Every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, we pose a question to a panel of ESPN fantasy basketball experts to gauge their thoughts on a hot topic.
Today's contributors are ESPN Fantasy's Joe Kaiser, Jim McCormick, André Snellings and Kyle Soppe.
Paul Millsap returned from his wrist injury on Tuesday, tallying 9 points, 7 boards, 2 dimes, 1 steal and 2 blocks in 23 minutes. What are your expectations for the 33-year-old veteran for the rest of this season?
André Snellings: Millsap's return on Wednesday was very impressive and would project to very similar numbers to what he was producing prior to the injury. This jibed with what Stephania Bell told me to expect in our discussion last week, given that his recovery seemed standard for his injury.
I expect that it will take a couple of weeks for Millsap to be slowly ramped up and reintegrated, which could mean that for the rest of the fantasy basketball regular season, he may be in danger of missing one half of a back-to-back or playing more limited minutes off the bench.
However, I expect Millsap to eventually return to playing at the level that he was prior to the injury, in similar minutes, as the starting power forward for the Nuggets. Given the timeline of the season, I'd say that I expect him to be reaching that point right around when most fantasy playoffs are getting started.
Kyle Soppe: Millsap is a good player, but I believe that we've already seen his best production for the 2017-18 season. While Denver is vying for a playoff spot, are they really a threat to make any noise this postseason? No -- no they are not. So I'm operating under the assumption that the team will look to get younger options (Mason Plumlee and Trey Lyles) some experience, thus limiting the upside of Millsap.
The veteran big is averaging roughly 15 points and six rebounds this season, a stat line that I think is more symbolic of his ceiling than a day-to-day expectation moving forward.
Jim McCormick: Millsap's usage rate during those first 16 games with the Nuggets was 24.2 percent, while his usage rate during his final two seasons in Atlanta was 24.3 percent. His rebounding rate with Denver, however mediocre for a power forward, is right in line with last season.
I think Millsap's first 16 games with Denver before getting injured offer a good bit of clarity for what to expect going forward; he averaged 13.1 shots and 11.9 rebounding chances (within 3.5 feet of an available rebound) in nearly 31 MPG and converted these opportunity rates into 16.0 PPG, 6.2 RPG, 1.1 SPG, 1.3 BPG and 1.3 3PG. Solid, if unspectacular.
Millsap topped out at 47th on the Player Rater last season while sporting a career-best 18.1 PPG as the main guy in Atlanta, so I think we should project him among the top 60-ish fantasy options over the remaining weeks.
Joe Kaiser: After missing so much time this season, Millsap's showing on Tuesday was encouraging. Eventually the scoring will come around, as he works his way back into game shape, but for him to already be rebounding and contributing in the other categories (blocks, steals, assists) tells me he still has top-50 fantasy potential over the final stretch of the regular season.
Millsap's return will probably eat into some of Nikola Jokic's numbers, though, since Jokic is mostly just a points, rebounds, assists guy.
