What’s going on FANation? Welcome to this seasons Fantasy Basketball Busts article. Some of these guys will do exactly that and some will prove us completely wrong, but preseason predictions are fun anyways! We can always revisit these after the season to see what we were right and wrong about, but for now, let’s jump into our top-10 busts for the 2019-’20 season!

Joel Embiid , PHI C - Before the Nick Young picture with all of the question marks begin to pop into your head, hear us out. Obviously, this is one of the best players in the entire game. There is no doubt about that. When he’s on the floor, he’s a walking double-double, a potential 30-point and 20-rebound guy if he’s really feeling good from the tip. That said we’ve yet to see more than 64 games out of Embiid and he’s being selected in the top-10 of everyone’s draft. Injury concerns and work management are what have him down as a “bust” here. Again, he’s one of the league’s best players and one of fantasy basketball’s best stat sheet stuffers, but how much will he play? If Philadelphia is as good as everyone suspects, there will be a lot of games in which Embiid doesn’t play simply due to rest. It’s what Philly did last year on numerous occasions and it’s what the Toronto Raptors did to preserve Kawhi Leonard for the postseason and we know the rest is history with that team. This team is loaded with talent as they acquired Josh Richardson and Al Horford and resigned Tobias Harris after nabbing him in a trade deadline deal last year. Add those four with Ben Simmons and the team has one of the most talented starting five in the league. That’s what worries us with Embiid, not the individual talent itself. If we only get 55-65 games, is it worth taking him in the first round? Same can be said for Anthony Davis , right? Be cautious with injury prone players 

Jrue Holiday , NO SG - It’s obvious how great of a player Jrue Holiday is and he’ll be a great compliment to Zion Williamson , but there are a lot more mouths to feed in New Orleans than there has been the past few seasons. The Pelicans got a massive haul from Lakers that included a lot of pieces that could impact Holiday from a fantasy standpoint and keep from being a top-30 fantasy option, which is where he’s being ranked in a lot of different places. Lonzo Ball is pass-first point-guard, so that will move Holiday off of the ball and in turn, have him see a dip in production in the assist’s category. We saw him average a smidge below eight per game last year and that doesn’t seem possible with Ball running point. Averaging over 20 points per game is another question mark for me. Depending on what version of Brandon Ingram we get, the last month of the season we saw him score at will and now they add the most sought-after prospect in quite some time in Zion Williamson . Williamson will not only impact Holiday in the scoring department, but on the glass as well. Same goes for Derrick Favors as Favors is a really strong rebounder when he stays on the court. Let’s not forget the Pelicans also signed J.J. Redick who has become quite the scorer himself and will likely chop slightly into Holiday’s minutes.

Larry Nance Jr., CLE PF/C - Imagine drafting a player that could see 30 minutes on a given night and 15 the very next game? That’s how Nance’s career has gone, and it doesn’t seem like that will suddenly change. The Cavaliers have both Tristan Thompson and Kevin Love still on the roster, so unless they move one or both, Nance is coming off of the bench.  He is productive with his time, but the reason he’s made the busts list is because he’s being ranked within the top-80 on multiple platforms right now. Taking someone with inconsistent playing time such as Nance does not belong in the first 10 rounds of your fantasy draft. The Cavs have run their offense through Nance in the past, but with Love healthy, Sexton in year two and Darius Garland as their starting point-guard, Nance’s primary stats such as points and assists will dip. In order for him to reach his ADP, he’ll have to dominate the glass and the blocks categories during his time on the floor. But his current ADP has him being selected before guys such as Marvin Bagley and Julius Randle . 

DeAndre Jordan , BKN C - The Jordan signing was seemingly at the request of Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving who both decided to sign in Brooklyn this offseason. Jordan is a very good rebounder and is good at protecting the rim, but we’ve never really seen him in a timeshare, which worries me tremendously when it comes to his value as a fantasy basketball producer. Jarrett Allen is still a part of this time as we approach October. Allen is only in his third year in the league and last year played 26 minutes per game with Brooklyn. Allen improves tremendously on the glass averaging 8.4 RPG, three more than his rookie year. The thing about both Allen and Jordan is the fact that neither can spread the floor, so won’t likely ever see them on floor together knowing how much head coach Kenny Atkinson likes having one of his big men being able to shoot from the outside. Speaking about Kenny Atkinson, Atkinson is a very good coach, but plays a ton of guys in his rotation each and every night. Just last year, Brooklyn had 11 guys average 20-plus minutes per game while appearing in at least 35 contests this year. Only two of those 11 players saw over 30 minutes and don’t think a 31-year old Jordan will suddenly be the third. Expect a dip in production making Jordan a bit overrated for fantasy purposes this year.

Josh Richardson , PHI SG/SF - There are few hotter commodities around the NBA than the Philadelphia 76ers. Their starting lineup is stacked like pancakes which means all five starters will be hard pressed to be as productive as they can be or as productive as they’ve been in years past. Richardson isn’t someone who contributes much more than scoring and that will be tested here with three guys who averaged 17-plus points. Not only will matching last year’s scoring be an issue, how does he plan on doing anything else? He’ll be a solid contributor in the three-point shooting category, but Joel Embiid , Ben Simmons , Al Horford and Tobias Harris are the first four guys crashing the glass, so his four rebounds per game will likely shrink this year. Simmons, Embiid and Harris all had usage rates of 22-percent or better to boot, so when will Richardson have the ball in his hands other than catch-and-shoot situations? How will his 4.1 assists from last year translate if he doesn’t have the ball? Not the biggest fan of him this season.

Jeremy Lamb , IND SG/SF - Sure Indiana will be without Victor Oladipo for a while and sure Lamb is a really, really good basketball player, but is he top-90 in fantasy good? We’re not quite sold. Indiana is going to be a much better team than what he’s played with in Charlotte over the past few seasons, but with a superior team sometimes means less responsibility, especially when Victor Oladipo returns. Lamb is known for his ability to score as he averaged 15.3 PPG last year, but he chipped in with a career-high 5.5 RPG last year. With the propensity that Domantas Sabonis grabs boards and an improved rebounder in Myles Turner , there will be less opportunity for Lamb to reach that number again. Oladipo is also one of the best rebounding guards in the NBA when he comes back, so that has to factor into your decision on draft day as well. If Lamb was a consistent 20 PPG scorer, the drop on rebounds would be OK to deal with, but he’s once only averaged 15 PPG in a season. Not only that, he’s twice in seven seasons has he averaged north of 20 minutes per night. Lamb should be a solid scorer for Indiana, but there won’t be much peripheral stats to be excited about.

Gordon Hayward , BOS SF - It hurts to actually put his name down because at his peak, he was a top-15 player in the league. Injuries happen and it takes everyone a different amount of time to get back to where they once were, but sometimes players don’t ever get back. That has seemingly happened with Hayward, but 2019 will tell a lot about where he’s at mentally. It’s understandable to think he’ll be involved more offensively with Kyrie Irving and Al Horford gone, but the 11.5 PPG he averaged last year was his lowest total since the 2011-’12 season. “Well he didn’t play a lot of minutes per game last year!” Well, on a per 36-minute basis, Hayward still only averaged 15.9 points per contest. Not to mention, with Irving and Horford gone, the team will look to further develop some of their talented young core in Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown . Both guys are expected to take another step forward and if that happens, where does that leave Hayward? This truly could go either way because from a fantasy perspective, we’ve seen him absolutely stuff a box score because of his ability to control an offense scoring and distributing, but can he get back to his old self to for the return on investment? We’re not holding out breath.

Victor Oladipo , IND SG - That makes two Pacers on this list despite the fact they could mess around and compete for the number one seed in the Eastern Conference if everything goes right for them. This isn’t a knock on Oladipo at all because he showed us how incredible he was before his injury. The reason he’s here is because he’s still being drafted at the end of fourth rounds and we still do not have any indication on when he’ll be returning from injury. Our best guess at when he will return is December, which means at least two months of the season has passed him by. Even best-case scenario it is in fact a December return, with the way teams coddle their players in all sports these days, there is no chance he’s playing a full complement of minutes for quite some time. It doesn’t seem likely that we get a full-strength until around the all-star break. Is that who you want to take in the fourth or fifth-round? No thanks!

Mike Conley , UTA PG - Conley is being picked very early because of past production and because he’s on a better team than he has been in year’s past, but that doesn’t automatically mean better production. That’s why he has shown up on this list for the 2019-’20 season. We saw how potent Donovan Mitchell is with the ball in hands running the Jazz offense last year when Ricky Rubio missed extended time and the simple fact that Mitchell commands so much usage for Utah. He’d have to take a step back in that department to help Conley reach his maximum potential and it doesn’t seem like Mitchell cares to do that. Utah also went out and signed Bojan Bogdanovic who is a very skilled offensive player and Joe Ingles coming off of the bench and the Jazz often run the offense through him when he’s on the floor. Conley fits in great with this team, but it’s going to be extremely hard for him to come anywhere close to the 21.1 PPG, 6.4 APG and 3.4 RPG marks he notched with an awful Memphis team last season. He’s being drafted as the ninth PG taken, but he feels like someone that should be taken right outside of the top-10. Not sure he hits value here, which makes him a BUST.

Paul Millsap , DEN PF - Sooooo, what is Denver’s plan with their frontcourt this season? Let’s rephrase that. What’s their plan at power-forward considering they have a 34-year old Paul Millsap and then went out and acquired Jerami Grant as well. If you can't already tell, Millsap’s numbers were on a bigtime decline last season as the 12.6 PPG he averaged was his lowest mark since 2009-’10. Not only that, last year was the first time he hadn’t accumulated 30 minutes per game since that same ‘09-’10 campaign. Then they went out and signed Grant, who’s only 25, coming off a career-year and complements Nikola Jokic perfectly, similarly to what Denver acquired Millsap for in the first place! Millsap is the better passer and shot creator for sure, but the younger more athletic Grant is going to push him for playing time all year long. We’re filing the paperwork NOW that reads “Bust” on top so it’s easy for the clerk to put it in the correct place.