Real or Not? Assessing Stats from Guards - 2020-21 Fantasy Basketball Season Review

We're this close to the regular season, and while there is a ton of hype about the incoming rookies (check out all of our NBA Draft analysis here) we still need to reflect on the 2020-2021 season and what happened just a few months back in time. We had another short NBA offseason this year and it's time to do some evaluation on another unique season as we prepare for the 2022 campaign.

When it comes down to facing a fantasy draft, two numbers are often the most sought after by fantasy GMs: current ADP and overall rank from the prior season. No matter how experienced fantasy players are, those two numbers are thought of as the ultimate all-encompassing representations of every fantasy player's value. Knowing what he did in the league the last year and where he is getting drafted this season should be more than enough to make a reasonably good projection going forward, isn't it?

Turns out, those two numbers can be way misleading. Today, I'm here to focus on last season's stats from players labeled as Guards (PG/SG) in order to assess whether those numbers should be seen as real and solid going forward, or just as outliers with slim chances to be there when all is said and done by the end of the 2021-22 season. Let's get to it!

Real Fantasy Basketball Numbers - Guards

Darius Garland, PG - Cleveland Cavaliers

The Cavs seem to be riding a monkey-driven operation. A couple of years back they drafted a guard to build around, then doubled down on that with another lottery pick to fill the position. They proceeded to acquire a great big man in Jarrett Allen last season, only to go and draft another center with a top-3 pick this summer. Whatever they're doing, the only thing on which pretty much every analyst agrees is that Cleveland is just not going to pony up big bucks to retain Collin Sexton when he hits free agency next summer. It's Garland SZN, folks.

Not only did Garland miss most of his lone college season at Vanderbilt, but he entered the league in the 2020 year of our lord. The growing pains hit as hard as they could, and Garland struggled mightily as a rook. His sophomore season, though, turned into a very encouraging one for his future in the L: the average per-game line read 17-2-6-1 when all was said and done, Garland logged 45.1/39.5/84.8 shooting splits, and his production was close enough to Sexton's as to consider not handing the latter a max deal... which might be related to Rubio's arrival in Cleveland.

Garland's improvement from year one to year two was great even though he had to share the backcourt with an opportunity-eater in Sexton. Garland finished 2021 second among sophomores in dimes and steals per game at 6.1 and  1.2 respectively, and was one of only 17 players with a shooting-split baseline above 39/45/84. Again, in his second season. Garland and Tyrese Haliburton were the only two kids aged 21 or younger to put up those gaudy numbers in 2021.

Dennis Schroeder, PG - Los Angeles Lakers (now Boston Celtics)

Talk about a missed train. LOL. Dennis Schroeder got an offer from the Lakers earlier this year, only to reject it and bet on himself entering free agency this summer. Welp. A week into the legal signing period, Schroeder was still to find a home. While it is true that LA just can't afford to pay the point guard tons of money after landing Russ (both because Westbrook is the new PG1 and also because of his hefty salary), are we sure Schroeder has more production inside of him?

Schroeder wasn't bad, but it's not that he played to world-beater levels in his first starting gig in the NBA since his last season in Atlanta. His last year coming off the pine in Oklahoma was fantastic, most probably the best in his seven-year career to that point, and the outcome that made the Lakers trade for him in exchange for Danny Green and Jaden McDaniels last November. The problem is that LA was about to hand the man a starting nod, and he didn't seem to be quite ready to take on that role once more.

The only thing in which Dennis improved was his assists numbers--happens when you play next to a certain LBJ & AD pairing. The three-point shooting cratered to 33.5%, the overall field goal percentage also regressed to a low 43.7%, and the points and rebounds went down to at least three-year lows. Those numbers look to me as real as they get, so as long as Schroeder keeps starting games I don't think he'll do much more than his regressed line from 2021 showed us.

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, PG/SG - Oklahoma City Thunder

SGA could only feature in 35 games last season for the Thunder. Did that cause OKC to stop for a minute when it came to addressing Shai's future with the organization? Hell, no, so the third-year man, former Clipper draftee, signed a monster five-year, $173M extension not even a full week into August. Uh, oh.

Shai will be playing his fourth NBA season at 23 years of age. That's bonkers-young. And best of all, if that this man just doesn't know how to keep on growing on a yearly basis. Shai went from averaging 11 to 19 to 24 PPG. 3 to 3 to 6 APG. 2 to 5 to 4 RPG. All of that while perennially starting games since his rookie year (178 starts in 187 total games played), raising his usage rates from 18.3% to 23.7% and finally 27.8% last year, and never looking back.

You might like him more, or you might like him less, but there is nothing telling us that Shai has already reached a ceiling that seems to have no limits. Last season's injuries got the best of him, but he had played 82 and 70 games in the prior two campaigns so it's not that the man is injury-prone at all. The Thunder are still taking baby steps in their rebuilding process, and Shai is the clear go-to man carrying the squad. A top-15 finish in FP/min last season put him above the likes of Ben Simmons, Devin Booker, and Jrue Holiday (just to name a few), and that seems to be just his floor given the negative contexts he has played into so far in his career.

Fake Fantasy Basketball Numbers - Guards

Talen Horton-Tucker, SG/SF - Los Angeles Lakers

I'm sorry to be a party pooper but... aren't folks out there blowing this whole THT thing out of proportion a bit? I mean, I'm not saying the kid is plain bad or that he doesn't reserve a roster spot in the Lake Show, but we're talking about a guy who played six games as a rookie, and then got 65 middling outings last year for... reasons?

THT line by year's end, coming off the pine 61 times and playing 20.1 MPG read 9-2-3-1. That's not entirely great if you ask me. In fact, on a per-minute basis, Horton-Tucker was a below-average (0.90) performer with just 0.85 FP/min as a sophomore in 2021. You can argue that he didn't benefit from playing along with LBJ and AD most of his minutes, but he still led the second unit with the same Usage Rate as Montrezl Harrell (21.7%) yet he didn't do that much.

Horton-Tucker was able to finish the year as one of only 34 guard-eligible players with a 45+ FG% and 77+ FT%, but his three-point shooting was horrid at a putrid 28.2% only better than DeMar DeRozan's 25.7% mark. If there is a thing being talked about entering 2022 is what are the Lakers going to do when it comes to bolstering their shooting. Well, THT numbers are fake in that they will probably get a bit of a bump next season, but don't bet on Talen shooting the lights out. The fake here has more to do with a jump in usage/minutes than anything else, but I'm not sure if that would be enough for him to become a viable fantasy player.

Jordan Clarkson, SG - Utah Jazz

Shout out to my 6MOY J-Clark! That was great, but that is also a little bit misleading, all things considered. Clarkson's 2021 campaign was definitely one of two halves: the one that secured the award for him, and the one that almost made him lost it entirely. That's why Clarkson enters 2022 with 2021 fake numbers all across the board if you stop at his season-long stats.

J-Clark is coming off to the best season in the NBA. Career highs in points and rebounds, nearly in dimes and steals, and also in FGA, 3PA (8.8 treys attempted a night, say what!?), and good enough shooting percentages to turn him into an off-the-pine microwave as not many in the league. But the steadiness Clarkson showed pre-All-Star break and his mighty shooting prior to that went way down post-All-Star. The shooting splits went from 44.7/37.0/96.7 pre to 40.4/32.3/84.5 post. That's a sizable downgrade from Clarkson's calling card.

The overall averages in those two halves didn't change a lot, but that had more to do with a slight uptick in minutes and usage rather than anything else. Clarkson will retain that heater role next season, but mind you when drafting him that it's probably that his shaky/bouncy ways pop up once more making him a little volatile. Great 6MOY-season from J-Clark, but I'm not sure it'll hold over another full year.

Ricky Rubio, PG - Minnesota Timberwolves (now Cleveland Cavaliers)

Rubio was settling on Oklahoma City wh--wait a second, did Rubio really got to even rent a house in OKC? After spending a year in Phoenix, the veteran got traded to OKC for Chris Paul... and four days later he was moved once more now to his former team in Minny. Rubio, obviously, was pissed at such a whirlwind of trades happening on such short notice and time. And now, another offseason into his career, it was Minnesota that decided to trade him for the nth time.

Last season Rubio could only perform to average-ish levels of play, putting up 0.93 FP/min and finishing the year ranked as the 90th-best overall player in fantasy leagues. That was good, but far from great. The Wolves welcomed no. 1 pick Anthony Edwards but missed D'Angelo Russell for most of the season, which should have been enough to compensate Rubio's numbers. But the point guard never seemed to put his game together, finishing the season at a low 8-3-6-1 line that, honestly, couldn't have looked worse.

Rubio's shooting was an absolute disgrace (38.8% from the floor, 30.8% from three) and 2021 saw him fall below the 20% Usage Rate barrier for the first time in four seasons. Then, Olympic Rubio appeared in our lives, got traded to the Cavs in the middle in the competition, but straight refused to drop his game in Tokyo making it to the tourney's best-five. I have to think Rubio will rebound in Cleveland. The Cavs are leaning toward trading--or at least exploring moves regarding--Collin Sexton, and Rubio is "only" going to be 31 next season. Not many veterans can help Garland and the rest of the youngsters improve as Rubio can, and last season looked more like an outlier in his career than proof of the washed-up part of Rubio's career popping up. Trust the bounceback.

More Fantasy Basketball Analysis