As we analyze our Fantasy Basketball standings, it's clear that something isn't right -- and hopefully it's not your team's last place standing. What is amiss is the low numbers sitting in your leagues Blocks column. Even the poster boy for the modern shot blocker, Josh Smith, is having a down year. Last year, Smith averaged 2.8 BPG, and this year, a good, but unspectacular 1.5 BPG and cries from disgusted owners who spent a first round pick.
I think there are numerous reasons for the decrease in blocked shots this year, and as my research will show, this decrease has been trending downward for quite a while. However, let's first take a look at some of the possible reasons for the decrease:
- The influx of the European Player – probably the biggest reason for the drop is the style of the NBA has changed with the advent of foreign players who prefer to play on the perimeter as oppose to driving to the rim. In the late 80's and early 90's, you never saw Olajawun, Robinson, or Ewing shooting three point shots; now, it's in vogue for 7-footers to launch outside shots. Many of these players have their roots in Europe, where the 3 point line is closer and the style of play is more open.
- The D'Antoni system of basketball – players love to RUN and GUN and therefore the half court game has taken a back seat. The D'Antoni system epitomizes this style of play where the goal is to get into position to shoot after 7 seconds. It's hard to get your defense set in this time and therefore, difficult to position your shot blockers.
- Many of this year's shot blockers have had off years or have been hurt – Josh Smith lost nearly a month, Chris Kaman has been out for close to two months and Camby is always hurt. When your leaders are out, the whole category has a tendency to drop.
The downward trend
In analyzing the past 9 NBA season, the data clearly shows the number of blocks is decreasing; and at a healthy rate. During the 2000 NBA season, there were 13,5
24 Blocks recorded compared to an estimated 11,727 Blocks this year. As the trend-line shows, that number will continue to fall at a fairly constant rate over the next several years.
If we expand the time horizon to the last 30 years, the downward trend actually started in 1996 after 14 years of solid growth. Granted, the league did experience expansion from 24 teams in 1988 to 30 teams by 2004, but even considering that expan
sion, there was still substantial growth in blocked shots. In fact, 1996 was the peak for shot blockers with over 15 players swatting more than two blocks per game. Leading that list was Dikembe Mutombo with 264 blocks equaling 3.3 BPG and the skinny one himself, Shawn Bradley leading the league with 4.0 BPG (he only played 40 games that year). In comparison, the 2008-09 season has only 3 players getting over two BPG; Dwight Howard, Marcus Camby, and Ronny Turiaf.
Top Shot Blockers 
It's always informative to look at players from a historical perspective to help plan strategies for playing the modern Fantasy Basketball game. To that end, I analyzed the data from 1973, the first year that Blocks were recorded, to the present to determine the Top 10 most prolific shot blocking years recorded by an individual player. Besides Olajuwon and Gilmore, the list is primarily made up of shot blocking specialist. Mark Eaton, the Utah Jazz center in the mid 80's, heads the list with 456 Blocks in 1984. That equates to 5.5 Blocks per game.
As a comparison, Dwight Howard is leading the league this year with 3.3 BPG; which basically dominates the category. What we will never know and thus can only speculate is what Mark Eaton or Manute Bol would produce today. From a statistical standpoint, if you factor out the league expansion, there were still 10% more Blocks in the league in 1985 than today, so you could expect Eaton to have nearly 5 BPG and Bol to have 4.5 BPG. Either one of those players would give you 60-75% of what you need to win the Block category.
Application to your Fantasy Team
After all the number crunching is said and done, what the heck does all this mean for your fantasy team? In a 12 Team league, .68 blocks per player is required to finish in the middle of the pack. However, in running some regression analysis, .75 blocks per player will allow you to finish in the top 3 of the block category. Last year, that number was .83 or a difference of 65 blocks.
So, let's assume you are wallowing in 8th place in blocks in a standard 12 team roto league. That probably puts you around 230-240 blocks. Assuming a reasonable distribution of blocks across the teams, you need to out pace your competitors by 20 blocks per place the rest of the way. An extra hundred blocks will easily get you a 2nd or 3rd place finish and possibly tops in the category. With roughly 39 games left to play, consider dropping a player with less than .25 blocks per game with Ronny Turiaf, Chris Anderson, Tyrus Thomas, or Joakim Noah that can be found on most waiver wires:
Ok, I know what you're thinking, if I pick up Turiaf, I'm going to kill my standing in points or get toasted in my next head-to-head matchup. Let's see if that's correct?
Firstly, besides Noah, these four guys will probably help your FG% and not hurt your FT%. Plus, all of them should get you 4-6 rebounds per game, which for your last active player is decent.
Assuming you drop the number 10th player on your squad for Turiaf, you're going to loose 7 points per game over the next 39 games. I got this number by averaging the PPG of the 109th-120th player on my Fantasy Rankings and subtracting Turiaf's paltry 4.6 ppg. This 7 point differential equates to 273 points and will cost you approximately two points in a standard 12-team roto league. Therefore, the increase you will receive in collecting more blocks will more than make up for the decrease in points.
While blocks are clearly down this NBA season, fantasy players need to take advantage. Don't be afraid to add a block specialist to your squad if you can afford the decrease in the other categories. Crunch the numbers and I think you'll find that the gamble is worth the risk.
