Lance Franklin – Deck of Dream Team 2014

Name: Lance Franklin
Club: Sydney
Position: Forward
AFL Fantasy: $426,500
AFL Dream Team: $429,800
Bye Round: 10
2013 Average: 78.1
2013 Games Played: 21
Predicted Average: 95

Why should I pick him?

Severely discounted! Take away the fact that it’s Buddy Franklin and focus on this instead. Here is a player who averaged 98.5 in 2010, 98.5 in 2011 and then 100.7 in 2012! Being offered to you at the price of a 78.1 average, that’s a bargain!

But why is he priced at 78.1? Franklin had one of the most inconsistent seasons of his career last year. The very definition of a roller coaster season! 109 and 102 one week followed by 62 and 53 the next week. But why was this? The biggest reason being bandied around is that contract negotiations/stress about his future effected his on field performance. So we can only hope/assume that with all that behind him he will go back to his more consistent scoring ways. Especially if we can refer to past precedent set by Travis Cloke, who scored 94.8 in 2011, 75.4 in 2012 during contract talks, then bounced back the following season in 2013 with 91.7.

New Club! Not just any new club, but the Sydney Swans! This is a club who has a reputation for getting to best out of players traded in. And with what they have paid for Buddy, we can only hope that we’ll be seeing Buddy with something to prove, playing at his best, with supply by one of the best AFL midfields in the competition!

Why shouldn’t I pick him?

Listen very carefully… can you hear that? If you listen close enough you can still hear the echo of Dream Team coaches cursing Buddy’s name from round 19 last season!

Consistency is the massive issue here. He’ll give you 122 one round and 47 the next… in fact he did exactly that last year in rounds 18 and 19. Posting his highest and lowest scores of the season within a week of each other!
Even at his best in 2012 he still scored below 80 six times out of 15 games played. Which brings us to the next issue Franklin presents for DT coaches.

Buddy bleeds -4’s. Averaging between 2 – 3 free kicks against him a game! That’s close to 12 points a game!! Almost 250 points lost by the end of the season! Losing points is bad enough, but the real concern is that any of these possible free kicks against will result in MRP points and ultimately missing games!

Deck of DT Rating

QUEEN – This guy is a superstar when fully firing. But lets be completely honest, if it came down to the last game on a sunday night and you were relying on Buddy as your point of difference for the win, how confident would you be?

Now we can also take in to account the fact that in 2014 with have that first round of unlimited trades! What this means is that we can take chances on riskier players that we may not have started with before. But heres the kicker, you don’t actually have to start round 1 with Buddy. Considering we have no idea how he will fit in with Sydney’s team plans (sharing a forward line with Tippett and Goodes) we can sit back and evaluate. Buddy only has to average over 78.1 in the first 3 rounds in order to earn you a price rise. So if in that first round he knocks out a 100 point game then he’d only have to score over 56 in the next round to increase in price, so bring him in if you hadn’t started with him then and reap the price rise! Otherwise if he’s on track for a sub 78 score then maybe hold off and watch his price drop! 

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