Centers: Draft Early And Often
A Fantasy Basketball Guide to Drafting Centers
By Tad Miller [website] from McLean, VA on October 23, 2005 in Fantasy Sports
Yahoo Fantasy NBA Basketball Leagues require you to play two Centers for 82 games a piece. As mentioned in our earlier article Center of Concern http://fantasybbcoach.blogspot.com/2005/09/center-of-concern.html , good Centers are hard to come by. As of the date of this article there are approximately 113 Center eligible players that are active in Yahoo Fantasy NBA. Less than half of that number will see any significant minutes on the floor.
I strongly believe that if you want to win a Yahoo Fantasy NBA league you must draft a Center worthy of being drafted in the first three rounds. This is currently a very short list: Tim Duncan, Yao Ming, Brad Miller, Zydrunas Ilgauskas, and Emeka Okafor. Noticeably absent from that list are Shaq, Ben Wallace and Amare Stoudemire. As mentioned in ıCenter of Concernı, Shaq and Ben Wallace are fantasy ıdeal breakersı strictly on the basis of their free throw percentage. And, in case youıve had your head in the ground, Amare Stoudemire is out with a knee injury for about four months.
After drafting your number one Center, you still have to draft another. The next tier of available Center talent includes: Marcus Camby, Mehmet Okur, Rasheed Wallace, Raef LaFrentz and P.J. Brown. These players typically will go anywhere from the fourth to the seventh round of your draft.
Tier three really isnıt that different in production from the second tier, but these players all tend to be drafted in the later rounds: Brendan Haywood, Samuel Dalembert, Eddie Curry and Nenad Kristic are good third tier options at Center. These are all players worth considering from the fifth round down as your second center.
I strongly believe in playing it safe and having insurance in case of injury, so I always try to draft three Centers. You always have a minimum of three spots on your bench that you donıt have to play every night. Since Center is so important and so rare a position, you need a third Center.
The things to consider when drafting a third Center: Blocked Shots, Blocked Shots and Blocked Shots! Blocks are the rarest of fantasy basketball categories so you need to have a shot blocking Center specialist in reserve to keep you competitive in the category. Itıs worth it to play a Center every now and then that provides you little else statistically in all the other categories, but excels at blocking shots. Theo Ratliff, Adonal Foyle and Chris Anderson are some of the best at doing this.
The other category, outside of blocks to consider when drafting a third Center is a non-scoring category. Minutes per game are always one of the most important considerations for any late round draft pick. Andrew Bogut was the number one draft pick of last seasonıs draft, and is already saying he doesnıt think he should start. However, Bogut will see significant minutes for the Bucks, even if he doesnıt start, and will provide rebounds, points and a few blocked shots. Another non-starting Center that will see significant time on the floor is Denverıs Nene. Nene is still very young, and has a huge upside for improvement. He will see big minutes with the Nuggets, especially if Marcus Camby gets injured.
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