Top 20 Players on the Season vs. Top 20 Draft Picks

Who are the top 20 players on the season? It might surprise you.

This is kind of like a Highlights magazine exercise where you have to point out that there's a gorilla on top of the grandfather clock ... which players do not belong in this top 20 list based on season totals?

1) Chris Paul
2) LeBron James
3) Dwayne Wade
4) Kobe Bryant
5) Dirk Nowitzki
6) Jason Kidd (Too high)
7) Yao Ming
8) Ray Allen (I'm coughing up blood right now)
9) Pau Gasol
10) Troy Murphy (Call an ambulance for me)
11) Kevin Durant (Would be 1 or 2 spots higher if not for an injury)
12) Danny Granger (Ditto)
13) Chauncey Billups (With a .419 FG% no less)
14) Rashard Lewis (Never underestimate the power of 183 3s -- Yahoo loves 3s, look at Ray Allen)
15) Antawn Jamison (Quietly good season -- second lowest turnover total of the players I've mentioned so far ... 105, only trailing Troy Murphy with 91)
16) Brandon Roy
17) David Lee (A beneficiary of Zach Randolph's departure)
18) Chris Bosh (Cooled off after hot start, injuries knocked him from the top 10)
19) Kevin Garnett (Top 10 pre-injury)
20) Jason Terry (3.9 more shots per game this year, 4.4 more points, 0.5 more 3s, 0.4 more assists, 0.3 more steals ... but the improvements are so small that you wonder how the hell he fell to the bottom of the 7th round in our draft)

Ray Allen was taken #62 in our draft (I converted him into Shawn Marion and now Andre Igoudala -- not an equal return by any means).

Troy Murphy was the 95th selection and is likely the steal of the year.

Kevin Durant was taken at #42. Given that I drafted Paul Pierce at #35 and Vince Carter at #38, I can fault myself for taking less valuable swingmen. However, I'm not sure anyone anticipated this much of an improvement from Durant.

Jason Terry was drafted at #81 -- another steal in our draft. David Lee was selection #84 -- a double-double machine.

Who were the underachievers drafted in the top 20? Here's our league's list of disappointments:

#4) Amar'e Stoudemire: 1.2 fewer shots, one less in boards, a drop from 2.1 to 1.1 blocks, 3.8 fewer points, 0.6 more turnovers .. went up by half an assist. Would've likely turned the corner under Gentry, but then his eye injury occurred.

#8) Elton Brand: You have to question why Yahoo had him ranked 6th or 7th entering the season. Brand was a complete disaster this season

#9) Shawn Marion: #58 based on season totals, #47 based on season averages. Averaging 12.3 ppg, 8.5 reb., 1.3 steals, 1 block ... doesn't hit 3s anymore. No longer an elite fantasy player.

#11) Dwight Howard: #43 based on season totals, #43 based on season averages. One obvious reason -- free throw percentage. He actually went up from 59% to 60.9% -- great work, Dwight! But you likely can't win with him until he's hitting 70-75% from the line. Put it this way -- if he hit 70-75% of his free throws, I'd likely be challenging for 2nd now instead of struggling to finish 4th. Turnovers are also a problem for Dwight -- he averages 3 per game. And his FG% dropped from .599 to .572.

#12) Deron Williams: To be fair, he was injured for a while at the start of the year and he's playing much better ball now. #36 for the last month. His averages are nearly identical to last season after a recent scoring surge. Only difference is FG% -- he dropped from .507 to .469.

#14) Al Jefferson: Al was on absolute fire when he got hurt. He was the 2nd best player -- based on averages -- for the month prior. Everyone was saying he'd average 25 ppg the rest of the way. In his last 10 games, he averaged 26.9 ppg, 12.5 boards, 1.8 blocks. I thought about trading him in the days even before the injury -- started making package offers for other players. A great part of Al's game this year: low turnovers. Only 1.8 per game. There's no telling who he will be when he returns.

#15) Baron Davis: #104 based on season averages. Shooting an astoundingly awful .366 on the season -- that's Rafer Alston terrible. Of course, Baron only shot .426 last year and is a 41% shooter for his career. 6.5 fewer points, 1.2 fewer rebounds, 0.5 fewer steals. Enjoy the rest of that contract, Clippers fans!

#16) Caron Butler: #40 based on season averages, #42 based on totals -- no idea how his O-Rank was so high entering the season. Slight drops in a lot of categories, although he will likely play more games this season. FG% dropped from .466 to .446, 0.2 fewer 3s, a slight drop in FT%, 0.5 fewer rebounds, 0.4 fewer assists, 0.6 fewer steals.

#17) Allen Iverson: I acquired Iverson when he was ranked #76 based on averages -- I was comparing Chris Duhon with him in that transaction ... that's how bad Iverson is now. He's now at #146 based on averages and he's injured. Down 8.4 ppg due to the trade, 2.2 fewer assists, 0.3 fewer steals, FG% dropped from .458 to .417, dropped from 1.2 3s to 0.5. The FG% drop makes him unplayable at this point.

#18) Steve Nash: #47 based on season totals, #50 based on averages. However, he's #11 in the last month. On the season, we see drops across the board: 1.7 fewer points, 0.7 fewer 3s, 0.4 fewer rebounds, 1.3 drop in assists, and his FG% dropped below 50% -- he's at 49% for the year. Another example of Terry Porter ruining a fantasy player ... Gentry has helped.

#19) Josh Smith: #124 based on season averages. Went from 71% to 56.3% at the free throw line for starters, although he only has 5 attempts a game and doesn't hurt you nearly as much as Howard. Rebounds dropped from 8.2 to 7.1, assists from 3.4 to 2.4, blocks from 2.8 to 1.6 -- which is killer, it's even less than what he averaged during his rookie season. 1.6 fewer shot attempts, 2.1 fewer points. And he was injured at the start of the year, missing at least 12 or 13 games. Bounce back candidate or another guy who was given a bad contract?

#20) Carmelo Anthony: #109 based on season averages -- about as disappointing as Smith and Baron Davis. Two things that made Carmelo a horrible fantasy player this year -- .439 FG% and 3.2 turnovers a game. We all knew turnovers would be a problem, but the FG% is somewhat of a surprise given that Anthony shot .492 and .476 the last two years. Also, he continues to shoot less -- which may be better for his team, but it takes away from his fantasy value. 22.4 to 19.2 to 17.8 shot attempts the last three years. He doesn't give you much in steals (1.1) or blocks (0.4) either. I wouldn't draft this guy till the start of the 5th round next year -- assuming he's still with the Nuggets.