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Curious to hear everyone's thoughts on this year's rookies from a dynasty fantasy perspective? Standard 9-cat.

Lonzo appears to be the early leader fantasy stud - assists, rebounds, 3s
How does Josh Jackson project for fantasy? Will his %s and lack of 3s sink his value?
Are assists and steals enough to make Fox a future valuable fantasy PG?
Is Tatum just points? Anything else?
Can Isaac score enough to become a multicat monster?
Who are the sleepers for long-term fantasy success? If Donovan Mitchell can eventually play PG he could be a huge bargain.
Any reason to think Dennis Smith won't be a great fantasy PG?

fatlever wrote:Curious to hear everyone's thoughts on this year's rookies from a dynasty fantasy perspective? Standard 9-cat.

Lonzo appears to be the early leader fantasy stud - assists, rebounds, 3s
How does Josh Jackson project for fantasy? Will his %s and lack of 3s sink his value?
Are assists and steals enough to make Fox a future valuable fantasy PG?
Is Tatum just points? Anything else?
Can Isaac score enough to become a multicat monster?
Who are the sleepers for long-term fantasy success? If Donovan Mitchell can eventually play PG he could be a huge bargain.
Any reason to think Dennis Smith won't be a great fantasy PG?

I almost posted my thoughts a few days ago but considering I am in a Suns dynasty draft, I thought it better not to. But you can follow it on the Suns forum...so far the first five picks have been Ball, Smith, Fultz, Jackson and Isaac.

@bwgood or Suns fans, What are your thoughts on Josh Jackson? What are his realistic comps? Stat projections in his prime? How much playing time to expect his rookie season?

Which rookies project to start? Get significant rotation minutes from day 1?

From Hornets perspective, Monk should get minutes steady minutes similar to what Lamb-Marco received last year, something in the 18-24 range. He might also get some early backup PG minutes due to MCW and Stone being injured already.

In my Dynasty/keeper league's draft, Lonzo went first (8 man team, we each kept 6 keepers, so Lonzo went ahead of solid players like Bledsoe, Millsap, Aldridge, Teague, Dragic, Holiday, Ibaka etc who weren't kept), but the fact that the majority of the people in this league are laker fans and all are based in LA possibly had a lot to do with that.

In terms of other rookies, Fultz was drafted in the "first" round, and I picked DSJ in the third. IIRC Fox was picked in the first half of the draft too, but Jackson, Tatum, were drafted very late, and no other rookie was picked.



The thing with fantasy is, you need players who can produce, even in a dynasty league. Having a project in a competitive league who doesn't give you much positive value is pretty much similar to tanking the whole season. Tatum and Jackson will be great players, but I don't know in a CAT system how they would actually produce as rookies. Lonzo, Fultz, DSJ, and Fox, will certainly get some combo of assists, points , 3s and steals. So even as rookies, while they might not be necessarily better players than the other rookies, they are certainly better options to have than many "specialists" who are available in later rounds. Add that with the fact that they have extremely high potential too, and I think they are solid picks in dynasty leagues.


I would continue to try to "win now" and avoid promising but raw, or promising but with a small role, rookies.

fatlever wrote:@bwgood or Suns fans, What are your thoughts on Josh Jackson? What are his realistic comps? Stat projections in his prime? How much playing time to expect his rookie season?

Suns fans love him. I don't exactly know how he will project #s wise. His FT% is terrible, as is his shooting form, so I am guessing he will hurt you in FT% and won't get you many 3s. His 3 pt % wasn't terrible in college but he didn't have that high of volume and it's been said by Pelton that FT% is a better indicator of future 3 pt % (but of course you have guys like Rubio).

I think he will be a great rebounder for his position and probably get a few assists and a decent number of steals. I think he probably gets 25 mpg, basically splitting time evenly with TJ Warren and sometimes they will play together.

He's hard to rank because I have a hard time ranking guys that can't shoot. For example I would never take Fox...I'd take a lot of guys before him. If looking long term, I might take Isaac for pure upside over Jackson too. Jackson is more of a sure thing, and in the future I'd pencil in something like 17, 7, 3, 1.5 (pts, reb, ast, stl). With maybe a 3 a game. If he learns to shoot and can become a decent FT shooter I'd take him higher.

I'm sure if you've asked here you are checking out internet rankings...there are a few out there as I was just looking at them.

If you are interested in watching how the rookies go in our dynasty draft on the Suns forum, it is going right now...it's a 7 keeper league, and it's interesting to see who goes young vs old and where the rookies go, and the first 8 picks were rookies...since it's reverse order of standings (16 teams) then the win now teams started picking vets. It almost feels like the real NBA. It's going to take a long time and the luck of a bunch of guys panning out for some of those teams that went younger in the first year to ever get near winning the thing. I finished 6th, and probably would have finished higher but I got too busy and forgot to set my lineup for a bit and only maxed out two positions and then also drafted Middleton who was on IR for most of the year, so my team this year already had Westbrook (got him 8th or something last year somehow), Gobert, Middleton, Porter and Horford.

Here is a link to the draft thread. First post has draft picks and rosters. viewtopic.php?f=27&t=1619444

wafer88 wrote:In my Dynasty/keeper league's draft, Lonzo went first (8 man team, we each kept 6 keepers, so Lonzo went ahead of solid players like Bledsoe, Millsap, Aldridge, Teague, Dragic, Holiday, Ibaka etc who weren't kept), but the fact that the majority of the people in this league are laker fans and all are based in LA possibly had a lot to do with that.

In terms of other rookies, Fultz was drafted in the "first" round, and I picked DSJ in the third. IIRC Fox was picked in the first half of the draft too, but Jackson, Tatum, were drafted very late, and no other rookie was picked.



The thing with fantasy is, you need players who can produce, even in a dynasty league. Having a project in a competitive league who doesn't give you much positive value is pretty much similar to tanking the whole season. Tatum and Jackson will be great players, but I don't know in a CAT system how they would actually produce as rookies. Lonzo, Fultz, DSJ, and Fox, will certainly get some combo of assists, points , 3s and steals. So even as rookies, while they might not be necessarily better players than the other rookies, they are certainly better options to have than many "specialists" who are available in later rounds. Add that with the fact that they have extremely high potential too, and I think they are solid picks in dynasty leagues.


I would continue to try to "win now" and avoid promising but raw, or promising but with a small role, rookies.

Yes, this is tough to balance the win now picks or to wait. I am in a dynasty/keeper league too and it's a 16 team league with 7 keepers, but there were some fairly solid guys there, like Jae Crowder, Beverley, Avery Bradley, Gallinari, Dwight Howard, and then a bunch of second year guys and rookies. I finished 6th so had the 11th pick. Rookies went with the first 8 picks in ours, but Smith, Jr went second after Ball, and Fultz 3rd.

I don't think you can go wrong with any of those guys. They will all get their numbers. I took Ntilikina at 11 and then couldn't decide between Skal and Thon with next pick and finally went Skal even though Thon blew him away in 3s per 36 and doubled his blocks per 36. But Skal had the better FG%, FT% and slightly more rebounds and steals.

Thon went two picks later. If interested in looking, link to our draft thread with picks is in previous post.