Welcome back to NBA Fantasy Breakout – the 10-part series where I present you with the players who I think are going to have breakout fantasy seasons. I know the fantasy season has started for most but there is no reason you can’t go out and make a deal for the top five guys left on my list.
#4 Jeremy Lamb SG Oklahoma City Thunder
At this point it will surprise no one that I have another second year player on my list. Right now Jeremy Lamb is a buy low candidate or you may be lucky enough that some impatient owner has already given up on him entirely and dropped him to the fee agent list. That mistake should be your gain. Lamb demonstrated his potential as a scorer in this past NBA summer league in Orlando. He went for averages of 18.8 points, 4 rebounds, 2.8 assists, and 1.3 steals in 31.5 minutes. Does that mean he will be scoring 19 a game for the Thunder? No, but it showed that with increased playing time Lamb can be a productive player. He is in line for increased minutes and shots with the departure of Kevin Martin. Martin was the third scoring option on the Thunder last year scoring 14 points a game. That production needs to be replaced by someone and Lamb make the most sense. Another reason that I am high on Lamb and feel he is the best option to replace Martin and break out this season is that he showed tremendous improvement as a scorer from his first to second year at the University of Connecticut. He played roughly the same amount of minutes both years but his scoring average jumped from 11.1 to 17.7. A lot of this came from his ability to get the free throw line. He more than doubled his free throw attempts (59 to 121). This shows maturity as scorer; less jump shots and more taking the ball to the rim. Below are his rookie season stats and his per 36’s:
Jeremy Lamb 2012-13 Statistics
|
G |
GS |
MP |
FG |
FGA |
FG% |
FT% |
TRB |
AST |
STL |
BLK |
TO |
PF |
PTS |
|
23 |
0 |
6.4 |
1.0 |
3.0 |
0.35 |
1.00 |
0.8 |
0.2 |
0.1 |
0.1 |
0.3 |
0.6 |
3.1 |
Jeremy Lamb 2012-13 Per 36 Statistics
|
G |
GS |
MP |
FG |
FGA |
FG% |
FT% |
TRB |
AST |
STL |
BLK |
TO |
PF |
PTS |
|
23 |
0 |
36.0 |
5.9 |
16.7 |
0.35 |
1.00 |
4.4 |
1.2 |
0.5 |
0.5 |
1.5 |
3.2 |
17.4 |
It is really hard to take anything out of those numbers as the sample size was so low. This is why I have made my case off his summer league play and his two years at UConn. In those places he was given enough minutes to showcase his skill set. The downfall with a player like Lamb in fantasy is that he’s not going to help you in every fantasy category. He is first and foremost a scorer, but he will help you in the ones that tend to swing a lot of leagues. Those are three point shooting and free throws. He has not missed a free throw in the NBA to this point and shot it at over 80 percent at Uconn.
Lamb went on average 75th in fantasy drafts. He has underperformed to that status to this point but I have faith that he could be an early buy low guy for you. Shoot an offer to his owner and see what happens.
The #2 and #3 players will be up tomorrow.
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References
www.basketball-reference.com
