Round 2, Pick 10: Ben Wallace, PF/C, Chicago Bulls

After signing a four year, $60 million dollar deal during the offseason to join the Chicago Bulls, there are big expectations for the team this upcoming season.  Can one man really make that much of a difference?  Well, when you have personnel in place and have the foresight and vision on how you want to build a team, the answer is YES.  Big Ben Wallace will make a difference on the Bulls and guess what.

He can make a difference for your fantasy basketball team as well.

Unfortunately, and I’ll get this out of the way, Wallace can absolutely kill your FT% in both ROTO and H2H leagues.  There is no question about this the way there is no question that a lot of people witnessed greatness in Cleveland the past few seasons.  So, with the aforementioned foresight and vision, you can definitely build the rest of your team to hopefully buffer how much Wallace stinks at the charity stripe.  We’ll call those guys the Lysol Liberation Line Lads.  Sorry, just felt like be alliterative just now.  In any case, taking the risk of ranking in the nether region of the FT category can be forgiven since Big Ben brings exceptional contributions in other categories.

As I noted with my Shawn Marion pick (see link below and click), I like coming strong with the defensive categories since those are typically hard to make up in both ROTO and H2H, as opposed to a category such as scoring or 3PTM (Example: Eddie House can help boost your team in both categories and he is usually waiver fodder in normal sized leagues because he’s not a starter or plays a lot of minutes).  And, since both Marion and Wallace contribute to more than just the defensive categories, bonus!  And I love their position versatility, which may help me later on as I draft. And, of course, Wallace is eligible at center in this two center start league.

But, back to Wallace’s defensive prowess.

Big Ben has been on the NBA 1st Team All Defensive team since the ‘01-‘02 season and has won the Defensive Player of the Year award four of the last five seasons.  Plain and simple, Wallace can both swat the ball and swipe it away.  Last season, he averaged 2.2 get that shiznit out of heres and 1.8 steals per game.  Getting these numbers from the four or five spot is excellent production for your fantasy team, but Mr. Big Hair can do more than that, which is what makes Ben Wallace special… not the hair (although some like Don King or Dustin Diamond may argue that), but the other things Wallace can do.

To say that Ben Wallace can board is an understatment.  It’s much like saying that Kobe Bryant can score… Marcus Camby will eventually get injured at some point during the season… or that the gap between Michael Strahan’s two top front teeth is just slightly wider than Ryan Howard’s nostrils.  As a fourth grader would say with eyes rolled up - DUH!  Beginning with the ‘00-‘01 season, Wallace has never finished lower than fourth in rebounds per game average, which was last season at a “poor” 11.3 rate.  In that span of seasons, he’s won the rebounding title twice and averaged 12.9 glass cleanings per game.  I don’t think it’s out of the question that he averages double digit figures again with his new team, as I don’t really see anyone taking away Wallace’s thunder in this category.  Seriously, who’s going to do it, P.J. Brown?  Somehow, I don’t think he’s a threat, so let me be juvenile and say DUH!

Wallace should also favorably contribute to your FG% as most of his shots are in close off of offensive rebounds, a category he finished first in last season with 301 total offensive rebounds (3.7 per game clip).  This basically led to a very good 51.0 shooting percentage from the field, which was an improvement from the two previous seasons when Wallace shot 42.1% (‘03-‘04) and 45.3%(‘04-‘05), after shooting 49.0% (‘00-‘01), 53.1% (‘01-‘02), and 48.1% (‘02-‘03) the three previous seasons.  Why the anamolous two seasons in field goal percentage?

In those two seasons, Wallace tried to be an offensive threat, shooting the ball 9.0 times per game, but only making just a little under four shots per game.  So, while Wallace wasn’t an offensive shooting threat, his shooting was undeniably offensive.  Like, “you’re going to make me throw up” offensive.  In the three previous seasons and last season, Wallace averaged 5.8 shots per game and hit just about three of them per contest for a 50.4 percentage.  So, what does this mean for this upcoming season?  With the likes of Ben Gordon, Kirk Hinrich, Luol Deng, Andres Nocioni and company, I think it’s safe to say that Ben won’t be shooting that much, other than whatever he gets off the offensive boards.  So, look for a FG% around 50, which will be a great help to your FG% output.  Sure, he doesn’t get the points, but just like the FT%, I’ll make up for that in future selections.

How He Fits On This Fantasy Basketball Team

Adding Wallace to Marion will give me a strong hold on three categories - rebounds, steals, and blocks.  Granted Wallace’s atrocious FT% hurts, but Marion’s career 83.3% should help elevate this team’s showing in this category.  The FG% category is also strong combining Wallace’s 48.2% production with Marion’s career 47.3 clip, this team is looking good in at least one percentage category.  The front line is looking good for this team.

Other Team Members:

1.3. Shawn Marion, SF/PF, Phoenix Suns