Road to Fantasy Basketball Draft Part 1

27 Sep, 2026

Road to Fantasy Basketball Draft

With the NBA season starting next month, that means fantasy basketball starting too. Last season, I ended up last place after a promising start, mainly due to accepting some questionable trades and a myriad of injuries to key players. This season, I hope to end in the top 3 so I can actually get paid out but even the best team can be hit with injuries or load management in the NBA. This is a 9 cat matchup fantasy basketball league, for the categories, Field Goal Percentage (FG%), Free Throw Percentage (FT%), 3-point Shots Made (3PTM), Points Scored (PTS), Total Rebounds (REB), Assists (AST), Steals (ST), Blocked Shots (BLK), Turnovers (TO).

The league is also a keeper's league and I can keep up to 3 players in my roster from the end of last season into the new season. Because I was destined for last place, I ended the season picking up as many injured players as I can to fill up my roster so I can have options for the upcoming season. If you aren't aware of the injuries, my team last season may look pretty star studded.

Some basic info, it is a salary cap draft, and we start out with $200 if we have keepers, $225 if we don't, and $250 for any new managers in the league. The draft is also auction based, so whoever's turn it is, will choose the player, and everyone will have a chance to bid on the player until no one wants to raise the price any higher. So throughout the draft, one team may have 5 players already while other teams have 1 or even 0 depending on how they do during the bidding process.

The price of keeper players is last year's draft price plus 40% or plus $4, whichever amount is bigger.

Here is the team I ended last season with and the price it will take me to keep them on my team for this season if I choose them as a Keeper pick.

In a Keeper's league, one of the benefits is being able to keep a good player from last season but the other benefit is being able to keep players on a discount from what they're actually worth. If you can draft a solid rookie for $1, then for the next several seasons, you can keep that player on a good deal and have money to fill out the rest of the roster. One of the participants in this league was able to do that with SGA for a couple seasons. At some point, the keeper price will inflate to the point where it's no longer worth it though so gotta make smart choices. Last season, that team manager put in $69 to keep SGA on the team which is a discount considering that the top 2 picks last season were for Jokic and Wemby at $95 and $97. No doubt that if SGA was put on the open market, his winning bid would go above $90. Eventually, that team manager will have to decide if SGA is worth keeping as the following season, his keeper price would be at $97 and then $136 the season after.

But when deciding my keepers, let's try to build out how much each pick should cost. By using how much each team spent on their picks, we can get an idea on how much each roster spot should cost. This isn't a perfect comparison because of the draft bidding quirk and some team managers may decide to be top heavy for their team or spread out their budget evenly throughout the rounds. So in a league of 12 teams, and 13 roster positions, let's look at how each team drafted last season.

On average the first player that teams chose cost $59, and by the time we get to the roster's 5th player, the prices start dropping to $10 and below, with possibility of multiple players being drafted for only $1.

And let's also take a look at how teams spent on their keepers as well.

Notice how some teams decided not to have any keepers so their budget is either $225 or $250 if it's a new manager. Team 1 is also a top heavy team, spending $95 on their first pick, and then having to find bargain players for most of the rest of their team. And then there's teams like Team 11 who spaced out their budget on draft picks and keepers a little more evenly. Team 9, the team that kept SGA for $69 front loaded their roster with SGA and only averaged $11 on their actual draft picks. Lots of strategies that can be deployed for this draft. Team 10 won the league last season and his draft strategy was more balanced and making smart picks without paying heavy premiums.

Now let's look at my options for keepers and cross out some potential picks to get a sense of what I have left. Will be mainly assessing how much playing time I think they'll get because more minutes = more stats.

Jordan Miller and Derrick Jones Jr - Both on the Clippers in a state of dysfunction at the moment due to the Kawhi Leonard deals and consequences. Everything about the Clippers is pretty much unpredictable at the moment and it'll take a couple months before we can get a sense of their lineups and depth. Also, JM is currently injured and there is a backlog of guards on the Clippers so might not have a lot of playing time when he comes back. DJJ is also pushed back in the rotation because of the addition of Brandon Ingram. So both players are on a wait and see notice, not worth spending the $4 each to keep them on the team, but also possible free agent pickups in the middle of the season.

Lauri Markkanen and Jaren Jackson Jr - Both on the Utah Jazz but the Jazz is in a weird place where they have a multitude of young players they want to develop while wanting to compete in the playoffs. If the Jazz decide to tank again, then both players will be on a minutes restriction towards the end of the season like how LM was last season. $52 for JJJ is also a steep price for a player who had a season ending injury last season. Both players will most likely be picked in the draft but I wouldn't spend the keeper price for them. LM was drafted for $18 last season so I may bid on him this season if the auction price stays around there.

Joel Embiid and VJ Edgecombe - I really wanted to keep VJ due to cost but with the addition of Lebron James and Jaylen Brown, I don't think he's going to have an impactful season. Same goes for Embiid who I don't trust to stay healthy.

Keegan Murray and Maxime Raynaud - So these 2 are an interesting case because the keeper price for both is relatively cheap at $5 and $4. But the Sacramento Kings are also probably the most under the radar team in the NBA. In last year's draft, the only players drafted above $1 were Domantas Sabonis and Zach Lavine. I feel like this season, it'll still be the same case with probably the addition of Keegan Murray having a mini bidding battle and other managers making a run at Darius Acuff Jr. KM might still be able to be picked up for a bargain but I definitely think I can draft MR without spending much, so no need to spend keeper $ on them.

Jerami Grant - An older veteran player on a young team has potential risks for decreased playing time towards the end of the season.

Scoot Henderson - Between Ja, Dame, and Jrue, the guard position on the Blazers is jammed up and Scoot is going to have to compete for minutes.

Jaylin Williams - Backup C behind Chet and IHart, but also doesn't put up good enough numbers for a definite spot, nor is he worth $4. May pick him up later in the season if he shows promise or any injuries to the OKC bigs.

So that leaves me with

• Anthony Edwards
• Walker Kessler
• Zach Edey
• Stephon Castle

Anthony Edwards was a top 5 player last season and was number 3 in scoring with 28.8 ppg. Picking him up for $39 is a steal considering that is a second pick amount for a first pick candidate. He will be kept for next season. But the question is if he is worth keeping the following season and how long can I keep him on my roster.

If he continues playing as a top 5 player, $55 will be worth the price for him but the following season at $77 will be pushing the boundaries a bit on how much I want to spend on a player in the draft.

Stephon Castle can fill up multiple stats and even had multiple triple doubles last season. He averaged 16.7 points, 5.3 rebounds, and 7.4 assists per game while also playing on average 30 mpg. Keeping him is a must and I think this season he will continue improving even more. His TOs and FG% may hurt but I think being able to fill up the stat sheet will prove fruitful. But also, his keeper price provides multi year value.

If Castle continues improving at a steady pace, I can potentially keep him for an additional 3 more seasons at a decent price before it starts feeling inflated.

So that leaves me with 2 young center candidates in Walker Kessler and Zack Edey. $21 vs $6. Let's look at their stats from the 2024-25 season since they each barely played last season due to injuries. This isn't a perfect comparison as we are comparing ZE's rookie season compared to WK's third season. But these are the best numbers we got for a full season where each player played more than a handful of games.

Stats wise, WK outclasses ZE in pretty much every category besides FT%. If we are going by historical performance, WK gets the edge due to being in the league longer. If we were to adjust per 36 minutes though, their performances are basically leveled out.

But when thinking about prices, ZE starts looking like the better choice at $6, especially if he starts getting more playing time and continues improving from his rookie season. $21 would have WK between a 3rd and 4th pick value which I think is fair for a consistent double double player whose been in the league for a couple seasons already.

If we are to look at their multi year value, here's what we're seeing.

ZE's price point is definitely more attractive than WK in the long run especially when solid centers are rare to come by. With WK, if I wanted, I can probably keep him for an additional season before the price goes too high.

Both players though were injured for the majority of last season so the numbers from last season is too small a sample size to tell how well they'll do moving forward. But I will give the edge to WK though because at the end of the day, the most important ability is availability and it sounds like WK is 100% ready from his injuries based on reports. Not sure if Edey is fully recovered yet as there hasn't been much recent news about his recovery but only being able to play 66 games in 2 seasons while also coming back from surgery in March is a concern.

The last argument for WK is the unknown factor of being on a new team with a bigger role and a top point guard in the league, Luka Doncic. Luka averaged 8.3 assists last season which is more than any point guards WK has played with in his career since his rookie season with Mike Conley. There's a lot of indicators that WK is set for an upcoming breakout season and able to establish himself as a top big man in the league. So picking WK over ZE is just a more attractive option because of all the potential upside.

Having multiple high level players as options for keepers is a good problem to have. Between Ant, Castle, and Kessler, those 3 players will be $69 for 3 roster spots which leaves me with $131 to round out the next 10 spots. If I do spend the $59 for another top player, that leaves me with $72 for 9 roster spots or $8/spot. I can pick up some sleepers for less than $5 and that'll give me more flexibility. So upcoming posts will be about under the radar players that I will hope to potentially pick up in the draft.