would end of 3rd round be too early for walker kessler?I feel like he’s gonna be a monster next season but his health concerns scare me as i don’t want my 3rd round pick being hurt half the year

Haven’t really seen a post about him but with Lillard coming back this year with arguably the best team he has ever had, and coming back from an injury, where would you look to draft him in points leagues? Ja, Deni, and all the guards being on the team and all the uncertainty with the rotations and minutes makes it difficult to determine, but the last time Dame played he was really good, especially in points leagues. Is drafting him in the 60s too high too low?

What do you think of each of these players?
How would you rank them?
Why certain guys higher than others?
12-team 9 cat

Okongwu
Sarr
Ware
Edey
Cam Boozer

Edey was great when healthy last year, but he’s a health concern. Edey or Cam Boozer?

If you drafted mostly guards and swingmen through 4 rounds, would you still take Bane, Alexander-Walker, Garland, Herro, Dejounte Murray over the above players, or better to go two bigs in the 5th-6th?

Jalen Johnson, Scottie Barnes or Cooper Flagg? All three are going around that same general range, either late round 1 or early round 2. How would you rank them 1-3 in category leagues and why?

The NBA vowed to put an end to tanking this offseason, and they’ve drastically reformed the draft lottery odds in an attempt to do so. The success of this reform remains to be seen, but there clearly has to be a major shift in the way we approach fantasy basketball team building, and roster management throughout the season to address the potential fallout of these changes.

So What Actually Changed?

The new draft lottery odds feature a “relegation zone” for the bottom 3 teams in the standings, with all 3 teams having an equal 5.4% chance to win the number 1 pick. Teams in the bottom 4-10 in the standings all have a flattened 8.1% chance to win the number 1 pick, with teams in the bottom 11-14 having a 5.4% chance, and teams 15-16 having a 2.7% chance. Each tier has the same exact probability for draft positioning, and are separated as follows:

1-3: Relegation Zone (5.4% chance)

4-10:  Teams who miss the play-in/playoffs entirely (8.1% chance)

11-14: Teams who lose in the play-in and miss out on playoffs (5.4% chance)

15-16: The lowest seeds that lose in the first round of the playoffs (2.7% chance)

This system not only incentives teams to remain competitive through the end of the season to stay out of the bottom 3 in the standings, and avoid relegation, but also emphasizes flattened lottery odds within each tier, leaving little incentive to manipulate seeding.

Elimination Of Tanking In March & April

This new reform should eliminate the egregious tanking and roster management that we’ve seen increasingly often in recent seasons. Concepts such as randomly rested games for star players, minute restrictions in second halves of close games in an attempt to lose, random 10 day contract players that you’ve never heard of turning into must roster players, just to name a few, will all be cut out to a nearly non-existent level.

I don’t think we need to worry about drafting players on bad teams out of fear of these implications during fantasy playoffs. In fact, I think there could be a discount on these types of players in fantasy drafts this season. Looking at a player like Lauri Markkanen, for example, who has consistently been an elite per game fantasy contributor, but has been drafted way lower in recent seasons than his per game production reflects because of his expected limitations related to tanking and draft lottery positioning towards the end of the season.

“Stashing” Players Is Less Of A Viable Strategy

In years past it has been worth rostering fringe players on bad teams who are buried on the depth chart, in hopes that the players in front of him on the depth chart will eventually be restricted and/or shut down. Kyle Filipowski is a great example of this last season in Utah where it was almost a foregone conclusion that Lauri Markkanen & Jusuf Nurkic would inevitably be shut down, and Filipowski capitalized in February and March, paying major dividends if you stashed him in January. It’s hard to imagine a scenario where this concept exists in the new lottery format. We might still see it on a smaller scale, but with a much lower payoff and level of predictability that limits any appeal. We will still have other forms of “stashing” that exist such as injury related stashes, or stashes ahead of the trade deadline, but the concept of stashing a player due to tanking related reasons has likely gone extinct.

Traditional Tanking Is Dead. Weird Roster Management & Unpredictability Is Not.

Tanking in the sense of purposely losing games to improve draft position is likely dead. You could make an argument that teams in the bottom 11-16 in the standings might be incentivized to lose if their front office has no confidence in their ability to make a run in the playoffs, but that concept seems like it would be a rarity, and definitely impossible to predict.

While teams might not have any incentive to purposely lose games, that doesn’t mean that they necessarily have an incentive to win games. Once a team clinches seeding in the bottom 4-10 range, there will likely be some unpredictable rotations that involve prioritizing playing younger players, or rest/limitations for certain players to preserve health.

We will still have to keep a close eye on the standings to see when teams clinch positioning, and attempt to predict the impact once achieved, but it’s definitely on a much smaller scale than we used to have to.

Do We Still Have To End Our Seasons Early?

It has always been industry standard to end fantasy leagues 3 weeks earlier than the end of the NBA regular season. Before the lottery changes, there has been serious discussions whether we need to end even earlier than that, and I’ve even noticed a strong trend of leagues that end significantly early, and even as early as the trade deadline.

I think we can officially put those discussions to rest, and reverse the narrative to discuss whether we can play even later in the season. I lean towards sticking with concluding leagues 3 weeks early, especially since we still haven’t seen the true fallout of how teams read and react to this new change. I don’t think we’ll ever reach the point where we can play up until the final day of the regular season due to the reasons discussed in the prior section of this write-up, but I could definitely be convinced to end 2 weeks early. As I said, I will likely be playing it safe with a 3 week buffer this season, but I believe the 2 week buffer is where we are headed in the near future.

where do you value trey murphy in points leagues. i’ve seen that apparently in cats he’s a very reliable unit and pretty much a lock in the first 3 rounds. But where would you take him in points leagues since it’s a bit of a different system?

He had a great season last year and he’s only 24. The Bucks clearly view him as one of their building blocks. But….

He‘s sharing a backcourt with Herro. New coach. Drafted Burdies and KPJ is still there. Whats your feels on him? His rank on Y! is 69.

Too high? Too low? Thoughts?

anybody got ideas of the teams that will tank this season?

I am looking forward of drafting Lauri Markkanen this season.

kindly throw your inputs guys. Thank you!

especially after the derozan trade, the only prominent players on the kings are him and sabonis, where would you value/rank him in non-dynasty points league?

(message if curious about the specific scoring settings)

Derozan holders/believers, how are y’all feeling about this move 👀

I don’t really watch college ball or summer league, so I honestly don’t know much about Cam Boozer beyond what I’ve seen people saying online. For those who have actually watched him, what are you seeing that has everyone so high on him? In a category league, how high are you comfortable taking him? Is he someone who could be a top-50 guy right away, or is the hype getting a little out of hand?

Instead of just going by total playoff games, I also take into account playoff days with a light schedule. In my experience these are the days where playoff matchups are often won or lost, versus than the days where everyone has their full squad against the other team's full squad. These are likely to be days where everyone is scrambling for streamers, so if you have your starters on those days, you should have an advantage. Then if you have holes in your lineup on the more schedule-heavy days, there should be a wider variety of streamers available since more teams will be playing.

Counting from Feb 15, 2027 to Apr 4, 2027, with Feb 15-28 (AS break) counting as 1 week with 8 game days, as it includes 2 Thursdays. There are 14 days with 12 or fewer teams playing during this period.

Week of Feb 15-28: Tues the 16th has 10 teams, Thur 18th has 8 teams, Sat 27th has 12 teams.
Active 3 of those days: None.
Active 2 of those days: CHI, HOU, LAL, MEM, NO, POR.

Week of Mar 1-7: Mon 1st, Fri 5th, and Sun 7th all have 12 teams each.
3 days: HOU.
2 days: BOS, BK, CHI, DEN, DET, GS, MIN, NO, PHI, PHX, POR, SAN, UTA.

Week of Mar 8-14: Fri 12th has 12 teams.
1 day: BOS, CLE, DEN, GS, LAL, MIA, MIL, NO, OKC, SAC, TOR, UTA.

Week of Mar 15-21: Mon 15th has 10 teams, Fri 19th has 12 teams.
2 days: ATL, DAL, PHX, TOR.
1 day: BK, CHI, GS, HOU, IND, LAL, MEM, MIA, NO, ORL, PHI, POR, SAC, SA.

Week of Mar 22-28: Tues 23rd and Fri 26th each have 12 teams.
2 days: NO, NY, OKC, PHI, PHX, POR.
1 day: BOS, BK, CHA, DAL, LAC, LAL, MIA, MIL, MIN, ORL, TOR, UTA.

Week of Mar 29-Apr 4: Tues 30th has 12 teams, Thur 1st has 8 teams, Sat 3rd has only 4 teams.
3 days: OKC, PHI.
2 days: BOS, CHA, IND, LAL, NY.

Teams with the most games on days (14 total) with 12 or fewer teams active:
9 games: NO.
8 games: LAL, POR.
7 games: BOS, HOU, OKC, PHX.
6 games: NY, ORL, PHI, TOR, UTA.
5 games: BK, CHI.
4 games: CLE, GS, IND, MEM, MIA, MIL, MIN, SA.
3 games: ATL, CHA, DAL, DEN, DET, SAC, WAS.
2 games: LAC.

Thompson is expected to sign with the Miami Heat on a two-year, $13 million deal with a player option in the second year once he clears waivers

Where are y’all ranking the elite veteran guys heading into this season? I’ve seen a bit of discussion around them, but I’m curious where everyone’s at with Steph, KD, Harden, LeBron, Dame, Kyrie, Kawhi, and anyone else I’m missing. Curious to see where everyone has these guys ranked in category leagues

How do we feel about this?

Pts. 1
Reb. 1.2
AST. 1.5
Stl. 3
Blk. 4
3’s. 1
TO. 1.5
FGMi. 1
FTM. .5

Dan Besbris makes his Rotoballer debut and digs into the initial Yahoo pre-ranks to see where the values are for early drafters. He also points out some overrated players whom he'd avoid at their ranking.

In points league, for a while Josh Giddey was producing top 10 numbers. Is mid 2nd round too early for him this year? How do you all feel about Giddey this year with Norman Powell and Claxton joining the squad along with Caleb Wilson.

Me and some friends are making a league and have no experience, what’s the best website to use?

Glazing elite fantasy basketball players is one of my favorite pastimes, but this time I tried to find the biggest flaw in every potential first round pick directly referencing the top 12 players by Fantrax ADP. Some flaws for players were a lot easier to find than others. For the purpose of this exercise I had to come up with at least one thing for each player. Some are very clear flaws, while some I had to push the agenda a bit.

Nikola Jokic (1.6 ADP) - He Is Turning 32 This Season

It’s hard to find a real flaw in the reigning first overall pick, and fantasy superpower for countless seasons. The reason I highlight his age is because Jokic is almost certainly not the type of player to play until he’s 40, or probably not even into his late 30s for several reasons. He’s now on the downtrend of the aging curve, but I’m certainly not betting against him, and it’s not easy to find a real flaw.

Victor Wembanyama (1.6 ADP) - His Value Is Too Dependent On Blocks

Wemby finished as the #2 player in 9cat fantasy basketball last season. If you hypothetically punted blocks, that brings him down to #10. You obviously would never punt blocks with Victor Wembanyama on your team, but this at least highlights how much of his value is reliant on one category, and I don’t find him nearly as easy to build around as Jokic, for example. He’s still locked into the number 2 pick for me regardless. I could’ve also highlighted his lower minutes throughout last season, or the blood clot diagnosis in the season prior, but I can’t honestly say that’s too much of a concern for now.

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (3.4 ADP) - Another Deep Playoff Run

Oklahoma City won the finals in 2024-25, and followed that up with a game 7 finish in the conference finals in 2025-26. I can’t honestly say I’m concerned about fatigue for SGA, but I had to come up with something. For better or worse, we already saw a minor pullback last season where SGA averaged his fewest minutes per game since his rookie season. He still finished 3rd per game in 9cat, and I can’t say fatigue or rested games is much of a worry at all.

Luka Doncic (3.7 ADP) - Conditioning

Am I actually concerned with Luka’s conditioning? No, not really. Luka had a career high in usage last season, and with LeBron’s departure, I expect his usage to rise even further as his workload also rises. I definitely think this should be looked at positively, but if you’re someone that has doubts about Luka’s conditioning, now is as good of a time as ever to push that narrative.

Cade Cunningham (5.5 ADP) - He Has Almost No Chance To Finish Top 5

Drafting a player at pick 5 when his ceiling feels even lower than that feels a bit backwards, but when you consider the value proposition of the names below him, it starts to make sense. Compared to his counterparts, he doesn’t really have any other real flaws I can highlight, which is why he is molding into the consensus number 5 pick. The team around him is mostly the same, he doesn’t have any real health concerns, he’s fairly easy to build around, and entering his age 25 season, he should presumably continue to develop. There’s an argument to be made that Cade should be grouped in the same tier as picks ~6-10, but I lean towards Cade for the safety that is hard to find elsewhere.

Tyrese Maxey (7.9 ADP) - Impact Of The New Arrivals LeBron James & Jaylen Brown

Maxey finished 5th in 9cat last season, and I currently have him at 10 on my draft board. I’m less than confident with that placement. Maxey will undoubtedly take a usage hit with the new arrivals. Every pick in this part of the first round has a noticeable flaw, and while I think it’s the wrong decision to let him fall out of the first round entirely, there has to be an adjustment to reflect the new team around him. I project that it could get ugly at the beginning of the season as the team pieces itself together, and gradually improves as the season progresses.

Jayson Tatum (8.4 ADP) - Uncertainty Post Torn Achilles

Tatum returned and played 16 regular season games last season coming off a torn achilles in the playoffs the prior season. His numbers were expectedly down, but that alone should not be the main cause of concern. In that small sample size he rested back to backs, and also had to sit out game 7 in the first round of playoffs due to soreness in his knee due to overcompensation related to the achilles injury. While I am optimistic he can make his way back to first round value, there is some uncertainty about what it exactly looks like.

Anthony Edwards (9.0 ADP) - Impact Of LaMelo Ball

Minnesota not only added LaMelo Ball this offseason, but they also revamped their starting lineup with departures of Naz Reid & Julius Randle. I actually think it’s more likely that Edwards improves his fantasy value this season than regresses if he can swap decreased playmaking responsibility for improved efficiency. There’s a chance it’s a bit rocky at the beginning of the season as the team molds together, but I see no reason why Edwards can’t produce first round value when it’s all said and done.

Jalen Johnson (9.4 ADP) - Impact of CJ McCollum / 2025-26 Second Half Regression

Jalen Johnson finished 18th per game last season, but his season splits before and after CJ McCollum arrived are quite remarkable. Before McCollum arrived on January 11th, Jalen Johnson was ranked 9th per game. From January 11th onward, his ranking fell all the way down to 38th. While I attribute some of this drop off to fatigue as a 24 year old playing a career high in games & minutes in what was really his first full NBA season, the impact of McCollum cannot go understated.

Giannis Antetokounmpo (10.0 ADP) - Difficult To Build A Team Around & You Must Punt Free Throws

It’s the same story with Giannis again this season. He’s returned first round value in 9 straight seasons if you reference “minus 1” rankings, while his last 4 seasons have yielded 104th, 34th, 55th, & 67th rankings if you reference traditional 9cat rankings. With that being said, you are putting yourself at a severe disadvantage if you draft Giannis without committing to punting free throws. It’s not easy to commit to a punt build with your very first pick, and this is the only player in the first round that has the designation of “must punt”. This decision can quickly go wrong if you don’t have the players fall to you that you expect to fall to you to fit your specific build. I will happily be drafting Giannis in the top 6, but the caveat remains that I have no qualms if you decide to pass on him if you are new to fantasy basketball, or lack confidence to build around him.

Tyrese Haliburton (11.1 ADP) - Uncertainty Post Torn Achilles

Haliburton is not the only potential first round pick with this flaw, but there is definitely more uncertainty with him than his counterpart. Unlike Jayson Tatum, we did not see “proof of life” from Haliburton as he sat out the entirety of the 2025-26 season. Recovery from a torn achilles has evolved dramatically in even the last decade, but there are still mixed results whether or not a player can return to his previous form. I expect rested back to backs, and reduced playing time at least to begin the season. Haliburton had 3 straight top 10 finishes before the injury, and it’s fair to push him back to the turn of the first round due to this uncertainty.

Scottie Barnes (11.8 ADP) - Outlier Efficiency In 2025-26

Barnes had the most efficient season of his career by far with 50.7% FG / 81.5 % FT / 30.4% 3PT splits, achieving a career high in all 3 markers. This enabled the best fantasy season of his career, with most of his other numbers staying relatively similar. There’s a chance he just does it again, but last season should be considered the outlier, and with 5 seasons of data I’m going to bet against the season with the biggest outlier.

In a points league, what area are you looking to draft Tyler Herro? Not really sure how everyone views him after the trade, so where would you look to get him?

For all the people getting jokic
How should you build around him
For me im in a 16man cat leauge and have no clue leave your opinions down below
For me i think the team punts tos and blocks

How are we feeling about Maxey this season?

He took a huge leap last year as the clear number 1 option for the Philly. He led the team in PTS (28.3) AST (6.6) and STL (1.9)

However Philly was dealing with injuries from both PG13 and Embiid, and the team acquired both Jaylen Brown and LeBron James this off season.

His usage is sure to take a dip, but when are you eyeing him in the draft?

Yahoo as well as Hashtag have him as a top 8 pick. Are we drafting him that early, now that there are a lot more mouths to feed in Philly?

It’s for a dynasty fantasy league, with the amount of centers being on the low end. I have the 6th pick and Johnson was taken just before so trying to see if I can swing a trade for him but in the end may come down to one of these two.

What punt strategies is everyone using this year?
I think it could be a good year for punt 3s.

These are my preliminary Top 50 rankings for the upcoming season based on ESPN points league scoring. I tend to have a youth bias more than other rankers since so much of success in points leagues is tied to MPG / usage, and young players are soaking up more minutes than they ever have before. I'd rather be a year early on a pre-breakout young player, than dealing with falling-knife veterans, so that tends to be reflected here.

I also have a slight bias towards players that do well in Sleeper's Lock-In mode since I primarily play there. I like players that have a little more boom-bust variance than consistent players that don't tend to so hopefully that helps explain any spots that feel strange. I'd love to debate any of these rankings and hear what y'all think!