Ray Ray is aging like a fine bordeaux, he truly is getting better with age.
Analysis: This season Ray passed Reggie Miller as the NBA’s all time leader in three pointers made, but that is just the tip of the iceberg for him. Ray is putting up career percentages with his stellar shooting this season. For a shooting guard who is a career 45% Field Goal shooter his over 50% this season is a revelation. Even more spectacular has been his increased 3 point percentage at 47%, also a career high. In fact he is shooting 3s at a 4% better rate than his best season. What this means for fantasy stats is a bunch more made threes than last season, exactly a 1/2 3 more this season compared to last. These increased percentages alone make Ray a solid producer, but when you examine his other stats he is even more impressive. He’s averaging more boards, assists, points, and steals than last season. The increases in those categories aren’t huge but when you put in it perspective it is pretty significant. Not many expected a 35 year old shooting guard to actually improve upon his previous season, but that is exactly what happened this season. Ray Allen is one dangerous shooter, arguably the best in the game.
Projection: As the Boston Celtics secure their position at the top of the East expect to see a lot less of Ray. Coach Doc Rivers will save his key players for the playoffs, thus you should expect to see a noticeable drop off in Ray’s production due to declining minutes. What he’s done this season is still something to take note of. A historic year for Ray Allen.
It seems ESPN agrees with me. After I published this article ESPN fantasy writer Tom Carpenter came to a similar conclusion about Ray Allen. Tom states how “The risk is two-fold for Allen and other veterans on championship contenders, because their teams are focused on keeping them healthy for the postseason. If they get their playoff seed set with a couple of games remaining, they may not even see the hardwood the final week of the season.” You can check out his article at http://sports.espn.go.com/fantasy/basketball/fba/story?page=gtrnba110308
Nice article. There was talk of Ray Allen being too old not to long ago, yet Ray and the Big Three continue to roll. I’m not a Celtics fan, but I do hope that this team can make a playoff push to make things interesting. Those guys deserve it.