After*being the*100th most valuable fantasy player*during the first month of the season, Blake Griffin has ranked 19th ever since, as his value hasn’t been tied to Chris Paul’s availability (actually if anything he’s been more valuable when CP3 is sidelined, with his assists notably going up). Griffin is on pace to finish with career lows in ppg (18.5) and rpg (8.6) - the latter by a wide margin. But he’s become much more active on the defensive end, averaging 1.4 spg (his previous high was 0.8), and ironically, his drop in Usage Rate has helped his fantasy value, as while his free-throw shooting has improved (his 66.2 percent mark is a career best, but he shot 64.2 percent from the line as a rookie), the big difference is him getting to the charity stripe less this year. After averaging 8.5 freebies per game as a rookie and 7.1 last year, that number is all the way down to 5.5 this season, so his impact there has been felt less by fantasy owners. And while this might not be bankable moving forward, if Griffin can improve a bit more and get close to 70.0 percent (a number he’s bested over his past 25 games) from the line, he’s going to remain an elite fantasy player. After averaging 7.3 attempts at the rim over his first two years in the league, Griffin is getting “just” 5.6 this season, but he still easily leads the NBA with 138 dunks ( JaVale McGee is second with 126). Griffin’s overall FG% may not be a career best, but this is a bit misleading since he’s attempting fewer shots from in close, as his percentages from at the rim, from 3-9 feet, from 10-15 feet and from 16-23 feet are all career highs, so his offensive game is developing as hoped. Here’s a sick LeBron James pregame dunk . I sure hope the Nets PR team was being facetious with this tweet . [ Baseball 2013 from Yahoo! Fantasy Sports: Join a league today! ]
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