Remember that tiny group of shooting guards?  Well I found out where they all went: right here at the small forward group. We’ve got about fifty of these guys to tier up, so let’s get right to it:

Tier One
LeBron James, Shawn Marion, Kevin Garnett
Let me take this opportunity to discuss Shawn Marion and Kevin Garnett.  Marion is currently being taken at 4th overall on average on ESPN drafts.  KG is second.  Some doofus on Rotoworld said that his second pick was easy – whoever was leftover from KG and LeBron.  This just in: SHAWN MARION IS A BETTER FANTASY PLAYER THAN KEVIN GARNETT.  Marion was actually way better than LeBron last year, too, but I could make an argument (and have) that LeBron goes 1 overall.  But don’t let Marion slide behind KG in your draft.

Tier Two
Paul Pierce, Andrei Kirilenko, Vince Carter, Tracy McGrady
This group should all be gone after 20 picks.  Pierce is clearly the class of this group, but AK and McGrady could compete with Pierce if they stay healthy.  If you take TMac or AK, I think that’s pretty much the only risk you should be allowed for the first 7 or 8 rounds of your draft.  Surround them with solid people.

Tier Three
Michael Redd, Lamar Odom, Rashard Lewis, Carmelo Anthony, Ron Artest, Peja Stojakovic, Richard Jefferson
The reason that you take scarcity position guys in the first two rounds is so that you can take super-solid guys like these in the third.  This is what I call a “luxury” pick.  All of these guys are better than Jason Terry or Brad Miller, but if you’ve come out of the first two rounds with no C or PG, you might be inclined to reach for the scarcity pick.  Being able to pass that over for one of these guys is a luxury.

Tier Four
Antawn Jamison, Josh Smith, Andre Iguodala, Caron Butler, Ricky Davis, Al Harrington, Gerald Wallace, Charlie Villanueva, Shane Battier, Mike Miller, Morris Peterson, Josh Howard, Corey Maggette, Adam Morrison
Now THAT’S what I call a tier!  Some of these guys could go as early as the late third or early fourth, some may fall as far as the seventh or eighth, but they all are pretty much in the same category.  Some might argue that Wallace or Smith should be a tier up, but those people would be wrong.  Everyone’s got their favorites in this group (mine are probably Battier and Maggette), and this is a great place to look for your mid-round sleeper.

Tier Five
Marvin Williams, Andres Nocioni, Eddie Jones, Luol Deng, Tayshaun Prince, Shareef Abdur-Rahim
All of these guys could, theoretically, play to the level of the Tier Four guys, but all of them have question marks and issues.  There are a couple of nice sleepers here and at this point if you’ve drafted solidly you can probably run the risk on Williams or Deng rather than settling for Prince or SAR.

Tier Six
Josh Childress, Hidayet Turkoglu, Wally Sczcerbiak, Stephen Jackson, Antione Walker, Bobby Simmons, Kyle Korver, Donyell Marshall, Danny Granger, Rudy Gay
This is the “wait for it” tier.  If you have to draft these guys as starters, that’s probably not a good thing.  But if you can get one of them for your bench, I’d say go for it.  There are a couple of nice sleepers and a couple of certain disasters, but we like these guys better than the next group.

Tier Seven
Grant Hill, Marquis Daniels, Darius Miles, Hakim Warrick, Mike Dunleavy, Andrea Bargnani
OK, maybe Grant Hill should be in tier six, but only if you can pull the trigger quickly on him when he gets hurt.  The rest of these guys may very well be drafted in the late rounds but it won’t be by us.  They’ll all be more of a headache than they’re worth, and I’ll be happy to let someone else have that headache.