Top Five Fantasy Rookies
October 1, 2007 by Stephen Kersey
Filed under Fantasy Football Draft, NFL Player Analysis, Rookies
With Greg Oden undergoing microfracture surgery and scheduled to miss the entire 2007-08 season, we’ll take another look at this year’s rookie class. While there isn’t a large amount of fantasy prospects in this class, there are some names you should remember come draft day.
Here are the top five rookie fantasy players:
Kevin Durant, Seattle Supersonics
Durant was born to play basketball. He’s a silky smooth athlete that makes the game of basketball look easy. While he’s young and doesn’t have great players around him in Seattle, he’s so good that it’s tough to tell what he’s capable of doing this upcoming season. His hype might push him higher on the draft board than he should be selected but if he falls, don’t hesitate to snag him.
Al Horford, Atlanta Hawks
Horford is a bigman who is read to play in the NBA. He has a low post game, a face up game and can rebound the ball. He should also be able to block some shots and was a good passer at the college level. It’s difficult to project Horford’s stats this season, but I wouldn’t be shocked to see him average somewhere around 15 points and eight rebounds.
Corey Brewer, Minnesota Timberwolves
Brewer is another player who is capable of stepping in and playing right away. While his offensive game is still coming around, he should be a beast defensively. With steals, rebounds and even some blocked shots, Brewer will fill up the stat sheet. The question is whether his offense will be good enough to make him a quality fantasy player.
Mike Conley, Memphis Grizzlies
Conley would be higher on this list if it were clear he had a starting gig with the Grizzlies. As it stands, he could very well be coming off the bench, which would severely limit his fantasy value for this season. However, if Conley starts, he should put up stats that will allow him to be a backup fantasy point guard.
Marco Belinelli, Golden State Warriors
Belinelli has a good chance to put up a ton of points in Don Nelson’s offense. It’s sounding as if he’ll start at shooting guard for the Warriors. With Nelson using a run and gun style, Belinelli could easily average around 18 points per game this upcoming season.
Hello, just stumbled onto the site and wanted to wish you good luck with it.
Is there any chance of you setting up a fantasy league for your readers ?? If so sign me up.
Would also consider Scola as a draftable rookie since he is 27 and will be fairly solid fantasy player with decent shooting %’s and he can really pass the ball.
Good idea! I’ll make a Yahoo fantasy league in the next couple days. Thanks :-)
Yeah, I like Scola, too. If he gets the starting nod, he could put up big numbers under Adelman. Something around 15 and 7 wouldn’t surprise me. And like you said, he can pass … so throw in a couple of assists.
I like the Belinelli pick a lot. He’s far from a household name, so he should be available in a bargain position and, as you say, he’s a perfect fit for the Nelson system. It might take a while, but by Christmas he could look like an award winning choice.