Ivica Zubac

Zubac continued to improve during his second full season with the Clippers, posting career-high minutes (22.3) and points (9.0) per game last year while shooting a personal best 65.2 percent from the field. The 24-year-old's biggest strength has been his reliability as he hasn't missed a regular season game over the past two seasons. Despite placing 157th in fantasy scoring on a per-game basis, Zubac finished last season 100th overall in fantasy scoring. The fifth-year center will offer consistent production on a nightly basis, something that is hard to come by in the current state of the NBA. A healthy Serge Ibaka during the 2021-22 campaign may hinder Zubac's playing time, but it won't have a devastating effect on his bottom line. Zubac remains worth a look in 12-team leagues thanks to his efficient scoring and big rebounding numbers.

Zubac logged a career-high 18.4 minutes and personal bests in points (8.3) and field-goal percentage (61.3) in 2019-20 while starting all but two games. Zubac posted 12 double-doubles on the season, topped off by a 21-point, 15-rebound eruption against Dallas in the Orlando bubble. Though Zubac was the team's starting center, Montrezl Harrell logged the most minutes at center while coming off the bench. Over the final 21 games of the season and playoffs, Zubac averaged 23.3 minutes, 9.7 points and 8.3 boards. He'll likely play a similar role in 2020-21, and while he'll post the occasional big game, his upside is limited by the presence of Serge Ibaka this season, with Harrell moving to the Lakers. Regardless, Zubac will be worth a look in 12-team leagues this season thanks to his shooting and rebounding.

After being dealt from the Lakers to the Clippers at last season's trade deadline, Zubac operated as the team's full-time starting center for the final stretch of the season. In those 26 appearances, Zubac averaged 9.4 points, 7.7 rebounds and 1.5 assists across 20.2 minutes per game, all of which would be career-highs. With production like that in fairly limited minutes, his per 36 averages of 16.8 points and 13.7 rebounds per game certainly jump off the page. His play impressed the Clippers and resulted in the big man signing a four-year, $28 million contract with LA this offseason, and his role should remain relatively unchanged. While Zubac will most likely be the starter given the success he had in the role last season, Montrezl Harrell, who put together a breakout campaign in 2018-19, may end up closing games out for the Clippers. That, on top of JaMychal Green potentially operating as a small-ball five at times, will put a cap on the 22-year-old's upside heading into his fourth NBA season, but he should still be good for at least 20 minutes per game in Los Angeles.

Zubac split time between the NBA and the G-League last season, seeing 410 minutes in Los Angeles and 419 minutes in South Bay. Though he averaged just 3.7 points and 2.9 rebounds in the NBA, he was able to post 21.7 points, 9.1 rebounds and 2.2 blocks in the G-League while shooting 61.0 percent from the field. He also made sure to knock down an impressive 86.0 percent of his free throws. This year, he should have an opportunity to see more run at the NBA level with Brook Lopez moving on to Milwaukee and Julius Randle playing in New Orleans. The duo was replaced by JaVale McGee, who averaged fewer than 10 minutes per game last year, and late-first-round pick Mo Wagner. Still, it remains somewhat of a longshot that he ends up Fantasy relevant in standard formats.

As a 19-year-old foreign center selected by the Lakers early in the second round last June, Zubac seemed like a prime candidate to be stashed overseas for a year or two before coming stateside, but the Bosnian-born big man made the surprising decision sign with Los Angeles and head to the NBA right away. With Timofey Mozgov and Tarik Black opening the campaign as the first- and second-team centers, respectively, Zubac rarely saw the floor outside of garbage time through the first two and a half months of his rookie campaign. After Mozgov wore out his welcome by mid-January, however, Zubac was given a chance to stake a claim to a rotation spot, and quickly made an impression with his advanced mid-range game and touch near the basket. He reeled off three double-doubles in a five-game span at one point in January and finished the season with averages of 7.5 points, 4.2 rebounds and 0.9 blocks in 16.0 minutes per game across 38 appearances. Zubac continued to impress during the offseason as a member of the Lakers' Las Vegas Summer League entry and should enter the 2017-18 season as the team's No. 2 center behind Brook Lopez, who was acquired in June. Zubac still has a ways to go defensively before the Lakers will hand the starting reins to him for good, but with Lopez bound for free agency next summer, there's a path to meaningful minutes for the young center in the not-too-distant future.