Fantasy Basketball Face In a New Place: D'Angelo Russell to the Brooklyn Nets
The rumors, wheeling and dealing have been fast and furious in the NBA this week. On Tuesday, the Los Angeles Lakers agreed to send guard D'Angelo Russell and center Timofey Mozgov to the Brooklyn Nets for center Brook Lopez and the No. 27 pick in Thursday night’s draft.
Lopez and Russell are the best players in the deal, and the most impactful for fantasy basketball next season. But I’m focusing on Russell, who should step into a clear lead role for Brooklyn.
After a fairly disappointing rookie season, Russell’s numbers were up across the board in 2016-17. In 63 games (60 starts), he averaged 15.6 points, 4.8 assists, 3.5 rebounds and 1.4 steals per game. His turnovers also increased a bit playing in a faster-paced system under Luke Walton, to 2.8 per game, but that could be expected. …show more content…
But he was also a bit more efficient by some measures (15.3 PER, 51.8 True Shooting Percentage, 48.3 Effective Field Goal Percentage).
Lopez is leaving a major void of offensive touches behind with the Nets. He had 29.2 percent usage rate this past season (tied for 14th in the league) and a usage rate of at least 27 percent in four of the last five seasons he has played more than 70 games. This era of the NBA is perimeter-centric, and the Nets can now move that way with Lopez
The rumors, wheeling and dealing have been fast and furious in the NBA this week. On Tuesday, the Los Angeles Lakers agreed to send guard D'Angelo Russell and center Timofey Mozgov to the Brooklyn Nets for center Brook Lopez and the No. 27 pick in Thursday night’s draft.
Lopez and Russell are the best players in the deal, and the most impactful for fantasy basketball next season. But I’m focusing on Russell, who should step into a clear lead role for Brooklyn.
After a fairly disappointing rookie season, Russell’s numbers were up across the board in 2016-17. In 63 games (60 starts), he averaged 15.6 points, 4.8 assists, 3.5 rebounds and 1.4 steals per game. His turnovers also increased a bit playing in a faster-paced system under Luke Walton, to 2.8 per game, but that could be expected. …show more content…
But he was also a bit more efficient by some measures (15.3 PER, 51.8 True Shooting Percentage, 48.3 Effective Field Goal Percentage).
Lopez is leaving a major void of offensive touches behind with the Nets. He had 29.2 percent usage rate this past season (tied for 14th in the league) and a usage rate of at least 27 percent in four of the last five seasons he has played more than 70 games. This era of the NBA is perimeter-centric, and the Nets can now move that way with Lopez