Robin Lopez (C, NYK) - Fantasy Basketball Draft Sleepers

Definitely not the sexiest name in fantasy basketball, but don’t sleep on Robin Lopez as a potential key piece to more than a few winning fantasy rosters this season. Players like Robin Lopez are perfect to round out any roster and add a significant amount of consistency.

I expect Robin Lopez to duplicate his 2013-14 season with the Trailblazers. In that season, Lopez averaged 11.1 pts, 8.5 rebounds, 1.7 blocks, while shooting 55% from the field and 81% from the line. Again, that stat line may not excite a lot of fantasy owners, but not everyone realizes how elusive a 10-10-2 line is for big men, especially for bigs who can shoot free throws like Lopez.

Only 3 big men achieved that last year (Whiteside, Davis, Jordan) and a few others sniffed that line if we lower the blocks down to 1.5 per game (Drummond, Cousins, P. Gasol). You’ll notice a common theme: all of those guys just listed are drafted about 8 rounds before Robin Lopez. If you can draft someone that late that is even in the conversation with some early round picks, you’ve made a smart decision.

Being on this Knicks roster will only help Lopez. His positional competition is now Kevin Seraphin and Kyle O’Quinn (I am a huge fan of O’Quinn, just not for fantasy). In addition, other than Melo, Lopez will be sharing the front court with generally terrible basketball players--Derrick Williams, Lou Amundson, and Kristaps Porzingis. I swear I didn’t make that up. And just like Arron Afflalo, no matter how the Knicks play as a team this year, Lopez will continue to get playing time--he is one of their best potential trade assets if things fall apart and they will want make sure his value stays high.