Westbrook overtakes Curry, Durant in new fantasy rankings

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Sometimes summer comes and goes with little impact in fantasy outside of the latter rounds of drafts. That sure wasn’t the case this summer in the NBA, with stars like Kevin Durant and Dwyane Wade changing locales. Victor Oladipo, Serge Ibaka, Pau Gasol and Derrick Rose were among others on the move.

Those signings and trades impacted not only the players’ fantasy values for the coming season, but also those of the teams they left and joined.

Add to all of that an NBA draft that produced a few players who should make some level of impact as rookies, and I had to make quite a few changes to my 2016-17 fantasy basketball rankings, based on season-long rotisserie formats.

Let’s take an early look at the top 130 fantasy basketball players for this season. As always, I value your feedback, so feel free to hit me up @AtomicHarpua.

My top four remain the same, but the order is different. In my last set of rankings, I had Stephen Curry at the top, followed by Durant, James Harden and Russell Westbrook. As I noted at the time, Curry, coming off of his mind-blowing 2015-16 campaign, had to stay No. 1, but the other three players could be swapped around, based on your personal expectations or drafting game plan.

However, there is no way to get around the fact that as teammates, Curry and Durant will put a cap on each other’s upside. The big question is just how much they will be capped. I dropped them down to only Nos. 3 and 4, respectfully, so I expect both players to remain stellar fantasy assets. In fact, working with each other should raise their field-goal percentages and efficiency even further.

With that pair sliding down a couple of notches, the big debate in my mind was whether Westbrook or Harden belonged at No. 1.

The case for Harden is that as great as he has been in fantasy, offensive-minded coach Mike D’Antoni could push the star to a new level this season. It would be shocking if Harden doesn’t average more than 30 points and three 3-pointers per game.

As for Westbrook, we’ve seen him rack up massive triple-doubles whenever Durant was forced to miss games in recent seasons. So fantasy folks should be drooling at the idea of Westbrook being unleashed on his own for an entire campaign. Could he be the first player since Oscar Robertson to average a triple-double for a season?

I give the edge to Westy, because he brings more to the table in dimes, boards and swipes, but you can easily make a case that Harden is the top option.

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I moved Oladipo up only a few spots to 19th, but I could see him rising further as the season nears. The 24-year-old surely is in a position to bust loose in a big way, running alongside …

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