|
Zorgon: Good Day everyone, today we have a collaberative post between Erik from Points in the Paint (a fellow Bloguin Fantasy Basketball Blog) and me. This will serve as an effective guide to anyone considering drafting a Thunder player in their upcoming fantasy basketball league. Enjoy!
Erik: I wanted to do a some collaborative work with some of the NBA blogs here in the Bloguin Network. Instead of coming up with fantasy previews of certain teams on my own, I decided to consult our resident experts regarding their teams of specialization. Thanks to some email exchanges with Zorgon, Bloguin's resident Thunder Freak, my thoughts on the Thunder and its players have been greatly clarified.
Erik: What stats do you expect Kevin Durant to produce this season?
Zorgon: Well, last season, he had 25.3 Points, 6.5 Rebounds, 2.8 Assists, 1.3 Steals, 0.7 blocks, and 3.0 Turnovers. His rebounding numbers might be a little deflated, because for the first 13 games of last season, he played out of position as Shooting Guard. Since he's pretty much at the peak of his game, I wouldn't expect any radical changes. If anything, the most major thing I'd expect to see is his points production going down. As Russell Westbrook comes into his own as a scorer and James Harden breaks onto the scene, the ball will have to be shared to a certain extent. This isn't a bad thing for the Thunder, but it's certainly a bad thing for fantasy owners. As a trade off, expect him to have less turnovers as he'll be handling the ball less, more rebounds because he'll spend a full season at SF.
Erik: All of that being said, I think Kevin Durant is definitely worth all the hype he's been getting in fantasy circles. He is clearly primed to deliver a first-round draft pick's performance this season. He's currently projected to be drafted somewhere between the fourth and sixth picks in the first round. His upside potential is enormous. How psyched are you that Kevin's projected to be a Top Five Fantasy Pick?
Zorgon: Well, I'm not very psyched about that specifically. All that means is that's it's going to be harder to draft him, just like Adrian Peterson was in football drafts this season. But, if you're asking, am I glad that people are expecting him to put up All-Star like numbers and will no longer fly under the nation's radar, then my answer is hell yes. I'm ready for Oklahoma City to have a legitimate star.
Erik: I am rather intrigued about Jeff Green coming into this season and am actually quite excited about his upside. What stats do you see Jeff coming up with?
Zorgon: As for Jeff Green, expect maybe a slight improvement overall from last season. 20 Points, 6 Rebounds, 3 Assists, 1 Steal, 1 Block, 3 Turnovers.
Erik: That's a bit more generous than the stats I projected, but that makes things even more encouraging as far as his outlook goes. I prject Jeff to average 17 PPG; 6.8 RPG; 2.3 APG; 1.2 SPG; 0.5 BPG; 1.3 3PPG; and 2.2 TOs. I figure Jeff to be a good value pick somewhere sixth to seventh rounds of the draft. Moving on. I've noticed, in some of the mock drafts I've participated in that a lot of guys like drafting Russell Westbrook a lot sooner than I would prefer to grab him. I can't seem to get passed his poor FG% and high turnovers. Do you think Russ will be able to curb his TOs this season?
Zorgon: Whenever you've got a young team, and especially a young guard, turnovers are to be expected. And they killed us last year. There's usually a lot of factors that go into determining why we lost a game, but the one factor that consistently came up no matter what opponent we were facing had to be turnovers. And as this is still a young team and we're still facing a lot of roster turnover, expect the turnovers on the court to continue. In any case, PG is our weakest position at the moment. If you're looking for a player who will hog up the most minutes and have the most improvement from last season (aside from turnovers), Russell is your man. Expect him to get 20 PPG, 7 APG, 6 TOPG, and 5 RPG. Otherwise, don't bother with our other PGs, Livingston and Ollie.
Erik: Overall, I see Russell serving as a great tertiary PG for fantasy. If push came to shove, I would say Westbrook's upside may even merit him second-string PG value. I would rank him a notch higher than say, Raymond Felton this fantasy season. The Thunder have a great promising young gun in James Harden. Can you comment a bit on James? I fell in love with Thabo Sefolosha last season when he moved to the Thunder. How do you project Harden's value and minute on the court?
Zorgon: It's hard to say this early in his career. When you're on a team with established scorers and lineups, it's harder to break in as a contributor. It was easy for Durant and Green to do so because the team was completely new, but this version of the Thunder has been around for 2 years, more or less. So for the first part of the season, I'd expect around 10 PPG, 2 RPG, 3-4 APG, and 1 SPG. Towards the second half I'd expect everything to go up to around 15 PPG, 3 RPG, 4 APG, and 1.5 SPG. It's just an educated guess, but what the hey. With regards to minutes, I'd say around 20 to start off, and then closer to 30 when he gets promoted to starter.
Erik: Would say that James is a shoe-in to start at SG this season?
Zorgon: Not exactly. Some people around here are still excited about Thabo Sefolosha at the 2 spot, and there's always Kyle Weaver to consider. Kyle Weaver shouldn't be much of a threat to Hardens playing time, even at the very beginning. He's looking more and more like the odd man out on this team, and his minutes will be very few this upcoming season. The bigger problem for Harden will be Sefolosha. More than likely, Sefolosha will start at first, and Harden will have to earn his way into a spot. Luckily, our current coach, Scott Brooks, is not hesitant to play the younger guys, so if he shows true talent, you won't see Brooks keep his playing time down. But, by the same token, if he's not showing anything, I wouldn't be surprised to see Weaver take his minutes if necessary. Our old coach, P.J. Carlesimo, would ALWAYS play the older guys, so players who gamble on Harden should be glad that he's no longer our coach.
Erik: With that, I would say that James Harden is indeed a worthwhile late round "project" pick. Some degree of patience should be involved when drafting Harden. As Zorgon said, he will likely develop slowly and will have outperform Thabo for increased minutes at the 2 spot. He should be a prove to be a good upside speculation pick somewhere in the 12th round of most fantasy drafts.
Well, that rounds out the Thunder players being drafted across most of the mock drafts I've participated in. In deep leagues, drafters should look into Nenad Krstic, Thabo Sefolosha, and Nick Collison as all three of them should provide reasonable among players ranked beyond the Top 200.
|
Bloguin is the revolutionary blog network specifically focused on helping bloggers get the most out of their websites. We're currently working on building a large network of online communities and hope to expand our blogging coverage to include a wide range of topics. 
The Bloguin Network allows advertisers to promote their products and services to our ever-growing number of visitors. We offer both site-specific ad placements as well as the ability to run a network-wide campaign. If you're interested in working with Bloguin to meet your advertising needs, please contact us.
The Bloguin Network is always looking to expand. Here are some of our high-priority areas that we're specifically looking to grow. If you're a blogger and interested in joining our network, please fill out our application form.
The Bloguin Login gives you full access to everything our network has to offer. Your name and password will work for each and every one of our sites. Signing up is simple, and will allow you to post in all our forums, create member blogs, and access other cool features! What are you waiting for? Create an Account! 