The GMTR Hot List: Top 10 Fantasy Small Forwards

Categorized as: Author: Patrick, Fantasy Basketball, Fantasy Draft Guide 2009
Posted on: October 21st, 2009

Here is part three of our week-long rundown of top 10 fantasy players at each position going into the year. Why 10? Because all the best lists have 10 things in them. Well, except for High Fidelity. But if you want to see the rest of our top 40, it’s available through the Four Fingers Draft Guide.

On to the league’s best small forwards. Ironically, none of them are very small.

1. LeBron James

Easily the best small forward and possibly the best fantasy player overall ahead of Chris Paul, LeBron takes the term “stat filler” to places it was never meant to go. The King averaging a 28.9/7.6/7.3 with 1.7 steals, 1.2 blocks and 1.6 threes last season and was even able to improve his once killer FT% to a league average 78%. Yeah, the turnovers suck, but you have to cut the man some slack since he runs an entire offense by himself. Shaq and his gassed ass will have absolutely no effect on LeBron. Like CP3, drafting LeBron allows you the flexibility to build any type of team around him.

2. Kevin Durant

We have Durant 3rd overall in our rankings. Crazy? Well, the kid is crazy good. Last season, at 20 years old, Durant was already the best shooting small forward in the league in terms of percentages. Add in the fact that he’s a lock to improve on his 25 PPG, 6.5 RPG, 1.3 TPG sophomore performance and you have someone who is both a known commodity and filled with upside.

3. Danny Granger

The 26 year old Granger is the last of the first round locks at small forward. He ended up 4th on the GMTR Player Rater last year because, like any good small forward, he does just about everything on the court. You may already know he’s one of the best three point shooters in the league (at 2.7 a game last season), but it was easy to miss that Granger also blocked 1.5 shots a game, which believe it or not, is better than every other SF on this top 10 list. Respect.

4. Andre Iguodala

AI9 has been a fantasy darling over the past few seasons as he contributes in stat categories across the board (except for his FT%, which hovers in the low 70s). Expect his all-around studliness to continue, but there will still be questions about how a healthy Elton Brand will affect Iguodala’s game. It could open up space for him thanks to Brand’s effective low post game or Brand could siphon touches away. Regardless, there is no doubt Iguodala is a Hyperizer and it’s easy to forget he’s still only 25 years old.

5. Paul Pierce

Let’s be honest, Pierce is no fun to take in a draft because for years and years he’s been doing exactly the same thing: putting up numbers and staying healthy. But that’s exactly why we have him as the 5th best small forward. Despite the addition of Allen and KG over the past couple years, Pierce has been able to do about 95% of what he was doing at his peak, which isn’t bad for a guy who was supposed to be sacrificing individual stats for team glory. The addition of Rasheed Wallace and the growth of Rondo may decrease his offensive numbers slightly, but The Truth is as durable as they come (playing 79 or more games in eight of the last nine years) so you can bank on his line of 20-5-4 with a couple of threes and steals mixed in.

6. Shawn Marion

After brief stints in Miami and Toronto, The Matrix is once again paired up with a point guard that makes everyone around him that much better. Dallas has never been a team to take pride in their defense, just the type of system where a player like Marion flourishes. He’s not going to get back to the levels of his automatic first-round days – mostly because his blocks and threes have bottomed out – but Marion will improve off of last season’s down year. Bump him up a few notches in rotisserie leagues as he is the type of player that won’t hurt you in any category.

7. Gerald Wallace

Don’t let last season’s numbers and averages tempt you into drafting Crash too early. It’s not entirely impossible that he may join oft-hobbled Tyson Chandler on the Bobcats bench for a good number of games due to injury. While he can still be a multi-cat beast capable of 7+ boards, 2 steals and a block on any given night, expecting a second/third round pick to miss about a dozen games every season is not exactly the best way to kick-off a fantasy draft, but hey, tempting is tempting.

8. Caron Butler

Butler, maybe even more than Gerald Wallace before him, is coming dangerously close to the Tracy McGrady zone of players whose career never reaches its full potential because of injuries. In his most recent 3 seasons, Butler has played in 63, 58, and 67 games. Now, 67 isn’t horrible, but that is basically four weeks worth of missed games. As for the return of Gilbert Arenas, Butler has shown he can be a top 20 fantasy talent on a per game basis playing alongside Arenas waaaaay back in 2006 (blame Arenas, not Butler, for that one). In addition, the flexibility Butler adds to a lineup is good for a 4th or 5th round pick, since he can play essentially 4 positions, and won’t really hurt you in any category except when he’s missing games.

9. Carmelo Anthony

The bad news: Anthony’s scoring has regressed year over year since 2006-07. The good news: He is still dropping nearly 23 points per game. As the Denver Nuggets added talent like Chauncey Billups and saw Nene Hilario return, Melo has seen his field goal attempts decrease accordingly. However, the former lottery selection still provides copious amounts of buckets to go with a steal and a three per game. Also, if you draft in a league that counts free throws made instead of percentages, you may be intrigued by Anthony’s six conversions per game.

10. Rudy Gay

Gay is coming off a somewhat disappointing third season in which he saw his stats decrease across the board despite his minutes remaining constant. Add in the fact that the Grizzles have added offensive firepower over the past couple seasons in OJ Mayo, Zach Randolph, and Allen Iverson and you have a player that NO ONE is excited about drafting this year. But here is an interesting fact: Gay is the same height and weight and has a nearly identical skill set to Tracy McGrady. McGrady exploded into a superstar during his fourth year in the league and this will be Gay’s fourth year in the league. It’s not much, but the other options at this spot – Trevor Ariza/Stephen Jackson – bring even more uncertainty with them.

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For the rest of our top 40 list of small forwards (as well as the rankings of the other positions, positional tiers, and cheat sheets), you’ll have to check out the Four Fingers Draft Guide. It’s a safe place where we can all agree to disagree about Dwight Howard.

Other Stuff Like This:

• Fantasy Basketball Player Tiers: Small Forwards (3)
• 2010-11 Top 25 Fantasy Small Forwards (13)
• First Month Report Card: Top Small Forwards in Fantasy Basketball (2)
• GMTR Mock Draft Analysis: Round One (17)
• Day 116 of 124: Fear the Beard (2)
• Day 128 of 170: It was a Good Night, but it Wasn’t (10)
• Day 118 of 170: Mamba Makes It Four! (6)

Tags: Andre Iguodala, Carmelo Anthony, Caron Butler, Danny Granger, Gerald Wallace, Kevin Durant, LeBron James, Paul Pierce, Rudy Gay, Shawn Marion