We all got that one guy.

Doesn’t matter what the stats say, you just think he’s cool, so he ends up going way higher than he should on your board.

Who’s yours?

I’m still working through my 2026/27 FanScout projections, and after looking at the Western Conference, these are five players I keep coming back to.

I’d split them into 3 breakout candidates who could matter in standard leagues and 2 deep sleepers whose value could explode later in the season.

Breakout candidates

Dylan Harper

Anyone who watched the playoffs probably saw why I’m so high on him.

When De’Aaron Fox was out in Game 1 of the Western Conference Finals, Harper started and put up 24 points, 11 rebounds, 6 assists and 7 steals in 47 minutes. That’s obviously an extreme example, but the talent is very real.

He’s a big, left-handed creator with that Harden-like ability to get defenders on his hip and play at his own pace. He averaged only around 20-something minutes for stretches last season, and I simply don’t think that continues.

I’m projecting 28-30 MPG, with clear 30+ upside whenever Fox misses time. San Antonio also has little reason to overload Fox during the regular season.

Ace Bailey

Bailey already averaged 13.8 points in 27.6 minutes as a 19-year-old rookie, and the defensive numbers are what make him especially interesting for category leagues: 0.9 steals and 0.9 blocks for the last 3 months.

The scoring talent is obvious. He’s comfortable creating in the mid-range instead of relying entirely on threes and rim attempts, which gives him more ways to score when defenses take something away.

The next jump I’m watching is stocks + free throws. If he gets above 1 steal and 1 block, while also getting to the line more often as a second-year player, his fantasy profile becomes much more complete.

Jaden McDaniels

Probably the least exciting name here — which is exactly why I think he could end up being good value.

He played all 82 games in 2024/25 and another 73 last season, while his 2025/26 per-36 line jumped to 16.8 points, 4.8 rebounds, 3.1 assists, 1.3 steals and 1.1 blocks.

He’s entering his age-26 season, his minutes are extremely secure, and Minnesota now has LaMelo Ball creating offense alongside him. Any missed time from LaMelo should only increase McDaniels’ offensive involvement.

My projection is aggressive: top 40 in total value this season.

Deep sleepers

Isaiah Jackson

This one is mostly about where the Clippers are heading.

LA acquired Jackson alongside Bennedict Mathurin and significant draft capital in the Zubac trade. Mathurin has already moved on, while Jackson remains on the roster.

He enters the season behind 38-year-old Brook Lopez, and the Clippers don't exactly look like a team built around maximizing short-term regular-season wins.

Jackson has always been a strong per-minute fantasy producer because of his rebounding, FG% and especially blocks. My prediction: he takes the starting center job sometime around December. If that happens, he won't stay on waivers for long.

Maxime Raynaud

This is almost entirely a bet on Sacramento eventually moving Sabonis.

Raynaud already showed what the opportunity can look like. In March he averaged 17.9 points and 8.5 rebounds in 33 minutes while shooting 59.5%, followed by 17.7/9.5 on 62.1% shooting in April.

He finished his rookie season at 12.5 points and 7.5 rebounds on 57.1% FG, and when Sabonis was unavailable there were multiple 20-point/double-double type performances.

With Sabonis healthy, Raynaud isn't someone I'm drafting aggressively.

But Sacramento looks increasingly like a rebuilding situation, and there is already speculation that Sabonis could be moved during the season.

If that happens, I think Raynaud can once again produce around top-80 fantasy value over the final months, with excellent percentages.

Who’s your favorite Western Conference breakout candidate this year — and which player do you think is one trade or injury away from becoming a must-roster fantasy player?

We've been working on a new "Schedule Maximizer" tool at LineupExperts and wanted to share it as everyone starts preparing for the fantasy basketball season.

Most schedule tools tell you how many games each NBA team plays. That's useful, but 4 scheduled games aren't necessarily 4 usable games if they fall on crowded nights when your active lineup is already full.

The Schedule Maximizer compares NBA schedules against the players you select. Before your draft, use it to research how potential picks could fit together. During your draft, see which teams and players best complement the roster you're building. If you've already drafted, analyze your actual roster to identify free agents and other players whose schedules could improve your lineup - including looking ahead to your fantasy playoffs.

With an incomplete lineup, the tool finds Schedule Partners - teams that provide more Open Nights and favorable Off-Nights alongside your selected players. Once your active lineup is fillable, it analyzes Schedule Fit, accounting for roster structure, position eligibility and schedule conflicts to estimate how much of each team's schedule you can actually use.

Everything is completely free. You can build a lineup and research players manually without an account, or create a free account and sync unlimited leagues for free. Syncing automatically imports your league settings and, once you've drafted, your roster as well. Player recommendations are then customized to your league settings and available players.

We'd love any feedback on the new tool - whether you find it helpful, have ideas for improvements, or think there are other schedule factors we should consider.

https://www.lineupexperts.com/basketball/schedule-maximizer

Full disclosure: This is our site - we're the team behind LineupExperts.

Good luck with your drafts and the season ahead!

Trying to decide who will take my last keeper spot and it's between Ware and Queen. Who will have the better season? Ware will have a nice change of scenery in MIL but would be competing with Turner for C minutes. DQ had some nice performances last season but significantly more duds- will he be more consistent in his Sophomore season? I think he has a lot less competition in the C position in NO. Who would you guys go with?

Dan Besbris identifies several players, such as Keegan Murray, Ausar Thompson, and others, who could see a resurgence in their fantasy value this coming season.

[ Removed by Reddit on account of violating the content policy. ]

Going into a Dynasty league with 4 keepers (Bam, Cade are a lock), but i'm having a bit of a time choosing between Jalen Williams, Kyshawn George and James Harden). I'm sure I can get James if I really want to in earlier rounds of the draft, but Jalen Williams became a surprising injury liability. I'm very very high on Kyshawn George's ceiling (Gotta support the DMV), but unless he's the 6th man it might get crowded and his growth stunted.

I feel like I could really go either way but just wanted to throw it out there. I do also have Kyrie, Kessler I could have considered but I thought that was a bit of a stretch).

I've never been involved in one and now I'm setting one up. How much time should be allotted for a 240 player draft?

My friend group might only have 8 players this year. Was wondering some ideas to still make the league competitive so it's not just super stacked allstar teams and there will actually be lower draft strategy.

One idea was to just expand team roster size/starting positions but that would dilute the impact of players lower in the draft.

Another idea was to implement a maximum weekly games played so the quality of your starts matter but I'm unsure if that's an option in Yahoo and it would also just favor the top heavy.

Any other ideas?

Hi everyone, I'm a commissioner looking to transition our league to a dynasty – starting with just 1 keeper for now – but I'm a bit confused by the season-related terminology ESPN uses...

We want to fully re-draft heading into this 2026-27 season so that we can choose keepers based on those rosters, such that the first draft/season with keepers in play would be 2027-28. Here are my league settings right now:

• Use keepers for 2027 season = No
• Use keepers for 2028 season = Yes

Is this correct? My assumption is that "starting" with the 2028 season must refer to 2027-28, but it's not entirely clear to me what "use keepers" is even referring exactly; is it merely the existence of keeper selection during the season or is it also keepers during the draft? Thank you for any insight and sorry if this is a dumb, overly-cautious question!

I’m currently working on the new season projections for FanScout, and while going through Eastern Conference rosters, a few names stood out to me as potential breakout candidates.

Two of them could be legitimate steals in 12-team leagues, while the other two are names I’d keep on the radar in 15-team/deeper formats.

12-team league steals

Coby White

White was phenomenal on a per-minute basis last season — his per-36 production was around a top-40 fantasy level.

He’s also entering what should be his prime at 27. If the minutes and role are there, I think there’s still another level he can reach, and his final ranking could end up considerably higher than his draft price.

Kevin Porter Jr.

Still only 26 and playing for a new contract, so there’s plenty of incentive here.

The other factor is Tyler Herro’s durability. He played only 33 games last season and 42 in 2023/24, and he has cleared 70 games just once in his career.

If Porter gets an extended stretch with a bigger role, there’s real upside at his likely ADP.

15-team/deep league targets

Mouhamed Gueye

With Kuminga and Risacher no longer taking up wing/frontcourt minutes, there should be more opportunity for Gueye.

His 2024/25 per-36 numbers were already very interesting. Last season didn’t bring the breakout I expected, which might actually make him more under the radar now.

Whenever he received consistent minutes, there were stretches where his fantasy production looked roughly like a top-90 player. I’m currently projecting him for around 20 MPG, and even that could make him relevant in deep leagues.

Pelle Larsson

Larsson is an RFA playing for his next contract, and I’m expecting his role to grow significantly.

I’m currently projecting him at around 30 MPG. That increase alone gives him an interesting path to fantasy relevance, particularly in deeper formats.

He doesn’t need a massive statistical leap — more minutes and a slightly bigger offensive role could be enough.

Which Eastern Conference player do you think is being overlooked the most going into this season? Any deep-league breakout candidates I should take a closer look at while building the projections?

Looking for people/programs that will simulate mock drafts for auction 9cat, any recommendations?

The new Yahoo Fantasy UI rolled out and I can’t figure out how to access my teams/leagues from previous years anymore.

I used to be able to go through my profile and see my league history, but I’m either completely missing it or they moved it somewhere else.

Anyone figure out where it is in the new UI?

Below worked for me before, but it no longer works...

Access your Yahoo Fantasy profile

1. From Yahoo Fantasy, mouse over Fantasy | select a sport.
2. Mouse over the Fantasy Sport and year | select Profile.

Access league history

1. At the top of your Fantasy profile, select the sport you'd like to review your league history from.
2. Below the list of Fantasy sports, select History.
3. Review the list of your past teams and leagues then select the one you'd like to access.

Commissioners can also enable league history which will add your league's historical data as a dropdown menu from your current season's overview page using the steps here.

I have a choice to make on who to keep amongst these three in a 9 cat format:

Trey Murphy III

Darius Garland

Matas Buzelis

Trey Murphy is basically a lock, so the remaining spot os to be decided between the other two. I like Garland's usage, assist and 3pt numbers. He should get a boost being the primary playmaker in this new Clippers squad and could potentially crack the top 50, as he has done before. Buzelis also has tons of potential and could be even better than Garland due to his defensives, but the Bulls have never given me much confidence on how they go about using their players. That and Caleb Wilson coming in, make it a bit harder to confidently say he's the guy i should go with.

What do you all think?

For those that have yearly leagues, what are some creative ways that you have determined draft order?

We like to keep it interesting dry year rather than just going on the previous years rankings. Eg 2025 it was based off a presentation to the others as to why we deserved that #1 pick, or whatever slot we wanted.

These are my main guys I aim for in late round 1 to early round 3 depending on my draft pick and I’m wondering who you’re taking Tyrese Haliburton over if any? This is in standard espn points draft

Donovan Mitchell
Cooper Flagg
Scottie Barnes
Tyrese Maxey
AD
Sengun
Jamal Murray
Trae Young
Mobley
ANT

This is a long one so strap in... We reached out to +100 commissioners with 10 questions to figure out what the real problems in fantasy bball are. Our goal this year is to make the fantasy experience better, whether it's a new tool, a new platform, a new format - something that resonates with the people. Some responses were expected, others not so much. We owe it to the community to share what we learned. Here they are:

The Expected

1. 90% of commissioners would still enjoy the fantasy season even if they didn't win (56% strongly agreed, 34% agreed).

If you're a commissioner, you gotta be in it for the love of the game. You're a leader first, not a winner. We love this response.

2. ~70% of leagues are category leagues (split 50/50 between snake and auction drafts). ~15% are points leagues, almost all snake draft.

We were curious about draft and scoring formats. I may be biased, but I think the category x auction format is the best. You can be creative, you need to strategize and literally fight for everything you get. Snake drafts are still the most popular, but it was great to see auction making up ~45% of the total.

The Vibe Check

3. Does league engagement decline significantly after the draft? Very split results.

The important number to us was that 40% agreed that it went down post draft. This isn't necessarily a bad thing. They could be in some big money leagues where people don't know each other, or people are reasonably going through the motions and don't have time to chat 24/7 when life is happening. We find that this isn't related to the league type (good mix of pts/cat) and it isn't coming from a lack of trading (see #5). I think it would be nice to have spikes in engagement once a week as if you're in a Sunday rec league with your group, but maybe that's just me.

4. Are the best teams run by managers that sink the most time into the app? Is that a good/bad thing? Commissioners' thoughts varied.

• 37% said that more time spent = likely to be the best, but also saw it as deserved
• 33% wanted to be able to win without committing so much time on the app
• 25% thought the time spent didn't matter due to the randomness and injuries in the season.

The middle group jumps out to me, belonging to that section myself (although I agree with the last). Fantasy bball is great, but without guard rails it can be awful. I shouldn't have to stay up until 3am to wait for a player to clear waivers, nor be locked-in for 5 months straight because there is life outside of fantasy. PSA to some commissioners: find better league settings so that the top KPI is skill, not time spent.

The Unexpected

5. How many trades go down in your league? Less than 10% of leagues have ZERO trades, and 44% of leagues have 7 or more.

I've been part of leagues where almost no trades go down. It's pretty depressing to be stuck with your drafted team for 5 months. To see that trade activity is super high in other leagues was awesome. *cries with envy*

6. Does the frequency of injuries take away from the overall experience? 75% agreed, but 42% (!!) think that the IL spots fix this issue. 25% accept that it's part of the game.

Surprisingly, 40%+ think IL spots solve the injury problem. In an ideal world, missed games are minimal, and you get to realize your strategy from draft night. With access to data getting easier and more tools being available, winning and losing will more often be decided by the randomness of injuries. We had a fun solve for this. For the 33% that agreed that no solution currently exists, see the next question.

The Fun One

7. Would you be down for a midseason re-draft? 70% said no.

If injuries are such a problem, what if you could keep part of your team, and the league did a redraft with the remaining players? We thought this would solve both the engagement issue, the injury issue, and give teams lower in the standings a chance to climb out of whatever hole their roster put them in. This is fantasy after all - why be limited to one draft. However, the people have spoken, and they want to stay put!

The Opportunistic Questions

8. Does your current platform meet your needs? Would you switch?

• 55% said they are happy with their platform and wouldn't switch
• 20% are happy but would consider it
• 15% said they aren't happy but think the league wouldn't move
• 10% are actively looking to move

We wanted to test the waters to see if people were mentally ready to leave Yahoo/ESPN/Fantrax. Having played on all 3, I'm not fully happy with any, but they're not terrible either. The people are saying they're not ready or even looking, so we're closing the door on that.

9. Why didn't you complete more trades last season? Top answers:

• 37% said they completed a fair amount
• 25% said others declined all their offers
• 13% thought others offered horrible trades
• 10% were close to completing more but couldn't land on even ground
• 6% don't know how to evaluate player value

10. Would you use a tool that gave you insight into which players to keep, drop and trade for?

• 54% weren't using one and were on board
• 13% currently use one but are down to switch
• 13% said their current tool is already sufficient
• 20% were undecided

These questions are very connected. Over 50% of managers want to trade more, and they should want to. There are several win-win trades available all season, but it's hard to agree on value and nobody wants to look dumb, so too often both teams walk away worse off.

It's still in beta, but we're making something where you can manage all your teams from, all platforms in one place, get presented weekly win-win trades, and BONUS for now is that we're making a free draft tool for both auction and snake, points and categories, all players, no restrictions. We'll be the Jonah Hill to your Brad Pitt. If you got this far, special s/o to you.

Question for devs working on apps using the Yahoo API - curious how your access requests have gone.
For anyone who missed it or isn't coding, Yahoo changed how API access works this offseason. Everyone's access got revoked and now you need to reapply to get access and they have to manually approve each request. They say: 'The review process typically takes 1-2 weeks'. I applied a month ago, then 2 weeks ago again and didn't get any reply from them.
I can understand why they did it, probably a lot of people started vibe coding random bs and spammed their api, so they had to lock it / restrict access somehow.

To compare, I was building on top of Fantrax API this offseason and needed some extra functionalities for what I was working on, emailed them directly, got a reply in a day and they actually shipped the changes I asked for within a few days.

Is anyone else stuck waiting on Yahoo or if you got approved, how long did it take? I also heard they became more strict on how you can use / store data, is that true?

Does anyone actually factor the fantasy playoff schedule into their draft, or is that purely a February thing for most people?

I was in League Winner's Weekly Slate having a look at how weeks 21 to 23 fall, since that's when my league runs its playoffs, and there are three teams that play four games in all three of those weeks. Dallas, Memphis and Phoenix, twelve games each across the three.

Cleveland is at the other end with nine, and that includes a two game week 23, which happens to be the week we play our final in. New York, Portland, San Antonio, Utah and Washington all land on ten.

Three games across three weeks doesnt seem THAT bad, but it works out to roughly a whole extra week of production from one roster spot, and I've lost a final by less than that before.

I'm not saying draft a worse player because of it, but if you're sat in round seven with two guys you genuinely can't split, it seems like a free tiebreaker, and the same probably goes for deciding who you hold at the deadline.

Or is this the sort of thing that shifts around so much by March that there's no point looking this early? Am I over researching ?

Anyone know when we can expect an updated ranking list for espn points this season?

I got 5th on draft so most likely will have to pick one of this two guys. I got maxey last year from 25th so there is also an emotional bond.

Keeper draft, we keep 4 per team so 1.2 is around the 66th pick.

Edit: 11 category head to head.

My keeper set consist of Wemby, Flagg, Curry, and Mobley.

I expect Boozer to go 1.1, so choosing between Dybantsa and Peterson.

Got the last pick for 9cat. 3rd round reversal so I also get the 25th pick.

Currently thinking between these lets say theyre available:

A. Haliburton - Mitchell - Adebayo
B. Jalen Johnson - Barnes - Young

Any better ideas?