Raja Bell

Bell will be starting this season at the age of 35. His game dropped off tremendously last season. He should battle younger players for both the starting spot and overall minutes at the shooting guard position. His value is more in his experience and sharp shooting at this point of his career. There would be no surprise to see him coming off the bench by the second half of this shortened season.

This is Bell's second go-round with Utah. He averaged double-digit scoring in six straight seasons before last, but played in just six games last year due to injury. At age 33, his outside shooting should benefit the Jazz.

Bell shoots the ball well and can cover the perimeter on defense, but the veteran could lose minutes this year with all of the talent at the guard position; both D.J. Augustin and Gerald Henderson could give Bell competition for playing time. He cannot create his own shot, which limits his potential as a scorer.

In general, we’re a little concerned about how the switch from Mike D'Antoni to Terry Porter will affect players like Bell. Steve Nash, Amare Stoudemire – they’ll get theirs, but there’s a perception that the "seven seconds" offense is the only thing that made Bell a valuable commodity in fantasy. Perception may not match reality. Look back a couple of years; in 2003-04 and 2004-05, Bell averaged double figures in scoring with an excellent three-point percentage – and that was for Utah; not exactly a run-and-gun team. In a way, the coaching change might actually help Bell’s numbers – the new Suns are expected to stress defense more than in the past, which could mean a boost to Bell’s minutes at the expense of weaker defenders like Leandro Barbosa or Grant Hill.

Take a mediocre offensive player. Add Steve Nash, and Mike D’Antoni’s offensive sets. Suddenly, you’ve got a real fantasy option. Bell is in the NBA because he’s an excellent perimeter defender – not someone teams would count on to score much. His arrival in the valley of the sun changed all that. Like Boris Diaw, James Jones and several others, playing in Phoenix’ offense – and getting set up by the MVP – put Bell on the fantasy map in the 2005-06 season, and he duplicated that success last year. So long as he gets regular run for the Suns, count on Bell to provide mid-teens scoring and hit threes at a steady clip (2.6 per game), with better peripherals than you’d expect from a long-range specialist. We do have two concerns about Bell. One is that he doesn’t provide the steal/block numbers you’d like from a guy with his defensive reputation. The second is that the emergence of Leandrinho Barbosa and the arrival of Grant Hill might cut into Bell’s playing time.

Bell’s aggressive defense, clutch shooting, and clothesline takedown of Kobe Bryant made him a bit of a celebrity during last season’s NBA playoffs, but the savvy roto owner was already very familiar with Bell before the playoffs even began. Bell took advantage of his role in the fun-and-gun Suns offense as the “wing player that makes wide open three-pointers when fed by Steve Nash” by making 2.5 threes per game (second in the NBA). When factoring in solid contributions to other areas such as scoring (14.7 ppg), rebounds (3.2 rpg), assists (2.6 apg), and steals (1.0 spg), Bell became one of the more valuable specialists in the NBA. He could keep a team in the 3-point category by himself, yet wouldn’t hurt in any other area. Since the Suns return very similar perimeter personnel, most importantly Nash, Bell should maintain his value again this year.

Bell joined the Suns in the off-season in attempt by the team to free up cap room and to improve defensively. Bell makes an intriguing late-draft player that could provide big dividends, as playing alongside Nash tends to boost a player's stats significantly. Take Joe Johnson; before last season, Johnson was a good player who averaged 10.6 points per game, shot 32% from the three-point line, and had a field goal percentage hovering somewhere around 42% for his career. In the Suns system with Nash, Johnson set career bests in all those categories, scoring 17.1 points per game, improving to over 46% from the field, and most remarkably, raising his three-point percentage to a sky-high 48% on 370 attempts (also a career high). Bell, who shot 40.3% from three-point land and averaged 12.3 points per game last year, could get a similar boost.

Bell provides a high-energy defender at shooting guard, and will challenge DeShawn Stevenson for the starting role if coach Jerry Sloan doesn’t go with Matt Harpring there. He’s a hard worker that’s never been given a legitimate shot, averaging just 13.1 minutes per game for his career. He’ll get the opportunity to play in Utah, but who knows what to expect beyond to good defense.