You don’t want to lose a fantasy draft in the first few rounds. These are your star players, the ones you need to feel great about. They are the ones you build your core around and rely upon.
Most of the players going in the first four rounds are great and will be great. It’s less critical for me to pick the right star and more about avoiding the landmines.
I’ve run through the first four rounds per ADP and cherry-picked the one player I’d make sure to pass on while offering up a better option that is almost assuredly still on the board.
Fantasy Basketball: First Round
Tired: Domantas Sabonis (C, SAC)
I think I’m doing it if I can bet against the Kings.
The signing of Russell Westbrook this week kind of proves that point: Where is the direction?
There are many ball-stopping types on this offense, and while Sabonis boasts a versatile skill set that can serve as a distribution point, that’s only impactful for our purposes if his teammates play well off of him.
I’m happy to bet against him shooting 41.7% from 3 for a second consecutive season (career: 34.7%), and there really isn’t room for growth in the other counting stats.
What helps Sabonis stay in the first-round mix is his durability and the perception of his percentages. His shooting of 59% from the field last season was great, but considering that he’s never averaged 15 FGA for a season and has been at or below 13 in five straight, the actual impact of that strength is limited.
At his current price tag (10th overall, just ahead of a wave of point guards whom I trust more), you’re paying for last season’s ceiling numbers.
Wired: Kevin Durant (F, HOU)
I’ll believe the decline when we see it. Durant joined this team to help put them over the top, and leaning into what he does well is their best path to doing that, especially post-Fred VanVleet injury.
Throughout his career, KD has been good for 27 points with elite percentages and 10-12 rebounds-plus-assists per game. Outside of “Father Time”, why would we expect much of a reduction?
The rebound numbers have dipped a touch recently, and that could continue to be the case, but without a rock-solid ball handler to lead this offense, could he not pick up in assists any losses in rebounds?
Ime Udoka will be tasked with building an offense around his newest piece, not forcing a square peg into a round hole. Durant may not be his peak version, but it’s not showing the box scores. He was good for 2.0 blocks-plus-steals with a lifeless Suns team a season ago and possesses one of the most bulletproof profiles among the players drafted in the top 20.
His odds of finishing as the top overall player are low, but I’ll happily take his floor over a handful of those routinely drafted ahead of him. If the cliche of only losing, not winning, leagues in the first round is accurate, sign me up for KD at the end of Round 1 every time: I’ll lock in this production in a good situation and worry about upside swings in the middle third.
Fantasy Basketball: Second Round
Tired: Pascal Siakam (F, IND)
I’m sorry, but I think Tyrese Haliburton is that good.
Siakam is the first of two Pacer/Pacer-adjacent players that I think are being overdrafted now that the leader of that scoring circus is shelved.
Last season, Siakam (now 31 years of age with over 700 games of NBA miles on his legs) was an 82nd percentile producer in transition opportunities. They were gold. The grab-and-go nature of this offense was a fantasy steroid for all involved: highly sufficient numbers that came in bunches.
However, without the head of that operation, I worry that the numbers will decline significantly.
He gained 0.5 3PM per game last season from the year prior, thanks to an increase in both quantity and quality of look. How does that sustain?
The shooting comes and goes on a good season for Siakam and I think the dip in assist rate is here to stay. That works against most of the industry, as the belief is that he picks up ball-handling due to the Haliburton injury, but with that (and the loss of Myles Turner), he also loses reliable shooters to stretch the court.
It is awfully early to take a player with inherent risk around him due to roster change and what that could do to the scheme, not to mention someone who isn’t elite anywhere.
Good player, bad price.
Wired: Paolo Banchero (F, ORL)
Better player, cheaper price.
Paolo Banchero averaged more points per drive than Giannis Antetokounmpo and Jayson Tatum last season, and that was with no one on planet Earth respecting the Magic’s perimeter ” attack.”
Enter Desmond Bane.
Banchero will naturally lose some usage, but I think he has more room to gain value than lose it in fantasy circles.
Even with the offense in the condition that it was, we saw his assist rate rise and turnover rate decline in his third NBA season, leaving the door open for him to explore joining the 25-7-7 club this season.
It wasn’t a club last season; it was just Nikola Jokic.
Banchero routinely falls out of the first two rounds, and I’m not buying it. If we think this Orlando team is a real threat in the East, Banchero could garner MVP votes, and that makes this price tag more than fair.
Fantasy Basketball: Third Round
Tired: Bam Adebayo (F, MIA)
Bam Adebayo is a good player, but he’s struggling a bit to find his comfort zone in this evolving NBA, and thus, there’s a dip in scoring in consecutive seasons.
I worry that we see it in three straight.
Last season, 32.9% of his FGA were 2-pointers outside of 10 feet. That should be a dead zone outside of a select few, and, spoiler alert, Adebayo’s name isn’t on that list. There are many pick-and-pop looks, low-percentage shots that become even less advantageous when your top ball-handler could miss the first two months of the season in Tyler Herro (ankle).
He’s on a run of six straight seasons averaging 2+ blocks-plus-steals per game, production that allows him to stick in fantasy lineups even on bad runs. That said, it’s clear that the team is instructing him to get comfortable moving away from the rim, and that naturally puts those metrics at risk.
Kel’el Ware was the 15th overall pick a year ago and averaged 1.7 blocks-plus-steals in his 22.2 minutes per game last season. His profile isn’t that of a floor spacer or fluid athlete in the same vein as Adebayo, thus putting him in the more friendly, near-the-bucket role on defense.
I just don’t see much of a ceiling for Adebayo this season. He’d need to make gains as a distributor, but without Herro to alleviate some of the pressure, I worry this is a bumpy beginning to a down season by his ultra-consistent standards.
The defensive numbers dip at all, and the shot diet remains; this could prove to be 15 picks too early for the Miami big man.
Wired: Jalen Johnson (F, ATL)
It should tell you that Jalen Johnson has played more than 56 games once in four years and that the public is still comfortable with him at this level.
The do-it-all Small Forward figures to be a focal piece of a Hawks team with big goals this season in a down Eastern Conference. Before the injury, he averaged 18.9 points, 15 rebounds-plus-assists, and 2.6 blocks-plus-steals.
Add a hit-and-miss jump shot, and we are looking at early career LeBron James sans the high-end scoring. I’m not here to label him the next King, but that was an impressive 36-game run last season, and the analytics like the direction he is headed.
I used the mid-to-long range 2PA as a knock against Adebayo, and it serves as a strength for Johnson: just 10.9% of his attempts.
He may not be a gifted jump shooter, but with Trae Young dictating the tempo, he’s going to continue to get good looks. He’s a steady jumper away from returning second-round value.
It may not feel comfortable, but this is a player you want to be early on: at his current price tag, he could be a league winner.
Fantasy Basketball: Fourth Round
Tired: Myles Turner (C, MIL)
Isn’t Myles Turner just Brook Lopez with a better publicist?
He’s a big with big problems. The rebound rate he posted last season, on a team that preferred to get up-and-down and thus didn’t often pack the lineup with traditional rebounding size, was the second lowest of his career. Now he’s sharing a front court with Antetokounmpo.
As with Lopez, the blocks help drive the value, and he still figures to be something of a rim protector in Milwaukee, but we’ve seen that stat jump around from year to year.
Heck, Lopez himself played 1.3 more minutes per game in 2025 than in 2024, and he lost half a block a night. We saw something even more dramatic happen to him in 2021 from 2020, giving us data points that suggest that, while this is a strength for Turner, relying on it to be elite to justify this selection is risky at best, crippling at worst.
Even if the defensive stats prove stable, what makes you think he’s putting up consistent numbers on the other end?
The NBA Finals were a disaster (21.4%), and could some of that not be traced to the health struggles for Tyrese Haliburton? For the season, Turner averaged just 1.5 drives per game and, again, like Lopez, needs others to create for him.
- Kevin Porter Jr.
- Cole Anthony
- Gary Trent Jr.
- AJ Green
- Kyle Kuzma
Which of those players are you comfortable with in the creation space?
Antetokounmpo demands attention and is a capable passer, but he’s not the playmaker for others the way that Haliburton is, and that puts Turner at risk of giving us the Lopez stat line from last season (13 points, 1.7 3PM, 5 rebounds, and 1.9 blocks).
That’s fine, but not inside the top 60, never mind the top 50.
Wired: Austin Reaves (G, LAL)
By ADP, he’s the next man up after Turner comes off the board, and I can’t for the life of me justify him falling below the profile I just detailed.
Not only is Reaves going to walk into enhanced usage to open the season by way of the LeBron James injury, but he’s developed into a threat at all three levels.
Over the past two seasons, he’s cashed in 78.2% of his attempts at the rim while also being fluent in cashing in on pull-up looks (49% or better in consecutive seasons, a skill he’s honed as a pro).
And when this offense spaces out to let Luka Doncic cook? No worries, AR15 buried 46.3% of his corner triple tries a season ago, up from the 33.3% the year prior.
The usage rate continues to grow while the assist-to-turnover rate improves. He’s done in two seasons of growth what takes some half a decade, and with the significant runway to open the 2025-26 season, we could be looking at a player who is going a round too late.
Would I take him over an injured De’Aaron Fox or an oft-injured Ja Morant? I would, and both of those point guards cost you a pick that is 10+ spots higher.
