Fantasy Basketball: Don't Drop It Like It's Hawes
Philadelphia’s Spencer Hawes is off to an incredible start. He’s averaging 12.0 points and 12.5 rebounds on the young season.
He’s had double-digit boards each game and was one point short of recording four straight double-doubles.
You would think with his rebounding proficiency and being a center would make him owned in virtually all fantasy leagues. While he is owned in most active leagues, his 71.0 percent Yahoo! and 58.2 percent ESPN fantasy league ownership suggest that he could be available in some leagues.
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Hawes has shown glimpses of what he can do, but has never quite lived up to his 10th pick billing.
He averaged 10.7 points and 6.6 rebounds in his second and third seasons with Sacramento. He added 1.2 blocks per game. One of his issues though was a poor shooting percentage for a big man. He never hit more than 47 percent of his shots in his first three years in the league.
That trend continued last year when he was dealt to Philly. Although he played a career high 81 games last year, his scoring dipped to 7.2 ppg and his rebounding to 5.7 ppg.
Of course his minutes per game also dipped from 29 in his best season (2008-09) to 26 in his final season with the Kings (09-10) to 21 last year with the Sixers.
This year his playing time is up to 33 mpg in the early going. His numbers are up across the board. In addition to his aforementioned scoring and rebound numbers, he’s dishing up 4.0 assists, 1.3 steals and 1.8 blocks.
Perhaps the most important improvement has come in the form of better shooting. He’s making 67.7 percent of his shots so far.
His free-throw shooting is an issue, but that’s just something you’ll have to live with. If he’s available in your league, get him. If you own him, ride him while he’s hot.
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