Who's Craig Smith?

A week or so ago I was doing my usual rounds on espn.com and clicked on the T-Wolves game against the Wizards to see how up-and-coming star Al Jefferson was doing, and noticed that this guy named Craig Smith scored 36 with 8 boards. A few days later he scored 30 with 10 rebounds against the Bucks. Who the heck is Craig Smith?

Smith, a 24-year-old 2nd-year player out of BC, was only averaging 8.5 ppg & 4.3 rpg in 16.8 mpg during the month of November. This month, he's increased his playing time to 27.9 mpg, and has upped his stats to 15.1 ppg & 5.4 rpg so far in December. In the 3 games that he's played 30 or more minutes, those stats go up to 27.3 ppg & 8.7 rpg. He and 22-year-old teammate Jefferson could potentially make-up a strong two-man scoring-rebounding duo for years to come.

I guess Smith has had his following of fans, but I had never heard of him. He was the 36th overall pick in the '06 draft, which would partially explain the lack of hobby interest in his cards. From looking on ebay (his cards aren't listed in Beckett since they're considered commons), it looks like he has quite a few rookie-year Auto's. Two that I've been watching are his 06-07 SPx Auto/Jsy #'d 1199 & Exquisite Collection Auto/Patch #'d 225, which have been selling in the $10 and $25-40 range respectively. I wouldn't say that Smith is going to be a guaranteed hobby star, but there is a possibility. At only 6'-7" and playing the PF position, he may have a tough time matching up against some of the bigger guys out there in the long run.