Favorite NBA Fantasy Draft Strategy of 2024
Fantasy basketball rankings can vary significantly by league type. Players who are great in point leagues may not be so great in category leagues. In head-to-head categories, you also need to consider pitching. There are general guidelines that are helpful to follow — knowing your league format, keeping up with the news and not reaching too far beyond ADP being one of the biggest among them.
But what about strategy? Is there a general strategy we can use regardless of league type to improve our chances of winning our fantasy leagues? A broad place to start, and something I can endorse as my favorite draft strategy, is to find high-floor players early and focus on later. Focus on not losing your draft at the start, and try to win it later.
Identification of High Floor Players
Avoiding Age and Injury
Most Important for Choices 1-45
The primary drivers of risk/reward in fantasy basketball are age, injury history and role. Team success can also play a factor — is this player at risk of being shut down during a tanking season? — but it should be considered more of a tie rather than a major factor.
Age and injury history are often related. Someone who is older has a higher risk of injury (and a general decline in performance). Someone who has been injured a lot is less likely to play well when they are older. When the two factors collide, problems arise. Joel Embiid, Anthony Davis, Stephen Curry and Kevin Durant have all proven to be first-round talents, and they are generally being selected in the first round this season. However, if your best player is just as likely to play 55 games as 75 games, that’s a tough hole to dig yourself out of. Many players like this trash in the second and third rounds as well, such as LeBron James, Paul George and Kyrie Irving. There’s only so much the rest of your roster can do to make up for potentially lost games or a decline in production.
At the same time, we have to be reasonable when it comes to how far we let these players slide. If you pick on the flip and Joel Embiid is there for you, skipping that could be a mistake. If you pick at 38 and Paul George is there, you can take a risk. However, the beginning of the draft is when it is most crucial to ask, “is there a safer option that can bring production closer?”
Focus on Role
Most Important for Choices 45-70
This is where we start to mix finding advanced players with advanced games. Can we say definitively that Player X is one of their team’s three best offensive options? In the very early rounds of drafts, this is basically a guarantee for every player. From ADP, I think the first player who isn’t a clear top three option in his offense is Rudy Gobert. He has an ADP of 47.1.
Specialists like Gobert can be useful in fantasy, especially in category formats. If you’re running a big man focused team in a 9 category H2H, you might need Gobert over someone like DeMar DeRozan. But broadly speaking, the top three picks have a higher floor because they are trusted by the coaching staff to make plays. Players in that top-three hierarchy are also most likely to see increased usage if another of the top-three options suffers an injury, giving them a higher ceiling than most specialists.
This is a major reason why fantasy managers should consider targeting playmaking big men. Only a select few centers will really get the chance to step in more touches when a key player isn’t available — think Domantas Sabonis, Alperen Sengun, Bam Adebayo and Karl-Anthony Towns. You don’t get that specific advantage when you draft Mark Williams or Clint Capela.
When and How to Chase Upside
Choices 70+
Around pick 70, you have a fusion of steady low-ceiling players and potential breakouts. This is where you should start to ease concerns about age and injury history. Role is still a crucial aspect of hunting, but it is becoming a bit more flexible.
The question can change from “is this player a top three pick?” to “is this player one teammate injury away from a huge role?” Players like Malik Monk, Naz Reid, Trey Murphy and Onyeka Okongwu fit this mold. These players see sixth minutes — enough to give them fantasy importance on their own — but could see a consistent starting role if any injury occurs ahead of them in the rotation. There are many of these cases outside the top 100.
There are also players available in this range who are top picks for their team. Cam Thomas can be drafted at pick 75, and he is Brooklyn’s clear No. 1 option. The same goes for Anfernee Simons, who has an ADP of 89.
After pick 100, I’m fine with pretty much throwing wound care completely out the window. Give me Khris Middleton at an ADP of 101; give me Malcolm Brogdon at an ADP of 130. Maybe those players can’t reach their former heights, but they’re still capable of putting together pieces of top-50 value. The downside risk is all but gone when some of your other options in this range are Klay Thompson and Luguentz Dort.
