How To Evaluate A Rookie in Fantasy Basketball

Rookies are always tough to gauge in fantasy, mainly because our only source of reference is either high school ball or college ball, and draft pick. Personally I tend to avoid rookies in drafting because you just don’t know what you’re gonna get. I passed on Jennings, Griffin, Evans, all of them. Instead I go for sophomores like Beasley. While having a rookie that never does anything is bad, having one that does well can almost be worse because you can’t get a true gauge on where his ceiling is. Is he supposed to perform this well? Will he continue to perform this well? This all brings me to the current likely Rookie of The Year candidate, Tyreke Evans, and my advice of SELL SELL SELL. Normally at this point I would compare his numbers to those of his career, but for rookies we can’t do that. Instead, we can compare Mr. Evans to the ROY seasons put together by the last two recipients, Derrick Rose and Kevin Durant. One look at these stats and you’ll agree, the time to sell Evans is now.


Sell High – Tyreke Evans – G – Sacramento Kings


First we look at Tyreke’s current averages on the season:

Tyreke Evans
PTS – 20.3
AST – 5.0
REB – 5.1
3’s – 0.5
STL – 1.5
BLK – 0.4
TO’s – 2.9
FG% - 47.2
FT% - 77.9

Those are some pretty solid stats right there. He’s definitely posting well above average stats for his position. But how is he compared to prior ROY candidates? First, look at Derrick Rose’s ROY campaign from last year:

Derrick Rose
PTS – 16.8
AST – 6.3
REB – 3.9
3’s – 0.2
STL – 0.8
BLK – 0.2
TO’s – 2.5
FG% - 47.5
FT% - 78.8

Evans averages 3.5 more points per game, 1.3 assists less, 1.2 boards more and has Rose beat in treys, steals and blocks too! From the looks of this, right now Tyreke Evans is playing slightly above where Derrick Rose had played when he won the honor. But wait, was Derrick Rose really that good as a rookie? Well, if you need another example, let’s take our latest phenom player Kevin Durant. Here are his ROY numbers from two years ago:

Kevin Durant
PTS – 20.3
AST – 2.4
REB – 4.4
3’s – 0.7
STL – 1.0
BLK – 0.9
TO’s – 2.9
FG% - 43
FT% - 87.3

Again, it appears pretty obvious that Evans is currently having a better season than even Kevin Durant did during his ROY campaign. Now for those of you who think Reke is the next LeBron James or something stupid, fine, hold onto him. But for those of you smart enough to cash this puppy in and try to land players like Jason Richardson or Rajon Rondo, or Rashard Lewis or even Gilbert Arenas, listen up. Two things I want to leave you with when thinking about Mr. Evans and his current Sell High status.

Rookies are almost always good for only half the season, and usually it’s the first half. They’ve never played a season this long before and they get tired. It’s a lot of running, it’s twice the length of the college season (almost) and they’re still young. I fully expect Reke’s numbers to slow down from here on out. But even if they don’t, it is HIGHLY unlikely they will get better.
Kevin Martin is coming back in January. Kevin averages over 20 points a game, those points are going to eat into Reke’s production, guaranteed. It would be stupid to wait for Kevin to come back, eat into the production and THEN try to deal Reke.

So, what are you waiting for? If you own this guy (and I know a lot of you do), start working on some deals!