Since it's just us talking? I'll let you in on a secret. In 2022, I took The Leap.
To be fair, it's been an aggregated Leap. Made up of little leaps spread across 2022.
So, what happened? A year ago, I made a gutsy decision. I bravely began to solicit my 11-year-old daughter's opinion on how I was doing. Because when properly empowered with emotional reassurance and Shirley Temples, 11-year- old daughters will offer their underperforming fathers the most devastatingly on-point critiques in the history of everything.
So, if you want to pleasantly shock those in your orbit? Have a daughter, wait until sixth grade, ask them what they really think, file your tears, and make an action plan.
Why am I sharing this in this space? Because I've always cordoned off a section of my heart for late fantasy bloomers. Under-the-radar underdogs who suddenly put in heavy offseason work and reappear bigger/faster/stronger and rewrite their narrative.
Because that's where Winning Time resides. It's where a guard irons out the release on his 3-point shot. Where a PF puts on 10 pounds of muscle to better absorb contact. Where a tweener sheds muscle, packs on speed, goes all-in at SF, and doubles his minutes. It's where eighth rounders deliver top-40 value.
Steady, under-the-radar overperformance of mid-to-late-round ADPs. It's not a magical solution. It's not as fun and strategically extremist as punting. But this is a real-deal championship unlock. Identify the lesser-reported franchises, pinpoint the players with upside, and track their leaps.
One erstwhile NBA cliche: the year-three jump taken by elite bigs. That jump was easier to forecast when I first started writing on fantasy hoops in the peach basket era. Back then, there weren't many Raef LaFrentzes; rangy bigs with 3- point range and shot-blocking chops. Back when bigs were expected to clog as much paint as possible, you could clock that year-three leap on a sundial.
But as roles and positions have flattened, so have The Leap's dynamics. You can't really plot a lottery pick's development on a calendar anymore. You just gotta mine the details.
The final month of the regular season of most lottery teams is now a key observation period; when those teams empty their benches of their young upside to see what they've got. It's paramount to follow lottery teams because they tend to roster a plurality of players with untapped upside. High picks with high ceilings.
Think Detroit. Houston. Sacramento. Think Memphis a couple of years back. Follow these teams. Track their off-season blurbs. Who's working out with who? Who's switching trainers? Going to specialized coaches? Or really showing out in training camp?
And NBA Summer League is off-road huge. Off-road in that The Leap doesn't really announce itself via a box score. The Leap has less to do with stats and more to do with the Eye Test. When you watch a player in his third Summer League and suddenly realize this is his last Summer League as a participant; because even fantasy geeks like yours truly can plainly see he's taken The Leap and graduated.
Next Summer League? This player will be in street clothes, watching the action with the other starters on his team.
Again: as a fantasy game-changer, The Leap is in the details. And The Leap will not deliver as much value via super-high lottery picks. Names with sizzle get overdrafted by a round or more. The Leap's value is maximized via medium- to-deep sleepers. Under-the-radar tenth-round ADPs. Smaller-market teams. Teams that haven't even sniffed The Play-In since its inception.
Don't waste your time on the obvious. There's no sleeper value in splashy stories on marquee names you've been reading about since their freshman year of high school. "The Leap" isn't announced via the latest 2000-word conniption on Victor Wembanyama. Or a zeitgeisty Labor-Day thinkpiece on an underwhelming top-3 pick's connection with his new head coach and his subsequent rededication to his craft.
That, dear readers, is beach reading.
In fantasy, we can track The Leap in quantifiable terms. Metric shifts. Minutes per game. Shot selection. Second-chance baskets. Fouls drawn per game. High- impact five-man units. Usage Rate. TS%. We are looking for stats that transcend a hot streak, or a trend - and become new, elevated, locked-in, dependable floors in said player's fantasy portfolio.
By way of example, I want to examine Kevin Porter Jr.'s 2022-23 performance and look for off-road stats that point toward this being Porter's Leap Year.
Off a 10th-round ADP, Porter is currently 22nd overall on the Player Rater. To get into the top-25, Porter is posting simultaneous improvements in the two areas that register Leap Year and fantasy star upside: volume and efficiency. A mere boost in shot attempts, or minutes per game, doesn't mean fantasy stardom. There must be an accompanying bump in PER, or other classic efficiency metrics like TS%, EFG%, or PIE (on NBA.com).
Porter's PER has skyrocketed, leaping from a below-average 13.96 to a better- than-average 17.97 (a true fantasy star will crack 20.0 PER). This is accompanied with a spike in Usage (24.7 to 29.6). And for you newbies, Porter's PPG is booming as well, ramping up from 15.6 PPG to 20.3 PPG.
But here's the rub. Porter's overall shooting efficiency hasn't registered a big improvement. His iffy 53.5 TS% is nearly identical to last season's mediocre 52.8%.
So how has Porter lifted his PER with so much authority, even with his TS% remaining flat?
Look at his free throw performance. Not just raw free throw percentage. To divine Porter's Leap, you must look at where he's living space-wise on offense, and how it portrays a maturing mindset overall.
Key Leap Stat: %PFD (percentage of his team's personal fouls drawn)
2021-22: 20.7%
2022-23: 25.9%
One of the most underrated methodologies for tracking young players' offensive progression, feel for the NBA game, and respect given by officials (so much more important than you would think)? Tracking their improvement in getting to the line...and converting.
Fouls drawn per game is one way to examine this dynamic. I prefer %PFD, which is more of a Usage-Rate-style tool. It's not dependent on raw volume, which can be skewed by increases in playing time, or (important for Porter) improved health.
If you examine Porter's stat line to date, you won't see improvements in some of the more traditional leap-boosters like TS% or Usage Rate. If you take a deeper look at why Porter so far is posting the most efficient campaign of his career... you'll see a drop in his 3-point attempts, and a boost in %PFD.
Last season, 51.1% of Porter's field goal attempts were 3-pointers. Porter to date is replacement-level at best in terms of 3-point percentage. Last year, Porter shot a career-best 37.8% from deep, while shooting a downright disquieting 64.2% from the free throw line.
Just 8 games in, we are starting to track evidence Porter is shifting his offensive area of influence and reaping large dividends. His percentage of 2- point and 3-point attempts have basically switched places. Porter's 2-point attempts have jumped from 37.9% to 53.1%. He's driving more, and drawing more contact, as evidenced by his leap from 3.2 to 5.6 free throw attempts per contest. The willingness to drive and draw contact is akin to rebounding, in that one must have a true desire to achieve in said area.
And since the days of Bill Sharman, we know free throw percentage is like putting, or being an NFL kicker; it's more about what's going on between a player's ears. Porter's new willingness to drive and draw contact is reflected in Porter's increase in free throw percentage, which has spiked from 64.2% to 82.2%
This could portend a reversion in Porter's free throw percentage. But I don't think there will be any sort of dramatic slippage. Because the secondary stats frame a player with a different mindset, and someone willing to sacrifice his body for the sake of his team.