Collins as the only two centers to hit that mark in a single game at least once so far this season.
• Horford, Jokic, and Karl-Anthony Towns are the only other centers with at least one game scoring 5 long-range shots. Vucevic is the greatest three-point center in the league, with nine games scoring 4+ three-pointers.
• Capela has the greatest rebounding outing of the year with 26 boards against Detroit back in January. Drummond ranks second already two down at 24 and also holds the third spot with 23. No other player has more than 22 rebounds in a single game, with Enes Kanter, Jokic, and the own Drummond having one 22-rebound game each.
• When it comes to assists, there is a go-to center sitting all by himself on top of the leaderboard. Nine of the top-10 games in dimes, all of 11+, belong to Nikola Jokic. He's got performances of 18, 14, 13, 12 (x3), and 11 (x3) dimes, while Karl-Anthony Towns is the only other center to have reached the 11-assist mark this through the AS break. Unsurprisingly, Jokic also has the most steals in a single game with 7 thefts against Brooklyn back on Jan. 12.
• Capela, somehow, got to swat 10 shots against Minnesota in what is the best blocking performance to date this season. Nobody has blocked more than 6 shots, with Drummond and Myles Turner reaching that mark once each.

• Among G-eligible players with 20+ games played, the top-performers in average FP per game are, in order: Jokic, Embiid, Vucevic, Drummond, Bam Adebayo, Capela, Rudy Gobert, Valanciunas, Ayton, Collins, Jarrett, Turner, Horford, Kanter, and Mason Plumlee.
• Among the same group of players, the top-performers in average FP per minute are, in order: Embiid, Jokic, Drummond, Vucevic, Capela, Gobert, Valanciunas, Adebayo, Kanter, Whiteside, JaVale McGee, Jarret, Robert Williams, and Naz Reid.

• Undervalued players (min. 20 games played) averaging the highest FP/G: Jarrett, Turner, Horford, Kanter, Plumlee, Wendell Carter Jr., Montrezl Harrell, Steven Adams, Mitchell Robinson, Kelly Olynyk, Naz Reid, James Wiseman, Jakob Poeltl, and DeAndre Jordan.
• Undervalued players (min. 20 games played) averaging the highest FP/min: Kanter, Whiteside, McGee, Jarrett, Robert Williams, Naz Reid, Willy Hernangomez, Dwight Howard, Horford, Plumlee, James Wiseman, Montrezl Harrell, and Wendell Carter Jr.

Worst Fantasy Performers and Performances

Time to look at the other end of the spectrum and highlight some of the worst performers and performances of the year. This is not meant to just count the goose eggs that took place during the first half of the season, but rather to look at performance against expectations. That way we can get a better idea of who truly underperformed and to which extent.

I'm exclusively looking at single-game stat lines in which players logged at least 20 minutes of playing time, so that way we avoid most injury-related duds and we get a better outcome and set of data to analyze and extract nuggets of information from.

• Although it is hard to find the absolute worst fantasy performance of the first half, as that is a little bit subjective, there have definitely been some horrid top-tier performers out there: Myles Turner (3-3 with a block in 26 minutes), Daniel Theis (4-2-2 in 21 minutes), Steven Adams (4-2-1 with a block in 29 minutes), John Collins (8-3 with a steal in 30 minutes), and Bam Adebayo (11-2-3 in 33 minutes).
• Among the bottom-15 performances of the season coming from centers, Jakob Poeltl, Steven Adams, and Myles Turner each have two entries.

• The only negative fantasy statistic is turnovers, taking 0.5 FP from the total score per each TO committed. No surprise in finding Nikola Jokic with the most-TO performance of the year given his style of play. Jokic committed a season-high 10 TOs against Sacramento all the way back in January. No other center has more than 8 turnovers, with Mason Plumlee and Bam Adebayo hitting that mark once each.
• Although not directly involved in fantasy score, personal fouls are another negative statistic as they limit the players' upside leaving them off the court for larger spells. As many as 34 times has a center fouled out through the first half of the season; Plumlee clearly leads the pack with six games in which he fouled out of the match, the fastest one after just 19 minutes of playing time. Willie Cauley-Stein has the actual fastest expulsion with 6 PF in just below 12 minutes (!) of playing time.

• Among F-eligible players with 20+ games played and averaging 25+ MPG, the worst performers in average FP per game are, in order: Maxi Kleber, Brook Lopez, Olynyk, Mitchell Robinson, Steven Adams, Wendell Carter Jr., Plumlee, Kanter, and Horford.
• Among the same group of players, the worst performers in average FP per minute are, in order: Kleber, Brook Lopez, Mitchell Robinson, Adams, Olynyk, and Myles Turner.
• Overvalued players (min. 20 games played, 20+ MPG) averaging the lowest FP/G relative to expectations: Harrell, Kanter, Horford, Turner, Jarrett Allen, Collins, Ayton, Valanciunas, Gobert, and Capela.
• Overvalued players (min. 20 games played, 20+ MPG) averaging the lowest FP/min relative to expectations: Turner, Harrell, Collins, Ayton, Horford, and Jarrett Allen.

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