When you set the dial back to 2008-09, you land at the front doorstep of a year featuring one of the greatest fantasy players of our time (Kevin Durant), and one of the most thrilling/terrifying (Russell Westbrook).
And that’s just on one team’s roster.
Today, Roundball Stew looks back at the year that was fantasy hoops in 2008-09, including a bigger-picture breakdown of Durant’s dominance, Westbrook’s greatness with asterisks, and while we’re in OKC, a side order of Jeff Green — a great fantasy career that never was.
We begin with a guy who was only in his second season in ’08-’09, but was already a first-round fantasy player… and has been one ever since:
Kevin Durant — No. 8 overall in 2008-09
Durant was a bona fide fantasy starter from the moment he stepped on a NBA court — and an instant 20-point scorer in the NBA — but it was this year (2008-09) that he ascended to first-round status, where he would stay for more than a decade. (And where he’ll presumably be again once he at long last takes the court with the Nets.)
Below is a breakdown of Durant’s fantasy rankings and numbers during his career:
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| Kevin Durant, 9-category rankings, year-by-year |
| 2007-08 — 84th (20.3 ppg, 4.4 rpg, 2.4 apg, 1.0 spg, 0.9 bpg, 0.7 3s) |
| 2008-09 — 8th (25.3 ppg, 6.5 rpg, 2.8 apg, 1.3 spg, 0.7 bpg, 1.3 3s) |
| 2009-10 — 1st (30.1 ppg, 7.6 rpg, 2.8 apg, 1.4 spg, 1.0 bpg, 1.6 3s) |
| 2010-11 — 1st (27.7 ppg, 6.8 rpg, 2.7 apg, 1.1 spg, 1.0 bpg, 1.9 3s) |
| 2011-12 — 3rd (28.0 ppg, 8.0 rpg, 3.5 apg, 1.3 spg, 1.2 bpg, 2.0 3s) |
| 2012-13 — 1st (28.1 ppg, 7.9 rpg, 4.6 apg, 1.4 spg, 1.3 bpg, 1.7 3s) |
| 2013-14 — 1st (32.0 ppg, 7.4 rpg, 5.5 apg, 1.3 spg, 0.7 bpg, 2.4 3s) |
| 2014-15 — 5th* (25.4 ppg, 6.6 rpg, 4.1 apg, 0.9 spg, 0.9 bpg, 2.4 3s) |
| 2015-16 — 2nd (28.2 ppg, 8.2 rpg, 5.0 apg, 1.0 spg, 1.2 bpg, 2.6 3s) |
| 2016-17 — 1st (25.1 ppg, 8.3 rpg, 4.8 apg, 1.1 spg, 1.6 bpg, 1.9 3s) |
| 2017-18 — 3rd (26.4 ppg, 6.8 rpg, 5.4 apg, 0.7 spg, 1.8 bpg, 2.5 3s) |
| 2018-19 — 8th (26.0 ppg, 6.4 rpg, 5.9 apg, 0.7 spg, 1.1 bpg, 1.8 3s) |
Wow. We all know that Kevin Durant is and was outrageously good — that’s a given — but it’s different when you see it written out like this. A few specific takeaways:
*For a decade ranging from 2009-10 to 2018-19, he finished first overall in fantasy five times, including four times in five years, and was a top-three player for eight out of 10 seasons. (The 2014-15 season, when he finished fifth, he played in a career-low 27 games due to a foot injury.)
*I’d forgotten just what a monster Durant became/has become in assists after those early years of averaging less than 3.0 with the Sonics and Thunder.
*When you look at his numbers from the lockout-shortened season of 2011-12, it’s hard to imagine how he possibly finished third, but then you realize he was up against this stat line from LeBron James: 27.1 ppg, 7.9 rpg, 6.2 apg, 1.9 spg, 0.8 bpg and 0.9 3s. It also doesn’t help that Durant averaged a career-worst 3.8 turnovers that year.
In sum: 2008-09 was the first of 11 consecutive seasons of bona fide first-round production from KD, and he’s well above the requisite bar of greatness to make it worth investing in him as a first-round pick at age 31 whenever we finally do get into the 2020-21 season.
Russell Westbrook — No. 190 overall in 2008-09
Westbrook was a 20-year-old rookie in ’08-'09 — the No. 4 overall pick in the 2008 Draft — and he wasn’t a very good fantasy player (but I already gave that away above). As a rookie, Westbrook put up a solid 15.3 ppg, 4.9 rpg, 5.3 apg and 1.3 spg, but he didn’t yet hit 3s (0.4 per game), was a liability from the field (39.9 percent) and averaged 3.3 turnovers a game.
I’m going to give Westbrook the same year-by-year treatment as we gave Durant, but I’m going to leave off blocks (he’s never averaged better than 0.5), and include FT percentage and turnovers, because both are a big part of the story:
| Russell Westbrook, 9-category rankings, year-by-year |
| 2008-09 — 190th (15.3 ppg, 4.9 rpg, 5.3 apg, 1.3 spg, 0.4 3s, 81.5 FT, 3.3 TOs) |
| 2009-10 — 111th (16.1 ppg, 4.9 rpg, 8.0 apg, 1.3 spg, 0.3 3s, 78.0 FT, 3.3 TOs) |
| 2010-11 — 26th (21.9 ppg, 4.6 rpg, 8.2 apg, 1.9 spg, 0.4 3s, 84.2 FT, 3.9 TOs) |
| 2011-12 — 18th (23.6 ppg, 4.6 rpg, 5.5 apg, 1.7 spg, 0.9 3s, 82.3 FT, 3.6 TOs) |
| 2012-13 — 17th (23.2 ppg, 5.2 rpg, 7.4 apg, 1.8 spg, 1.2 3s, 80.0 FT, 3.3 TOs) |
| 2013-14 — 22nd (21.8 ppg, 5.7 rpg, 6.9 apg, 1.9 spg, 1.5 3s, 82.6 FT, 3.8 TOs) |
| 2014-15 — 7th (28.1 ppg, 7.3 rpg, 8.6 apg, 2.1 spg, 1.3 3s, 83.5 FT, 4.4 TOs) |
| 2015-16 — 8th (23.5 ppg, 7.8 rpg, 10.4 apg, 2.0 spg, 1.3 3s, 81.2 FT, 4.3 TOs) |
| 2016-17 — 9th (31.6 ppg, 10.7 rpg, 10.4 apg, 1.6 spg, 2.5 3s, 84.5 FT, 5.4 TOs) |
| 2017-18 — 24th (25.4 ppg, 10.1 rpg, 10.3 apg, 1.8 spg, 1.2 3s, 73.7 FT, 4.8 TOs) |
| 2018-19 — 32nd (22.9 ppg, 11.1 rpg, 10.7 apg, 1.9 spg, 1.6 3s, 65.6 FT, 4.5 TOs) |
| 2019-20 — 37th (27.5 ppg, 8.0 rpg, 7.0 apg, 1.7 spg, 1.0 3s, 77.7 FT, 4.5 TOs) |
What a strange and beautiful career. Let’s hit a few specific things:
*I first want to focus on 2016-17, the third season in a row where he landed with first-round value. I say “landed”, because as someone who drafted him that year, I can tell you that it was a horrendously turbulent ride — especially early on. In addition to having an average shooting night of 10-for-24 (42.5 percent) on the season, Westbrook was averaging 5.8 turnovers as of early December. He brought that number down into the low-5’s the rest of the way, and he was awesome down the stretch (34.8 ppg, 11.0 rpg, 10.8 apg, 1.7 spg, 3.4 3s, 44.1 percent shooting over his final 22 games, not counting the one game after he broke Oscar Robertson’s record, because he only played 18 minutes in a tune-up situation).
My final point about that season — and it applies to many of Westbrook’s recent years — is that his overall production was really strong, but because he was a big liability in at least two of the sub-zero categories (FG percentage, FT percentage, turnovers), it took a very carefully-constructed fantasy roster to actually win your league with him.
*That brings me briefly to his turnovers. Look at that spike from the first half of his career (3.5) to the second (4.6). It peaked during that 2016-17 season, but Westbrook’s turnovers have been at 4.3 or worse each of the last six seasons.
*Now, to the free throw percentage. It’s one of the stranger fantasy story lines of recent years. After his MVP season, when he shot 84.5 percent from the line — a career-high — Westbrook plummeted to 73.7, then 65.6. It was especially bad in 2018-19, when he was a liability in all three sub-zero stats: 42.8 percent from the field (on 20.2 attempts) and 65.6 from the line, with 4.5 turnovers. He finished that season as a third-round player in 9-category leagues, but it was an agonizing third-round performance — if there is such a thing.
*Before we leave Westbrook behind, a quick note on his 2019-20 so far. Even though in terms of ranking this has been his worst season since 2009-10, I’m actually quite encouraged by how he’s performed in Houston. For starters, Westbrook at age 31 has shot a career-best 47.4 percent from the field (even while shooting an abysmal 25.4 percent on 3s — his fifth time in the last six seasons shooting below 30.0 percent). He also at least partially fixed his FT problems, climbing all the way back up to 77.7 percent this year. That means he was really only a liability in one area (4.5 turnovers), and it’s easy to punt that category if you’re competitive everywhere else.
So just like Durant, I’ll happily sign up to draft a 31-year-old Westbrook as we get into 2020-21. What we’ve seen this season suggests he’s got some productive (and potentially not that maddening) years left.
Continue reading for some other players who caught my attention from 2008-09, including Danny Granger, Brandon Roy, and yes — Tyrus Thomas…
