Fantasy hoops updated points ranks: Karl-Anthony Towns cracks top 10

Click here for rest-of-season roto-league rankings and reaction.

Read below for rest-of-season points-league ranks.

Check out the rest-of-the-season points rankings for this week. The top is still fairly stable, but once out of the top 20, we start to see some interesting volatility, especially with all of the injuries and player movement in the league.

Rest-of-season points-based rankings breakdown by position

Point guard

Kyrie Irving got off to a slower start this season, but he has picked it up slowly until he is now producing at that MVP-like level that he touched at times last season. He has really picked it up since his shoulder injury last week, averaging 29.3 PPG, 5.3 APG, 5.3 RPG, 3.3 3PG and 2.7 SPG over three games.

Goran Dragic has attempted to come  back from injury twice in the past couple of weeks, but both returns lasted less than 22 minutes before he started wracking up DNPs again. He has now missed three straight games and 12 of his past 14 due to the knee injury, which suggests that it might very well be a long-term issue moving forward.

Lonzo Ball seems to be finding his level while playing next to LeBron James. After appearing passive early in the season, Ball now has four games with eight or more assists in his past seven outings. He also is making his presence felt on defense, as he has nine straight games with at least one steal while averaging 2.9 SPG and 0.6 BPG during that stretch.

Shooting guard

James Harden has found his MVP level, and his gross production has him moving up the rankings. He has averaged 33.7 PPG (47.8 FG%, 85.7 FT%), 9.2 APG, 6.3 RPG, 4.2 3PG and 1.8 SPG during his past 13 games and is looking like the player we expected, one who could challenge for the top spot overall in fantasy production on the season.

Victor Oladipo returned from injury last week and ramped up to 26 points, 8 rebounds, 7 assists and 5 steals by his third game back. Oladipo was outplaying expectation before his injury and appears likely to do so again now that he's healthy.

Zach LaVine has had a big week. He was part of the much publicized Bulls behind-door meetings and also sprained his ankle. The event that may have the most impact on his production moving forward may have been the return of Kris Dunn, as we need to see how Dunn and LaVine play together at this point of their careers when both are healthy.

Small forward

Trevor Ariza and Kelly Oubre Jr. were traded in a package for one another this weekend, a move that could have fantasy implications. Ariza joins a Wizards group of forwards involving Otto Porter Jr. and Markieff Morris, so it is possible that there could be some minutes squeeze. On the flip side, Oubre is young and will be joining a very young Phoenix Suns squad that could decide to showcase him more to see what they have in him.

T.J. Warren has returned from his five-game injury layoff with a bang, averaging 24.7 PPG, 4.7 RPG and 2.3 3PG during his past three outings. Warren has shown that he is clearly a primary scorer on this Suns team, and he has done a good job in playing off and around stars Devin Booker and Deandre Ayton.

Power forward

Nikola Mirotic and Julius Randle are both struggling with injuries in the short term, but both have already proved that they can coexist over the long run and are worthy of their high rankings ... even though the injuries did lower their season-long projections just a bit.

Kyle Kuzma has averaged 22.9 PPG (52.2 FG%, 89.3 FT%), 6.6 RPG, 3.5 APG, 0.9 SPG and 0.8 BPG during his past eight outings. He is rolling so well as the scoring complement to the playmaking of James and Ball that it is difficult to imagine him giving that role up, but Brandon Ingram looks likely return from injury soon, so it is worth keeping an eye on the situation.

Center

Karl-Anthony Towns has a history of stepping up his production after the new year, but this season, he seems to be starting early. He is currently on a streak of six straight double-doubles in which he has averaged 26.0 PPG, 1.8 3PG, 11.2 RPG, 3.3 APG, 2.3 BPG and 1.3 SPG ... numbers that he could legitimately averaging over the remainder of the season.

Montrezl Harrell's play in recent weeks inspired the following tweet (@ProfessorDrz) from one of my followers:

@ProfessorDrz what's wrong with harrell? Stats way down last five games.,

- Daniel Hodgetts (@dhodge3434) December 12, 2018

Harrell may be experiencing some fatigue or growing pains, as he has never played as much nor as consistently as he is now. He had a good game in his last outing, though, which could help him turn the corner and get back on his feet moving forward.

Myles Turner seems to have found his level of late, averaging 15.5 PPG (52.6 FG%, 64.0 FT%, 52.2 3FG%), 8.6 RPG, 1.9 APG, 2.9 BPG and 1.1 3PG during his past 11 contests to start to move back up the rankings following a slow start to the season.

Methodology

I calculated preseason projections for more than 320 players to feed the fantasy draft kit, and we now have in-season player data to give feedback on how players are performing. The rest-of-season rankings are influenced by my projections, current player performance, injury and player situation factors to quantitatively estimate the rest-of-season rankings with more precision.

Also, our rankings include arrows to indicate whether a given player made a notable move up or down the rankings since last week. This helps keep you up to speed with how player values are changing during the course of the season.

Note: These rankings reflect the expected player value for the remainder of this season.