Fantasy Hoops Retrospective: Legacy Edition

In his prime, during the 1989-90 season, Patrick Ewing averaged 28.6 points, 10.9 rebounds, 2.2 assists, 1.0 steals and a career-high 4.0 blocks. He was terrific from the field at 55.1% shooting, and even knocked down 77.5% of his free throws (he was remarkably consistent, staying north of 70% for 15 straight years). Those numbers are fantasy gold, of course, but are they better than modern-day Joel Embiid? Yes, they are. Based purely on statistics, Ewing averaged 56.6 fantasy points per game that year, whereas Embiid has never been above 53.7 in his career. Ewing’s 1989-90 season also ranks way ahead of Embiid in 9-cat value – he’s also ahead of multiple seasons from guys like Karl-Anthony Towns, Anthony Davis and Nikola Jokic.

Basketball fans love to compare teams and players from different eras, or debate which players were the best of all time. When it comes to fantasy values, fortunately, we don’t have to debate – we can conclusively determine who was better based on statistics. It’s a just-for-fun exercise, and the ground rules are as follows:

1. The initial pool included every season from every player over the past 15 years. To qualify, they must have played at least 40 games at 20+ minutes per game.
2. I added a group of ‘legacy’ players based on my own whims. Most of them are Hall-of-Famers, but I also included seasons from guys such as Shawn Kemp and Eddie Jones.
3. For the ‘legacy’ players, I selected ONE representative season. For example, I’m using Dennis Rodman’s 1991-92 season with the Pistons. I tried to select the best fantasy season possible for these players, but may have gotten some wrong – was Michael Jordan’s 1987-88 season better than his 1988-89 season? I used 88-89, which featured career highs in rebounds (8.0) and assists (8.0), but there’s room for error.
4. The final step was to put all of these players together, determine z-scores for the entire qualifying population, and develop ranks for 8-cat, 9-cat and points leagues. I even added 9-cat with a ‘punt FT%’ angle to help out guys like Shaquille O’Neal and Andre Drummond.
5. The NBA didn’t begin recording steals and blocks until the 1973-74 season, turnovers were adopted in 1977-78, and 3-pointers came in 1979-80. Without those stats it's impossible to make a fair comparison for fantasy purposes. For turnovers, I used an estimated average of players during their prime (I did my best). I've used a few seasons without 3-pointers, even though it puts those players at a distinct disadvantage in 8-cat/9-cat, but you won't find any seasons prior to 1973. Because of that cut-off, there's no Bill Russell, Bob Cousy, Wilt Chamberlain, etc.
6. If you have any players who weren't included, or specific years of guys on the list you'd like to see added, let me know via Twitter! I can easily add players and share the results.

That’s it! To avoid an unwieldy list, I’m only including the top-100 players for each fantasy format in this column – to view and/or download the top-500 in each format, click here.

When trimming thousands of players down to top-200 lists, I had to be ruthless. That meant tossing out Pete Maravich's 1976-77 season in 8-cat and 9-cat, even though he averaged 31.1 points, 5.1 rebounds, 5.4 assists and 1.2 steals. He shot just 43.3% on a whopping 28.0 attempts per game, which cratered his appeal. Next time I might select different Pistol Pete years to see how much better he fares, but at least he's high up in the 'Points league' setting for 1976-77 – he averaged a meaty 49.8 fantasy points per game, good for No. 59 on the list.

George McGinnis (1978-79) and Shaq's monster 1999-00 season failed to even crack the top 1,000 for 8-cat due to brutal percentages. And before arriving at the top-250 in 9-cat, I regretfully jettisoned multiple seasons from Kobe Bryant, as well as some from Paul Pierce, Damian Lillard, Dirk Nowitzki, Kevin Garnett, Bernard King from 1984-85, Yao Ming from 2003-04, Reggie Miller from 1996-97, and more. Remember, I'm going strictly off the numbers and we're looking at a huge data set. The math is brutal, and I didn't play favorites. For 8-cat purposes, Adrian Dantley, Elvin Hayes and Arvydas Sabonis also failed to crack the top-250.

However, George McGinnis shows up at No. 134 on the points-league list with the 1978-79 season I selected for him with Denver. And had I gone back to his ABA years (the only player I did that for was Julius Erving), you'd have seen McGinnis at No. 4. During the 1974-75 season with Indiana, he racked up 29.8 points, 14.3 boards, 6.3 assists, 2.6 steals and 0.7 blocks. He also turned it over 5.3 times per game, a flaw that followed him throughout his career -- he finished with a negative assist-to-turnover ratio. Nevertheless, he was one of the three guys on this list putting up 60+ fantasy points per game in the 1970s. I knew nothing about him prior to writing this column, but thoroughly enjoyed watching clips of him on YouTube. 

When I asked my colleague Jonas Nader for his thoughts, he zeroed in on John Collins’ fantastic per-game stats in 2019-20, which put him on par with Gary Payton’s 1995-96 season in 8-cat, and was just behind David Robinson’s 1994-95 campaign in 9-cat.

“Looking over these ranks really put into perspective just how good of a season John Collins had (38th best season in 9-cat). He quickly made up for lost time after the 25-game suspension, racking up 21.6 points, 10.1 rebounds, 1.5 assists, 0.8 steals, 1.6 blocks and 1.4 triples. To put that into context, Collins is just the 5th player in NBA history to average 20/10 with 1.5+ blocks and 1+ triples.

His improvement from last year is staggering, as his block rate more than doubled from 1.8% to 4.1% and he jumped from 34% from beyond the arc to 40%. He played 47% of his minutes at center this season compared to 18% last year which obviously helped his rebounding and block numbers, so it’s going to be fascinating to see the impact Clint Capela has on Collins’ stats in the future. Either way, Collins seems like a lock to be off the board before the end of the second round of drafts next season.”

It is indeed wild to see how dominant Collins has been while on the court this season, pumping out elite fantasy value in any format. That said, he was better in 8-cat/9-cat, due to his extreme efficiency, ranking top-100 in both of those while dipping to No. 233 for points-league value. Hassan Whiteside’s 2019-20 campaign was also shockingly high in these ranks, coming in at No. 46 for 9-cat. For perspective, he comes out ahead of monster seasons from guys like Kawhi Leonard, Kevin McHale, James Harden, Magic Johnson and Julius Erving. The pillar of Whiteside’s fantasy value is blocks, with strong support from rebounds and FG%. That raises an interesting question, which I hope to explore in a future column – should fantasy owners value players differently if the vast majority of their value comes from only 2-3 categories?

When I turned to Mike Gallagher, he focused on points-league ranks with some interesting takeaways:

“Kareem’s 1975-76 season was not only the best year per game, but he played in all 82 games at 41.2 minutes per game with averages of 27.7 points, 16.9 boards, 5.0 dimes, 1.5 steals and 4.1 blocks. He was top 10 for total blocks ever that year, and only two players have racked up more boards than him in a season since that year (Moses Malone, Dennis Rodman). If you did look prior to that year, Wilt Chamberlain actually topped Kareem’s boards an absurd 13 seasons.

One interesting trend up top is how seven of the top 15 seasons all came in the last four seasons. Part of it is about pace of play, but it’s really just a testament to how great guys like James Harden, Russell Westbrook and Giannis Antetokounmpo are at filling stat sheets. The 3-point shooting certainly helps guys like Harden to up his efficiency, but a big reason is how he’s just absurd at getting fouls. If the 2019-20 season is over, Harden will lead the NBA in free throw makes for the sixth straight season, and he’s held a 144.8 margin per season over that span.

It’s also interesting that Stephen Curry’s 2015-16 No. 1 year in the last 15 years for nine-cat value comes in at just 55. Two players that year were better than Curry in this format per game (DeMarcus Cousins, Russell Westbrook), and James Harden actually scored more total fantasy points than Curry that year. He also outscored him in points scored by a single point (2,376 to 2,375). Obviously, the percentages and 3-pointers were huge factors for Curry, and they really don’t help him in the counting stats department for this points-league format.

Another change up top from the nine-cat format to this one is the lack of Chris Paul, who has a ridiculous 14 of the top 150 seasons per game in nine-cat in the last 15 years. The points league is so heavily weighted on scoring, and CP3 is all about across-the-board output with great percentages. CP3’s dimes were also a big part of his value and not so much here. A quick CP3 aside – Steve Nash or Paul led the NBA in total dimes from 2004-05 to 2011-12, and that stretch was bookended by Stephon Marbury in 2003-04 and Greivis Vasquez in 2012-13.”

Greivis Vasquez?!? In an NBA trivia quiz, I would have bombed that answer every time. Mike highlights the difference between formats, which really can’t be overstated. Points leagues (especially the FanDuel/Yahoo/NBA.com default) severely discounts efficiency, so players who are great in 8-cat/9-cat are often just mediocre in points leagues.

I added ‘punt-FT%’ values to show a similar trend. You can of course punt any category (or multiple), but turnovers and FT% are two of the easiest and most obvious to target. Ben Wallace in 2005-06 suddenly spikes to No. 15 overall for the past 15 years, and that includes all of the ‘legacy’ players – four of whom top the punt-FT% list with Bob McAdoo at the top, followed by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Bill Walton and Hakeem Olajuwon. You don’t have to look much further to find Elvin Hayes, and I’m once again smitten with the fact that Shawn Marion and Marcus Camby are all over the place on these lists – they both have three top-25 seasons in the punt-FT% list.  

For Steve Alexander, these lists sparked remembrances of things past. I get the feeling Steve could have typed for days without running out of topics – if you haven’t heard his terrific stories about encounters with NBA players, start tuning into the Rotoworld hoops podcast! Here’s what Steve wrote:

“I find it really interesting that in all of the scoring categories listed, Michael Jordan, generally regarded as the greatest basketball player of all time, isn’t the No. 1 player in any format for his 1998-89 season. He comes close in 8-cat, but MJ’s 98-99 season can’t quite top Stephen Curry’s amazing 2015-16 campaign. I was always a Dominque Wilkins guy and generally rooted against Jordan, especially since I was also a Pacers fan, but I cannot wait for ‘The Last Dance’ documentary to hit on April 19.  

Hakeem Olajuwon litters the pages of these rankings and I remember him racking up a quadruple-double with blocks at some point in my fantasy career. In fact, cheating and using the internet tells me that he’s one of only four players to pull off a quadruple-double and he did it twice – sort of. In 1990 he reportedly had a line that included 29 points, 18 rebounds, 11 blocks and 10 assists, but the Rockets were accused of stat padding, so they took away one of his assists, leaving him with a triple-double and nine dimes. So later that same month he went off for 18 points, 16 rebounds, 11 blocks and 10 assists against the Bucks, which is the one I’m recalling. Hakeem was a monster and I loved him when he was at the University of Houston playing for ‘Phi Slamma Jamma’ with Clyde Drexler, and that love carried over to the NBA. I wore a pair of Akeem ‘The Dream’ Etonics for years and was thrilled when I went to work one day at Brendamour’s Sporting Goods and my manager said he had a surprise for me. It was a single Akeem Dream signed by the man himself, although he was known as Akeem back then. I’ve still got it today and it remains the only signed shoe I have that wasn’t actually worn in an NBA game. Additionally, Karl Malone gave me a pair of his shoes in his rookie season and they were neutral Dreams, although he attempted to color in the Etonic logo with a purple felt-tip marker. Yeah, it was a different world back then.  

Bob McAdoo’s name is also all over these lists, although I wasn’t old enough to have used him in fantasy hoops, and it was nice to see Julius Erving's fantasy excellence. He was my favorite player growing up and if you haven’t seen ‘The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh’ yet, you should stop what you’re doing and make that happen. 

The first year I played fantasy hoops was 1989 or 90 and it was based off a contest run in the Indy Star newspaper. They had 12 groups of five players and you would select one player from each group and mail it into the newspaper. That was your team for the year, unless you mailed in changes, and they’d run a list of the Top 100 every week. I think the only categories they counted were points, rebounds and assists and I was all set to win the whole thing one year until Phoenix point guard Kevin Johnson suddenly started missing games. I remember being at work at RCI in Indy and calling the Phoenix newspaper and asking for the sports department. I got hold of someone and asked them what was up with KJ, as there was no Rotoworld or internet at that time. The guy assured me that he simply wasn’t feeling well and should be back ‘any day now.’ I went ahead and rolled with him in the final week of the contest and then the news eventually trickled down – KJ had the chicken pox and was going to miss weeks, if not more. And my season was kaput. 

The first time I ever played in an actual league was based on the model in the newspaper. I made copies of the Star’s entry form, crossed Michael Jordan’s name out in Group 1, as he was an unfair advantage in my opinion, and handed them out to my 11 buddies. They got them back to me and those were our teams for the season. I don’t remember who won the first year, but I do remember Eddie Jones being a steals monster back in the day. 

That led to us starting a real league, probably in 1991 or 92, which led me to getting up at 5 a.m. on Tuesdays (or was it Wednesday?), going to the gas station and buying a USA Today, busting out the yardstick and highlighter, and pouring over that week’s stats and calculating our league totals. It was an arduous task that would take three or four hours and then it was off to the copy store (pre-Kinkos), making 12 copies of 13 pages of stats and then going to work and distributing the packets to all my buddies in the league. My, how times have changed. I’ll never forget seeing the internet for the first time and pulling up my first box score just after a game had ended one late night in my wife’s office. We broke the rules and logged into her boss’s computer, which probably cost like $3 a minute or something back then, and seeing that first real-time box score was literally one of the defining moments of my life. It was a far cry from waiting until the next morning’s newspaper and only having access to points, rebounds and assists in the box score. 

Stay safe and I hope you enjoyed this trip down memory lane. Eventually we’ll be able to enjoy sports again in the present, hopefully.”

Terrific stuff, and my thanks to Steve, Mike and Jonas for contributing their thoughts! I did include Dominique Wilkins among the ‘legacy players’ I selected, but his 1985-86 season only cracked the top-100 in points leagues – he was No. 433 in 8-cat and outside the top-500 in 9-cat. He averaged a league-leading 30.3 points (46.8% FGs, 81.8% FTs) that season, along with 7.9 rebounds, 2.6 assists, a career-high 1.8 steals, 0.6 blocks and 3.2 turnovers. Those are terrific numbers by any standard, but apparently they weren’t as elite as you might think from a fantasy perspective.

My favorite player as a kid was Shawn Kemp, and I still have VHS recordings of games from the Sonics’ mid-90s playoff runs. I wasn’t convinced he’d fare well in this fantasy analysis, but to my surprise his 1993-94 season was good enough for top-150 in 9-cat, and top-100 in 8-cat. I chose that year because his scoring wasn’t at its peak (18.1 per game), but he compensated with career highs in assists (2.6), steals (1.8) and blocks (2.1). Throw in 10.8 boards and strong percentages, and the only weaknesses were high turnovers (3.3) and a complete lack of 3-pointers. The Reign Man was also super-durable in his heyday, averaging 78.3 games played in his first nine NBA seasons. My younger self is gratified.

I hope you enjoyed this jaunt through fantasy values past and present! If you have any thoughts or comments, you can always find me on Twitter @Knaus_RW. And I haven’t seen ‘The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh’, so I’ll take Steve’s advice and stop what I’m doing to watch it.