No sooner do I bring-up fantasy basketball as a distant cousin to fantasy football and baseball then ESPN The Magazine arrives with its fantasy hoops preview. The opening sentence is:
Maybe this is how Java Man felt as he thought he was an original evolving towards Homo Sapien status only to find other Home Erectii were doing the same thing in other parts of the unknown world.
That aside, what I wanted to check is where the ESPN folks ranked Seattle Supersonics rookie Kevin Durant. I know he will get the ball a lot and fill the coutning categories, but I had concerns about his effect on the percentage and turnover categories prior to last night's 5-22 effort.
Checking their rankings, ESPN has Durant ranked 11th amongst small forwards. Ahead of him are Josh Howard of the Mavericks, Luo Deng of the Bulls and Carmelo Anthony of the Nuggets. Right behind him is Ron Artest of the Kings and Mike Miller of the Grizzlies. Checking Yahoo!'s rankings of SFs, finds Durant ranked 14th amongst the qualifiers with Howard right ahead of him and Carmelo right behind him.
By looking at how the players ranked near him actually produced, I can get an idea whether Durant's value seems generous or not in combination with my expectations of a low FG% and high TOs. Here is a list, with Yahoo!'s Overall Rank included, of the players that surround Durant and their 2007 production.
Is he fairly ranked? or should he be higher or lower?
| Player | Team | O-Rank | Rank | GP | FG% | FT% | 3PTM | PTS | REB | AST | ST | TO | BLK |
| Caron Butler | (Was -SF) | 25 | 33 | 63 | 0.463 | 0.863 | 18 | 1203 | 467 | 233 | 134 | 181 | 17 |
| Jason Richardson | (Cha -SG/SF) | 29 | 136 | 51 | 0.417 | 0.657 | 110 | 814 | 259 | 172 | 54 | 82 | 32 |
| Michael Redd | (Mil -SG/SF) | 30 | 60 | 53 | 0.465 | 0.829 | 117 | 1416 | 196 | 124 | 63 | 122 | 9 |
| Josh Howard | (Dal -SG/SF) | 31 | 27 | 70 | 0.459 | 0.827 | 92 | 1321 | 475 | 127 | 82 | 123 | 56 |
| Kevin Durant | (Sea -SG/SF) | 34 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - |
| Carmelo Anthony | (Den -SF) | 38 | 45 | 65 | 0.476 | 0.808 | 40 | 1881 | 392 | 249 | 77 | 234 | 22 |
| Tracy McGrady | (Hou -SG/SF) | 39 | 52 | 71 | 0.431 | 0.707 | 126 | 1747 | 378 | 458 | 92 | 213 | 36 |
| Ron Artest | (Sac -SF) | 40 | 22 | 70 | 0.44 | 0.74 | 93 | 1316 | 454 | 235 | 149 | 146 | 43 |
| Antawn Jamison | (Was -SF/PF) | 44 | 30 | 70 | 0.45 | 0.736 | 138 | 1388 | 562 | 136 | 80 | 104 | 36 |
| Mike Miller | (Mem -SG/SF) | 47 | 40 | 70 | 0.46 | 0.793 | 202 | 1293 | 378 | 298 | 54 | 179 | 18 |
| Luol Deng | (Chi -SG/SF) | 49 | 18 | 82 | 0.517 | 0.777 | 1 | 1540 | 579 | 204 | 97 | 153 | 48 |