At this point, if you're not gunning for a championship, you're already dreaming about your 2019-20 draft. It's late in the year. Let's get crazy. Let's examine a uniquely geeky way to approach your 2019-20 draft via categorical scarcity.
Because in executing my year-end audit of the Player Rater, I've found a unique wrinkle. When considering categorical scarcity...one category stands out amongst all others.
(No. Not points scored. Drafting around scoring is a sure way to leave your team sadly understocked overall efficiency. Plus, let's face it, prioritizing points is for fantasy Philistines.)
What if there was a way to approach your next draft by prioritizing only one category? Would that make life simpler?
As a draft strategy, we're going to build a draft out of prioritizing just one single Player Rater category.
FT%. Free throw production. Fantasy's scarcest category.
(And remember, within the Player Rater, FT% doesn't just mean pure free throw percentage. FT% also accounts for free throw volume: the number of attempts per game.)
What makes free throw production so scarce? Four reasons.
Reason one: amount of available positive production, Sure, there are other categories that ring up somewhat scarce. (Field goal percentage. Blocks. 3-pointers.)
But in terms of Player Rater points in available production, FT% ranks the lowest of all categories in fantasy. When you add up all of the available points for the top 100 players in FT%, it adds up to just 47.74 points. (To lend perspective, FG% adds up to 66.28 points, while the other categories all add up to well over 100 points.)
Reason two: FT% is one of two categories (along with FG%) where players can turn in a negative value. For every James Harden (4.43 FT% points), there's a Ben Simmons (-4.32). Out of the top 100 players on the Player Rater, 27 of them produce a negative Player Rater value. That means over a quarter of the top 100 players are hurting your team in the category.
And the players that hurt your team's bottom line in FT% are really doing it with gusto. Because the negative producers in FT% don't chart out in a nice, steady decline like the negative producers in FG%. There's a statistical cliff at the bottom end of free throw production. A real 10-man FT% Bermuda Triangle: LeBron, Russell Westbrook, Mason Plumlee, Montrezl Harrell, Rudy Gobert, Andre Drummond, Ben Simmons, Willie Cauley-Stein, Steven Adams, and Hassan Whiteside.
Reason three: top-end scarcity. There's only a small group of players that combine high efficiency with high volume. There are eight Superproducers in FT%: Kawhi Leonard, Devin Booker, Stephen Curry, Lou Williams, Danilo Gallinari, Kevin Durant, Damian Lillard and Harden.
Reason four: there's a cross-section of categorical and positional scarcity. Because big men (PF/Cs) tend to really bad in free throw production.
Of the 27 negative FT% producers, 13 of them qualify at center. If you add up the FT% of the 40 center-eligible players in the top 100, their aggregate FT% is -32.99. Only 15 of those center-eligible players produced a positive FT%.
Out of the top 40 centers in fantasy, there are only 12.42 available Player Rater points in positive value. And four centers make up for half of those points: LaMarcus Aldridge (2.27), Karl-Anthony Towns (1.83), Joel Embiid (1.69) and Nikola Jokic (1.59).
So, with all this scarcity in mind, let's map out a winning draft strategy that not only guarantees a win in FT%, but sets you up for success in other categories.
(And we're making this an efficiency-first strategy by not only prioritizing FT%, but FG% as well. I'm doing this by throwing in the rule that any negative score in FG% must be cancelled out by an equal or greater value in 3-point production.)
ROUND 1
There are three general directions to go in the first round.
1. Draft James Harden. Whether you're drafting for positional or categorical scarcity, Harden is a one-man tier.
2. Draft one of the rare FT% Superproducers that qualify at PF or C: Towns, Durant or Jokic. You'll get more bang for your FT% buck with Towns or Durant, but Jokic's across-the-board production constitutes a unique fantasy opportunity...especially with the leg up you'll get in assists. (You could also make the argument that the 2019-20 version of Anthony Davis could qualify as a PF/C FT% Superproducer.)
3. Draft one of the other point guard-eligible FT% Superproducers: Lillard or Curry. There's actually a good deal of scarcity at the top end of PGs in FT%.
ROUND 2
There are two directions.
1. Draft LaMarcus Aldridge or Joel Embiid. After Towns, Jokic, Aldridge and Embiid (and possibly Davis), the FT% bubble at center bursts. If you go center-center in your first two rounds, you'll be cornering the market in FT% that you'll be able to reinforce at other positions later in the draft.
2. Draft Kyrie Irving or Kemba Walker. Either player will provide a reasonable simulation of Lillard or Curry's production. But I'd only recommend going Irving/Walker if you landed Towns, Durant, Jokic or Davis in the first round.
ROUND 3
Pick one of four players.
1. Mike Conley. He's the last of the point guards that combine elite FT% with elite assist production.
2. Devin Booker. If he keeps his PG/SG eligibility, he'll basically be James Harden lite. There's also every chance that Booker's late-season scoring binge propels him to second-round consideration.
3. Jimmy Butler. If you feel the need for some statistical diversification across multiple categories, go for Butler.
4. Brook Lopez. With Just Nurkic's injury, there's a good chance Lopez finishes the season in the Player Rater top 20. If Milwaukee returns with this season's rotation intact, there's no reason not to think Lopez won't be worth a third-round pick...especially when employing a FT%-first draft strategy.
ROUND 4
Pick one of three players.
1. Danilo Gallinari. Over half of Gallinari's 8.79 Player Rater points are produced within two of fantasy's scarcest categories: FT% and 3PT.
2. Trae Young. If you've waited on PG until now, Young is a great upside pick. But a la Booker, Young's-late season statistical splurge might nudge him up a round.
3. Kevin Love. The last of the center-eligible players capable of giving you at least 1.50 Player Rater points in free throw production.
ROUND 5
Jayson Tatum if you want upside, Khris Middleton if you need a SG, Al Horford or Jonas Valanciunas if you need a C.
(After round five, you can start drafting for positional need.)
ROUND 6
Lou Williams, Darren Collison, Malcolm Brogdon or Serge Ibaka.
ROUND 7
Chris Paul, Jeremy Lamb, J.J. Redick, Bojan Bogdanovic, Lauri Markkanen, Otto Porter, Jr., Jamal Murray, or Jaren Jackson Jr.
ROUND 8
D.J. Augustin, Reggie Jackson, or Dewayne Dedmon. (Or Jeff Green if he returns to the Wall-less Wizards.)
ROUND 9
Danny Green, Terrence Ross, or Tomas Satoransky. (At this point, since you've gone PF/C early, you're probably filling your backcourt and wing positions).
ROUND 10
Jordan Clarkson, Evan Fournier, or Justin Holiday.
Wrapping up...here are a couple of realistic examples of lineups using the FT% strategy.
PG: Mike Conley
SG: Khris Middleton
SF: Danilo Gallinari
PF: LaMarcus Aldridge
C: Nikola Jokic
G: Malcom Brogdon
F: Otto Porter, Jr.
UTIL: D.J. Augustin
UTIL: Terrence Ross
UTIL: Justin Holiday
PG: Damian Lillard
SG: Devin Booker
SF: Jayson Tatum
PF: Kevin Love
C: Joel Embiid
G: Chris Paul
F: Serge Ibaka
UTIL: Dewayne Dedmon
UTIL: Tomas Satoransky
UTIL: Evan Fournier