Fantasy Basketball: Week 6 Planner

With the best schedule in the league on the way, can Fantasy players trust the dysfunctional Lakers in Week 6? Our Chris Towers primes your team with his latest planner.

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Rankings: Week 6 | Season

It's hard for a team to be hopeless in real life and for Fantasy. Look at the 76ers; even in the midst of the NBA's most obvious and extended stretch of tanking maybe ever, they still have players for Fantasy owners to get excited about. Jahlil Okafor is a double-double threat every night, Nerlens Noel fills up the box score like few players in the league, Robert Covington is coming along nicely, and even a menagerie of misfit point guards has the potential to provide some Fantasy appeal.

The key is that, though the 76ers are truly bad, they are also gloriously devoid of redundant, ill-fitting parts. Which is what makes the Lakers so frustrating. The Lakers seem to be designing their team to limit Fantasy value, somehow. Last season, for instance, they drafted power forward Julius Randle, and then signed every mediocre big man they could find. Randle's season-ending injury on opening night made that irrelevant, but the plan was still dumbfounding inasmuch as it was sure to neuter their only young player's development.

They did it again this offseason. After snagging dynamic Ohio State point guard D'Angelo Russell with the No. 2 pick in the draft, the Lakers set about surrounding him with veteran, ball-dominant guards -- players they had to know Byron Scott was going to be liable to trust more than a rookie working his way through rough patches. They couldn't really do anything about Kobe Bryant, in the final year of a contract as well as a historic career, but they probably didn't have to add Marcelo Huertas and Lou Williams as free agents. Especially not after they stumbled into another dynamic young combo guard in Jordan Clarkson last season.

The start of the season has been just about a worst-case scenario for the Lakers, as well as for Fantasy players. Clarkson has been solid, leading the team in minutes and ranking second in scoring, and Randle's role has held steady, making him a solid Fantasy option in his comeback from injury. The rest of the roster has pretty much been a disaster.

Russell has predictably struggled with the athleticism increase from the Big 10 to the NBA, and has also struggled to earn his coach's confident, often finding himself planted on the bench for long stretches of time. Williams and Huertas have been outright disasters as free agents, and fellow addition Roy Hibbert has been a one-category contributor, with his 2.3 blocks per game the only thing saving him from the waiver wire in category-based leagues.

But the biggest issue has been and continues to be Bryant. The veteran is second on the team in minutes per game and first in points, while leading the way in both assists and turnovers. Scott has leaned heavily on his star, despite the fact he is shooting 31.1 percent and 19.5 percent from 3-point range, and the results have been predictably terrible. Bryant is serving as the team's primary scorer and playmaker, leaving Russell and Clarkson to pick up assists on secondary action; they are averaging 2.9 and 2.0 assists per game, if you're wondering how that is going.

Coming off three straight season-ending injuries, it's hard to see things getting much better for Bryant. It is downright depressing watching one of the best players in NBA history flounder like this, and doubly so for Fantasy players, who can only wonder what Russell or Clarkson might be capable of if their coach wasn't so insistent on running everything through a player who just can't help anymore.

The Lakers play four times in Week 6 (Nov. 30-Dec. 6), and have one of the best schedules in the league on the way. Of course, it is pretty hard to get excited about them given everything else we've touched on here. Clarkson and Randle seem pretty safe as Fantasy starters, and Hibbert's ability to rack up 10 blocks in a week makes him too hard to sit in Rotisserie formats. Beyond that, however, there isn't much worth picking through here.

There won't be until Bryant takes a step back and allows the Lakers to move forward.

Week 6 Schedule
Team	Games	11/30	12/1	12/2	12/3	12/4	12/5	12/6
Hawks	3	OKC		TOR		LAL
Nets	3		PHO			@NYK		GSW
Celtics	3	@MIA			@SAC		@SAS
Hornets	2			GSW			@CHI
Bulls	3	SAS		DEN			CHA
Cavaliers	3		WAS			@NOR	@MIA
Mavericks	4	@SAC	@POR			HOU		@WAS
Nuggets	4	@MIL		@CHI	@TOR		@PHI
Pistons	4	HOU		PHO		MIL		LAL
Warriors	4	@UTA		@CHA			@TOR	@BKN
Rockets	4	@DET		NOR		@DAL	SAC
Pacers	3			@LAC	@POR		@UTA
Clippers	3	POR		IND			ORL
Lakers	4		@PHI	@WAS		@ATL		@DET
Grizzlies	3		@NOR		SAS			PHO
Heat	3	BOS			OKC		CLE
Bucks	4	DEN		@SAS		@DET	NYK
Timberwolves	2		ORL				POR
Pelicans	3		MEM	@HOU		CLE
Knicks	3			PHI		BKN	@MIL
Thunder	3	@ATL			@MIA			SAC
Magic	3		@MIN		@UTA		@LAC
76ers	3		LAL	@NYK			DEN
Suns	4		@BKN	@DET		@WAS		@MEM
Trail Blazers	4	@LAC	DAL		IND		@MIN
Kings	4	DAL			BOS		@HOU	@OKC
Spurs	4	@CHI		MIL	@MEM		BOS
Raptors	3			@ATL	DEN		GSW
Jazz	3	GSW			ORL		IND
Wizards	4		@CLE	LAL		PHO		DAL

Start These Guys

Seeing as how he is already nearly universally started, most weeks you won't need much encouragement to start Kemba Walker. Week 6 isn't most weeks, of course, as the Hornets are one of two teams to play just twice. No matter. You really shouldn't even consider sitting Walker at this point, even with just two games on the schedule. The Hornets' decision to emphasize floor spacing has paid off handsomely so far as they have jumped up to fifth on offensive rating, and the benefits for Walker have been even more obvious. Walker has long been an athletic, dynamic off-the-dribble threat, but he's got a shaky jumper and has long been surrounded by multiple non-shooting threats on the floor at once. Teams have been able to sag off his jumper and pack the paint, leaving him with the option of either dribbling into a low-efficiency mid-range jumper or launching himself into a forest of arms in the paint. This season, you can see what the presence of multiple shooters on the floor at all times has done for Walker most notably at the rim, where a career 52.4 percent shooter in the restricted area is up to 62.3 percent this season. Walker has taken his game to a new level and that level makes him worth starting even with two games on the way.

As he showed Tuesday with an 0-for-6 performance against the Clippers, Will Barton's hot shooting to open the season isn't quite a sure thing yet. He's got a shaky jumper, and when it isn't falling, minutes could be hard to come by at times. However, even if we include that stinker in his track record, Barton still enters play with 80 Fantasy points scored in his last four, as he averaged 26 in his previous three games. On a daily basis, Barton is hard to trust, but with four games on the schedule -- including matchups against Philadelphia and three out Eastern Conference foes -- Barton should do enough to make up for any potential duds.

What is with Al-Farouq Aminu's low ownership rate? He fills up the box score well enough all around to be worth of a starting spot in any category-based formats, but he isn't just a specialist this season. With Portland relying on him for 32.3 minutes per game, Aminu has been a solid starting option in standard scoring as well, averaging 23.0 Fantasy points per game and ranking 36th at the forward position overall; he is in the neighborhood of the likes of Tim Duncan (87 percent started), Serge Ibaka (83 percent started) and Kristaps Porzingis (91 percent started) in terms of Fantasy scoring. Aminu might not have the big name, but it's hard to justify keeping him on your bench, especially with a really nice three-game schedule on the way.

You're forgiven for not getting Robert Covington into your starting lineup yet. After opening the season on the inactive list with a knee injury, Covington got off to a dreadfully slow start, shooting just 21.6 percent from the field and missing his first 18 3-point attempts over his first four games. He was playing a limited role and looked like he might end up being a pretty big fluke after coming somewhat out of nowhere as a solid contributor for the 76ers last season. Or maybe he just had a knee injury and some rust to work through, but Covington has been spectacular in three games entering Friday's action. His shot is still a bit wonky (39.0 percent from the field), but he has hit eight 3-pointers over the last three games, while averaging 16.7 points, 8.7 rebounds and 4.7 combined steals and blocks per game. The 76ers hoped the likes of Hollis Thompson and Nik Stauskas might be able to develop into contributors on the wing to compliment Covington, but with those two players' struggles, they need Covington even more than expected, and he might end up second on the team in shots when it's all said and down. On a roster utterly bereft of competent wings, Covington should continue to play a huge role, and should be in your starting lineups moving forward.

Though he is already 31 and doesn't have any realistic development left, there was some hope Marcin Gortat would be able to take a step forward this season with the Wizards playing a faster-paced offense like his days in Phoenix. That hasn't quite come to fruition for Gortat, who got off to an especially slow start and failed to score any more than 10 points in any of the team's first six games. The good news is, he's starting to turn things around, finishing better at the rim and forcing his way to the free-throw line, and is now averaging 13.5 points, 8.5 rebounds and 1.5 assists per game over the last six. Gortat should be able to keep the good times rolling in Week 6 with matchups against the Lakers, Suns and Mavericks' questionable frontcourts on the way among the four games on the schedule, so you will want to start him in all formats for the upcoming scoring period.