Fantasy Basketball Edge: Ricky Rubio's resurgence, Steven Adams, and Davis Bertans

Teams are getting settled in the NBA are we are seeing things develop that are a little unexpected. I’m going to take a look at a few interesting occurrences I’ve noted recently for today’s Edge.

Ricky Rubio is dishing

People tended to forget about Ricky Rubio in Utah the last couple of seasons. He averaged just 6.1 and 5.3 assists per game as the Jazz’s starting point guard, down from 9.1 in his final season in Minnesota. But this season, in Phoenix, ol’ dishin’ and swishin’ Rubio is back, averaging 9.2 assists, per game, including a stunning 12.5 per game in the last week.

Is this real? What is different?

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It’s not like he is on a better team with better players, allowing those numbers to rise. This season Rubio is averaging 64.1 passes per game, which in turn leads to 17.6 potential assists. Last year, Rubio had just 55.7 passes and only 11.1 potential assists.

That is a big difference and it goes a long way to explain how Rubio is being used. In Utah, he wasn’t the man responsible for setting up plays and initiating the offence.

In Phoenix, he is making all of those decisions, getting players in the right spot and it is paying off for fantasy, as he is the 49th ranked player this season and inside the top 25 over the last week.

Steven Adams is back, maybe

Adams really struggled to begin this season. He had a knee contusion, he couldn’t hit shots, nothing was working. He is averaging 30.3 fantasy points per game, down from 33.2 last season, and that’s without Russell Westbrook dominating the ball and the boards.

Lately though, despite the minutes staying down, Adams is starting to exert an influence. The big Kiwi has not averaged over 1.1 blocks per game for since his second NBA season (when he averaged 1.2), but this season, he is up at 1.3 blocks with a crazy 2.3 blocks per game over his last seven matchups.

What’s with this sudden surge? It’s hard to say.

Last season, Adams defended 6.2 shots at the rim per game. This season, he is at 6.3. Hardly any difference there. Even over those last seven, where the blocks have doubled, his shots defended at the rim have increased only to 7.1, up from 6.3, so that’s not the reason.

Perhaps, and most likely, it’s a large element of luck and we expect Adams’ block numbers to drop back off over the coming weeks. This is why, along with his recent improvement in free throw percentage, Funaki is a sell-high player.

Dāvis Bertāns is one of the most fun players in the league

If you didn’t know who Bertāns was before this season, I don’t really blame you. He was a bench bomber for the Spurs, who had never played over 22 minutes a game and was literally given to the Wizards for nothing so the Spurs could open cap space to have Marcus Morris leave them at the altar.

Now, he is a must watch league pass player, dropping bombs on people as a member of the Wizards. Just how good has he been? Well, Bertāns is the 100th best fantasy points league player this season, but he is 55th over the last two weeks, averaging 32.93 points per game, hitting 5.4 triples a game at an astonishing 50 percent.

He’s not thriving on corner threes, like a PJ Tucker, he is banging in elbow and above the break triples like nobody’s business. He is in the 100th percentile for non-corner threes per Cleaning The Glass, attempting 71 percent of his shots there, and is in the 98th percentile in hitting those shots, converting 49 percent. That sort of volume and accuracy is pretty much unheard of.

For reference, Steph Curry’s highest percent of shots taken from three (non corner is 48 percent) and he hit those at just 45 percent in his best season. Just imagine that. In Curry’s unanimous MVP season, he attempted 737 non-corner threes, hitting 332 at 45 percent. If he keeps this current pace up, Bertāns will attempt over 600 non-corner threes and if this percentage keeps up, his fantasy value is going to sustain.

Lauri Markkanen is improving

It has undoubtedly been a rough season for Lauri Markkanen. That is well documented. What isn’t as well documented is that he is getting better.

He is outside the top 90 in fantasy this season, averaging only 27.17 fantasy points, down from 34.17 last season. The main reason? He couldn’t hit shots. But in December, Markkanen is getting back to normal. In his six games in December, Markkanen is hitting 53 percent of shots, after going 39 percent in October and a putrid 33 percent in November, and he is going at 44 percent from three.

Not much else has changed - his rebounds are low, he still gets no assists, steals, or blocks, but as long as the shot is going down, Markkanen’s value is high.

It’s slump time for Bojan Bogdanović

Bogdanović has been a big surprise this season in Utah, as the 81st ranked player in fantasy points leagues averaging 28.46 points per game, the best number of his career. But, if he is on your team, you will be well aware that he isn’t producing at that level at the moment.

Over the last two weeks, Bogdanović is averaging 24.54 points. Why? Well, for a start, he is hitting just 38 percent of his shots, including only 36 percent of his two-pointers, well down on his seasonal marks of 45 percent and 46 percent respectively.

It’s a small sample, but when Bogdanović has to play without Mike Conley, he tends to struggle. Perhaps, it’s due to extra defensive attention coming his way, but when Conley shares the court with Bogdanović, he has an eFG% of 57.7 and averages 0.89 fantasy points per minutes.

Without Conley, Bogdanović’s shooting falls way off to 51.1 percent with 0.85 fantasy points per minutes. So, while Conley is out, it is worth looking at buying Bogdanović low in the hopes that he starts bombing in his shots once the Jazz’s point guard returns.

Every week, I’ll be looking at some weird trends across the NBA and seeing what they mean, so make sure you’re checking out The Edge, here every Friday.