After the shortest offseason in North American professional sports history, the NBA is back with a compact schedule that should be as engaging as ever. A combination of this shortened schedule, an ultra-competitive western conference and a league with an influx of budding stars creates the perfect recipe for the best fantasy hoops season in recent memory. Below I will reveal the ten players I’m highest on this season with an introduction to two of the principles that I always follow when drafting.
You may be asking yourself, “Why listen to Andrew?”, which is a completely valid thought. A quick summary of my qualifications should ease your concerns. My first year of fantasy basketball was the lockout shortened 2011-2012 season when I joined a 10-team categories league on a whim. I didn’t know much about basketball but enjoyed fantasy baseball and football and decided this was the perfect opportunity to fill in the gap between the other two sports. I hardly understood the format and essentially drafted the player with the highest PPG average or the ones I had heard of (terrible strategies), but savvy in-season pickups like Goran Dragic led me to the title. Eight seasons later, I’ve participated in a total of 20 leagues and won 18 of them. I owe my success to a few guidelines I always follow, two of which are extremely crucial in identifying who to draft in the first round. Below are my top 10 players for category and roto leagues (I treat them the same) with a comparison to ESPN’s Live Draft Trends for reference.
| Player | My Ranking | ESPN LDT |
| James Harden | 1 | 4 |
| Anthony Davis | 2 | 5 |
| Nikola Jokic | 3 | 3 |
| Karl-Anthony Towns | 4 | 10 |
| Giannis Antetokounmpo | 5 | 1 |
| Stephen Curry | 6 | 9 |
| Trae Young | 7 | 11 |
| Damian Lillard | 8 | 7 |
| Luka Doncic | 9 | 2 |
| Lebron James | 10 | 6 |
Select Players Who Contribute in Multiple Categories Without Hurting You in Others
Similar to fantasy football, fantasy basketball drafts can’t be won early but they can be lost so it’s paramount that you get the right guy, and drafting a player who doesn’t sting you in a single category allows for maximum flexibility as the draft unfolds. I know LDT represents every ESPN draft, not just analysts’ rankings, but you’re most likely competing against the common player and LDT is the most accurate representation. I’m significantly higher on five of my top seven players than the community, let me explain why.
James Harden is a supernova and finished first on the standard (eight category) player rater last season with a score of 20.07, which is 3.17 points greater than second-place finisher Anthony Davis and greater than the gap between Davis and seventh ranked Devin Booker. Houston pivoted from playing five out offense, but new additions Christian Wood and Demarcus Cousins can still hit threes. John Wall should handle the ball just as much as Russell Westbrook did and has shot a decent 33.2% from three over the last three seasons compared to a paltry 28.5% from Westbrook. While the lanes may not be quite as open for Harden, the 2021 Rockets look slightly worse on paper which means Harden will be asked to do more. Expect more of the same.
Simply put, Anthony Davis is the best inside-out big in NBA history, doesn’t have any deficiencies and would be my number one player if not for Harden’s gargantuan usage rate (Davis was 7% lower than Harden in 2020). The Brow is the highest ranked player to be positive in all player rater categories and could take on a larger role this season if in fact Lebron James sits out some games.
The third and final center in the top 10, Karl-Anthony Towns has the best shot of any big man in NBA history and is probably the most skilled offensive big because of it. Towns’ career 39.6 3P% is 58th in NBA history, ahead of notable shooters Reggie Miller, Kevin Durant and Dirk Nowitzki, and he averaged 3.3 3PG last season. Towns is only this low because he missed 29 of 64 games last season and is a steal at his current ADP of 10.
Similar to Towns, Stephen Curry missed substantial time in 2020 and GMs are forgetting how revolutionary he truly has been for the game. Before Kevin Durant joined Golden State in 2017, Curry averaged 30/5/6 with 5 3PG, led the league in steals and recorded one of eight 50-40-90 seasons in NBA history. This Warriors team is far different and Curry is missing his splash brother, but in a somewhat comparable situation in the 2019 finals Curry averaged a near identical 30/5/6. The only reason he’s behind Giannis Antetokounmpo are the questions surrounding Golden State’s role players.
Trae Young is already one of the most gifted offensive players in the league with his only knock being shoddy defense. Luckily for GMs, defense doesn’t matter in fantasy (but move Young down a few spots if your league counts turnovers). Those numbers have come on bad Hawks teams, and with Atlanta expected make a playoff push look for Young’s 29/4/9 to regress due to lower usage, but the additions of knockdown shooters Danilo Gallinari and Bogdan Bogdanovic and a rim-running center in Clint Capela will increase his efficiency and make up for the dip.
On Par
The current valuation of Nikola Jokic and Damian Lillard, my third and eighth ranked players, is on par with the community’s opinion.
If Davis is the best inside-out, Nikola Jokic is the best passing big the league has ever seen. If you roster Jokic, it’s like having a top tier center who dishes dimes like a point guard, which is valuable given the inflated ADPs of point guards following the top three. Despite his elite passing acumen, Jokic sits behind Davis because of the deficit in hustle stats. Last season, Jokic averaged 1.8 stocks (steals + blocks) per game compared to 3.8 from Davis.
Damian Lillard is perhaps the most consistent player in the league and GMs had been undervaluing him in recent seasons until his 2020 explosion. Prior to last season’s 30/4/8 on elite efficiency, over the past four years Lillard’s ppg differed by no more than 2, rebounds by 0.5, assists by 1, threes and steals by 0.2 and blocks by 0.1. He’s the model of consistency, and the only reason Curry and Young are ranked ahead is their higher ceilings.
Categorical Weaknesses
I’m lower on Antetokounmpo, Luka Doncic and James, the point forwards in essence, than most because of their lack of efficiency, especially from the line. I’m nitpicking here and all three are top 10 NBA players who are often referenced by just their first name, but fantasy success is different from NBA success and that’s what is causing inflated ADPs. Even if the group is only being slightly overvalued, that makes all the difference in the first round.
Antetokounmpo has been the consensus first choice for the past few seasons so why do I have him fifth? The first reason is a category killing 63.3 FT% on 10 attempts per game in 2020, a mark that should improve but a career 72.2% is still well below average. The other less obvious reason is rest. Antetokounmpo has played 88.6% of team games over the past three seasons without missing a prolonged stretch due to injury. Milwaukee wants to keep their star fresh, especially at the end of the year, and can afford to hold him out of games thanks to the weaker eastern conference. Despite being a walking double-double with elite positional dimes and blocks, I can’t take Antetokounmpo higher than five.
A quick glance at their 2020 stats confirms Luka Doncic is the second coming of Lebron James.
Doncic: 28.8/9.4/8.8, 2.8 3PG, 1 SPG, 0.2 BPG, .463/.316/.758
James: 25.3/7.8/10.2, 2.2 3PG, 1.2 SPG, 0.5 BPG, .493/.348/.693
There’s slight variation, but remove the names and it isn’t exactly obvious which line belongs to which player. The key to early round selections is balancing volume and efficiency and, while both players are the most obvious number one options in the league, their efficiency suffers as a result. This is true for Doncic more than any other player. He is the Dallas Mavericks; they go wherever Doncic takes them. This is how he was able to rank fifth in assists and 19th in rebounds on the player rater as a guard but was only 18th overall because of a net -0.5 in the percentages. The efficiency will arrive as Doncic spends more time in the league, however that won’t be in his third season (it was year six for James). I have Doncic ahead of James because his ceiling is higher and James is likely to sit out games. James has nothing left to prove. He’s a top two player all time already and the Lakers are playoff locks and the current championship favorite. James will do whatever it takes to maintain his health and stamina into the playoffs which means taking nights off, especially the second nights of back-to-bacs at the end of the season (AKA the fantasy playoffs), and sitting out when the score allows. That being said, no top 10 list is complete without the king, who may be the best version of himself in year 18.
