Jovic/Jokic

Last night my league had their auction draft and the manager with the first selection nominated Nikola Jovic to be bid on first...

Clearly everyone was expecting Nikola Jokic there, as half of the managers didn't pay close attention & immediately started bidding quickly, driving his price up. It ultimately seemed like the managers caught on later as the bidding stopped short of what past Jokic bids went for, but not before it reached $80 (out of the $200 you get to buy players).

So now we have a manager in our league with Nikola Jovic at $80!!! While "unfair" in some opinions, it's within the rules and it worked!

What do you think - was this dirty af, or diabolically clever?!

It’s actually impressive how bad it is. Did my first draft on yahoo this season, then went to see my team and the desire to play significantly dropped down and I really like my team. Horrendous stuff fellas.

I've heard a lot about punting but have never had the courage to do it. And wonder if its actually a good strategy. I used the simulation engine from ENFUEGO to run a Monte Carlo simulation for 1,000 12-team 9-cat H2H snake drafts and full 20-week seasons (plus 6-team playoffs) for 11 different punt strategies. To keep it fair, the test team rotated evenly through all 12 draft slots against 11 normal ADP/value drafters, took best player available in Round 1, and then committed to its build from Round 2 onward.

A few of these lined up with what I expected, and a couple completely surprised me (especially Punt AST on top).

What do you guys make of these numbers? Why do you think Punt TO and Punt 3PM tanked so hard here compared to Punt AST or Punt REB?

Hey everyone! I finished up my massive Buckets Board of 9-category rankings, plus an article detailing how to best use the list.

What do you guys think? Who am I too high on? Do you agree with the Flier Tiers? Health risks? Let's chat about it!

Is drafting Giannis and not punting threes viable? I feel like every mock I’ve done where I try to keep threes I end up being average in like five categories whereas when I punt threes I’m a lot more solid and in rebounds, blocks, steals and assists. Any drafting recommendations / player recommendations?

Put together a spreadsheet for my draft and figured I'd share.

[LINK]

Feel free to download or create a copy!

What's in it:

- Top 250 in Dan Titus' (Yahoo) 9-cat order, color-coded by position

- Separate PG / SG / SF / PF / C tabs (multi-position guys show up on every tab they qualify for)

- 2025-26 per-game stats for each player: PTS, REB, AST, STL, BLK, 3PM, FG%, FT%, TO, plus GP and minutes

- Heatmap on the 9 cats so you can spot category strengths and punt fits quickly

- Flags for rookies, guys who missed last season, and small samples

Rankings are Dan Titus' (Yahoo), and the stats are from Basketball-Reference. The order is from his late-September update, so double-check any late risers.

Good luck in your drafts!

Is it me or has the market cooled off on him? Seems like he's going in the mid 4th round. I think that's pretty good value for player that can give you elite blocks with good 3's and scoring. He's like the last shot blocking big that goes off the board in that range with Kessler and Clingan who go ahead of him.

I don't understand why Kessler has a more premium price when JJJ is more established. Is this just a Laker tax?

Draft season is wrapping up and I'm looking at my roster trying to figure out how to approach week 1. Even with all the cool websites out there for managing my team, there are still some things that feel unnecessarily tedious. For fantasy managers in competitive 9-cat or points leagues (other leagues okay too): what is the most annoying part of your weekly routine as a fantasy bball manager that the current tools you use don't make easy? What part of the routine is the biggest time waster that you also wish you had a simple solution to?

I got the 5th pick this year and put real prep into a punt-3PM build. The person with pick 1 was on holiday and missed the draft entirely, so I had a hopeful assumption that he wasn't going to be particularly good.

He was completely fine. Having Jokic gives him the most categories above average of any team in the league. He projects at about my level with zero effort.

In most leagues the first pick is a huge edge, like in my league if someone who was trying got the first pick its safe to assume he would easily be the favorite to win. It makes me wonder about third round reversal and whether that's actually a good way to counter it, or if it just screws more people over?

(For those who don't know, third round reversal is that round 3 runs the same direction as round 2, so the pick-1 owner gets a later pick in round 3 and the pick-10 owner gets an earlier one).

Would be keen to hear from people who have tried third round reversal, was it a flop or did it work well?

Projections here if you want to see how it shook out: fantasyblacksmith.com/league-analyzer?shared=bixyrix3l3,

How are people evaluating both of these players. Looking at projected stats, they have almost identical stats. However Kessler ADP is around 45 while Gobert is 62

Is the difference here mainly due to Luka and projecting Kessler to take a jump? Gobert is also healthier so that should benefit him. Looking at projections the only real difference is blocks, but is that worth almost 1.5 rounds of value in a draft?

Guys like Duren/Clingan are also in the same area so feel free to discuss them as well.

Based on value, who would you rather have in a draft?

Hey everyone, I wanted to share punt guides I've constructed:

Punt assists - https://fantasygoats.guru/guides/punt-assists

Punt blocks - https://fantasygoats.guru/guides/punt-blocks

Hopefully you find it useful

Kawhi, Dame, Kyrie, Trae, Hali, Tatum?

It's pretty widely predicted that guys like AD and Embiid will miss significant time this season (because they always do). Who is stepping into the starting lineup on those teams? And how much does that boost the value of those guys? A few names I have in mind are Adem Bona (Embiid), Ayton or maybe Coulibaly? (AD), CMB/Ja'Kobe Walter (Kawhi), Ajay Mitchell (JDub), DeRozan (Nuggets whole team), and Bobby Portis (Giannis).

Did some quick analysis to see assist to turnover ratios (projected stats), even tho its not one of the standard 9-cat. Just trying to see if we can have a build that does not punt AST or TO, who are the best fits.

Just updated the app like a few mins ago and now all the player pictures (usually you can toggle left/right to show player picture or not) on the ”my team” page on the app are gone?

Anyone else running into this problem or is my app glitching?

My guy Zach Reifschneider has updated his top 450 rankings for NBA dynasty leagues. He explains why he's moved some players up and down his board since this summer.

What are some good team names? Puns, funny, dark humour. Names for Tatum, Sengun, Paolo etc.

All draft and player vs player discussion belongs here. You should note how many teams are in your league when asking for advice. Please try to respond to other people’s questions if asking a question yourself.

Hi,

I have set up my pre ranking draft for my draft. But in the mock draft, even with my list actived, the auto pick selects a player that is later in my list even if the previous one is available. Usuaully around the 8th or 9th pick.

Example : I put Lendeborg before PJ Washington. And in the result, I see PJ selected instead of Lendeborg, who was also available.

Am I the only one?

PS : I have done my pre list because I won't be available at the scheduled draft of my league.

If there’s gonna be a Dyson Daniels/Ryan Rollins type break out this year, I think itll be from the clippers. Brandon Ingram, Max Strus, Bradley Beal, and Yanic Konan Niederhauser all out to start the year. Thats 3, potentially 4 starters. Besides Garland, who will take advantage of this? The boring answer seems to be Rui, but does he have the skill? The rookie Keaton Wagler? Kobe Sanders? Maybe even Gradey Dick? What do you guys think

I haven't played fantasy basketball since 2022, I ragequit the game after so many injuries, tanking, sitting guys out, it just ruined it for me.

But I'm back, and I just drafted on Yahoo. Every player on Yahoo has this sentence or some variant attached to them: "they're an injury concern" or "expect them to miss some time". It's like every player? Every player is expected to miss 30+ games seemingly.

My strategy was to try and just pick the best players I thought were most likely to stay healthy. That seems impossible.

So what's your tolerance for injury-prone players? I mean I have Kyrie, Kawhi, etc. They're all injury-prone it seems...

What are your thoughts on Ware this season now that he is on a rebuilding Bucks team? Is he strictly going to be coming off the bench as an 18–22 minute guy, or do you think there is a real chance he gets to start at PF next to Turner? If his minutes stay capped around 20 per game, taking him in the mid-rounds feels pretty risky, but if he somehow works his way into 25+ minutes, he could be a steal.