10 Players Going WAY Too Late in Fantasy Drafts || NBA Fantasy Basketball [2026-2027]

0:00 I have been looking through all of the ADP data from Fantrax, tick, Yahoo, tick, ESPN, tick. I have been looking at players whose ADPs are well down, and in some cases, some of these players are not even being drafted, which I feel is an egregious error and one that we need to correct. These players, in many cases, represent top 100 value, and that's what we want. We can swing for all the upside we want, but sometimes we need players on the court with upside and who will give us a return on our draft day investment. I have 10 absolute scorchers. Well, maybe not scorchers. Look, they're red hot cuz they're names that may have been around, but their ADPs are very surprising, and we need to work on it right now. 10 names coming at you right after this.

0:56 All right, we are in the lodges. I'm going to start off with one. I'm going to break it into different categories cuz I think that might be the best way to do it, and one of those categories that I would like to present you with, humble viewer or listener, is the return to form crew, the bounce-back candidates we like to call them, led by one Keegan Murray from the Sacramento Kings. Now, his current ADP is 127.2 on ESPN. It is also similar on Fantrax and on Yahoo. Fantrax, a bit more of a bump for this guy, but he about but my little about players represents gold for a very important reason. Why? Because we did have a little bit of faith in him previously, and then it seems to have absolutely dissipated because, one, he plays for the Sacramento Kings. This guy right here, Keegan Murray, had an absolute stellar campaign the season before last, and if you look back at his season last year, yeah, unfortunately, 23 games played in his return from injury. Everything was horrible for him last year. His field goal percentage was down. His free throw percentage was down. His three pointers and three point percentage was egregious. He wasn't very wasn't very good. Now, we had DeMar DeRozan in the team. Zach Levine came in at the end of the season beforehand as well. We think Zach Levine might be out this season. They're the Sacramento and Kings. Competency is not something we're really familiar with with them as an organization going back a couple of years.

2:23 But, the season before, even Yahoo had this guy ranked as the 44th best player in fantasy basketball. So, two things can be true. One can be true you had an absolute shocker of a year last year, but two is he poised for a bounce back? Well, there's no DeMar DeRozan right now. He's healthy going into camp. This all starts to lead me on a very interesting thing. The opportunity is there for Keegan Murray, just as it was the year before.

2:49 Now, can he bounce back? I believe he can, and currently with his ADP data of him being in the 110s, 127s, 120s across the platforms, he represents potential top 90 value. Now, that's about 30 picks, which is two and a half three rounds of value at least almost three rounds of value return. So, for me, Keegan Murray is one to watch, especially for those managers who are in ESPN and Yahoo fantrax. His ADP is about 110, but Yahoo and ESPN, there is absolute value to be squeezed from Keegan Murray.

3:23 A return to form not just for this player, but for his team this year. It is Aaron Nesmith for the Indiana Pacers. Aaron Nesmith, in this bounce back regard, could be held the exact same account. We all love the Indiana Pacers the year before. They were the darlings of the NBA finals, and we wanted to get them back in there again when Tyrese Haliburton returned. Now, Tyrese Haliburton is back for all intents and purposes. I see Aaron Nesmith as the starting shooting guard on this team.

3:53 Now, there's one thing that's always hampered Aaron Nesmith, and that is injuries. This is This is something we're not familiar with as Aaron Nesmith being like we don't think of him as an injury guy. Yeah, he's played 45 games the last 2 years. Now, last year, you can see it was dreadful. His field goal percentage was 414, 507 the year before. Free throw percentage down to 829 from 913. Now, he took a lot more of them last year. He was up to 111, so the volume was there.

4:20 So, maybe the truth is two things. If he improves that up to around 850, that's fantastic. There were more threes involved in his game last year. They were just chucking them up over there in Indiana at some point, playing for peanuts in the potential of probably landing Cam Boozer. That did not go their way. But, Aaron Nesmith is going to be healthy. I believe he's going to be playing. Tyrese Haliburton is back in the fold. Ivica Zubac, who was a very willing passer and distributor of the ball from the center position, is going to be there. Pascal Siakam, we can see taking a slight back. I don't know who else is playing shooting guard in this team.

4:56 It's Aaron Nesmith. And I think he can have an excellent year. In fact, I think Aaron Nesmith could probably represent just fringing on that top 100 value. And because it's a guy who is going absolutely undrafted. This is the thing what I mean, these guys are going undrafted. His ADP on Fantrax is 220.3. I don't know how many of you are playing in leagues with 220 players in them. Is that like a 20-person, 20-player competition? It's crazy.

5:26 But, you give him a shot, cuz if you're looking for upside in a flyer at the end of your round, why not? Take a Nesmith. You want your best rookie. Oh, I want to get someone who's a rookie and who's got to play. Yeah, but rookies are also boiled with inefficiency. If this guy can be good, he represents fringe top 100 value, and he is going undrafted. For me, that's something that needs to be course-corrected, and I can see that ADP really coming in a lot down the way.

5:48 Now, let's bang down into our next category. The next category is the young guns, the subtly young muffins who can return you that upside. Because if you do want that upside, you say, "Oh, they've got to be young. They've got to have an opportunity." Well, I mentioned Cam Boozer before, and he's got a lot of shine. In fact, he is the first rookie going off in NBA fantasy drafts right now. And we love Zach Edey. We want him to be healthy. There's a lot of shine in Memphis.

6:15 And because if he's healthy and he's playing well, and Edey was like one of these top 50 guys last year, and Cam Boozer is a basically a Swiss Army knife of fantasy basketball. He can do it all. A little bit of fantasy lopsidedness is going there, and a little bit of sleep is being given to one Cedi Osman. Who is currently in ESPN at 139.2. Cedi Osman had a solid rookie year last year. There were moments and flashes, and we all know there was a lot of organizational dysfunction, we can say there, happening over in Memphis. Not to say that we can take away from the inefficiencies of rookies or anything, but he played a heck of a rookie season.

6:54 And if you look at his rookie record and his rookie rankings, overall, he actually wasn't that inefficient. 470 from the field, you could say that's good. From the free throw line, 843. Three games, points, rebounds, he did it all. We could probably expect some more peripheral stats from him this year. We'd love to see some more steals. He played 62 games last year. If he can get that up to a steal a game, that would be absolutely huge for Cedi Osman. But, even Yahoo have him ranked at 108 currently, which is a probably fair assessment of where his fortunes could lie in fantasy basketball. But, at the exact time, we're also looking at other guys here who could be top 100. And Cedi Osman in ESPN is 139, and then 110 in Fantrax, and he's coming in around, as I said, in this market here in our good old friends Yahoo. But 139 on ESPN, that represents value. In Yahoo leagues, people are higher on him, and usually it's Fantrax for some reason that actually has it like the Fantrax managers, Fantrax users are really savvy and in the know for a good majority part. So, either they're out on Cedi Osman Cedi Osman Cedi Osman Cedi Osman or Yahoo managers are really in and they're just buying into the name brand of him being a good rookie from last year. But, Yahoo's ADP on him is actually fair at 100. 110 on Fantrax, not that great, but 139 on ESPN. If he is going down that list, that is an absolutely juicy juicy spicy pick. And so is this one. This guy is a phenomenal player. His ESPN data again is 111 currently on ESPN. 111 on ESPN for one Ausar Thompson. Now, Yahoo have him currently ranked as the 92nd player for the course of the year. What he does better than most players, Ausar Thompson, is defense. He is a defensive stalwart of the Detroit Pistons organization. There is a little bit of uncertainty there. He is Last year as well, they had him ranked as the 42nd player overall. Now, he had a really slow start to the season. If you're to like Adam King who drafted him in this industry mock draft that I'm I'm taking these statistics from, and you see up there it's drafted, these are all from an analyst mock draft. This would be Adam King because Adam King just loves to draft the Thompson twins.

9:21 Now, his free throw percentage is in the trash. We know that. But, if you're punting free throw percentage and you're punting points, he's the perfect player for your build. He is a great Yiannis. Now, you don't have to punt free throw percentage with Yiannis if you get other guys who are high volume or anyone. But if it is a punt build that you're going into, his value is absolutely exponentially buoyed as well. For the fact that you could have Ausar Thompson with this kind of ADP, I find a little bit of error in our judgment. We kind of like, "Oh, let's get Amen." But then we forget about Ausar Thompson.

9:54 In ESPN, he's 111. he's 83rd currently in Fantrax, and 92nd in Yahoo. And he has the potential to be a top 50 player or at least top 60 player. That's over three rounds again of value. And Ausar Thompson, an absolute red hot. And if you are punting free throw percentage, right up the radar. Now again, when I say that the ADP is 111, it means yeah, maybe he's going in some drafts at 100 or 90. But then again, maybe he's going in 130 in some other ones. And this is the middle line average of both.

10:27 And for me, the defensive presence that he brings is absolutely huge. If you're talking about defense as well, this guy had an absolutely horrid start to the beginning of last season. I loved him in the beginning of last season. You may have seen some of the episodes or listened to some of the pods. And I was like, "Yeah, really like Cason Wallace. Really Really think he's going to have a good year." And he eventually did the things that I needed him or wanted him to do. Came.

10:55 But I let him go on the waiver wire when he wasn't doing them after maybe week two or week three, and I needed to make some moves in a couple leagues. I stalled or stashed him around in a couple of leagues. But I think that we've got some more certainty in Oklahoma City this year. There's a less of those role players there. Yes, there's others stepping into the role. That's why they moved them off at the same rate. But Cason Wallace's current ADP on ESPN is at 137.

11:22 Now 137 for a player who I firmly believe is a top 75 prospect, especially with what he brings by way of defensive status into the place. If he's a top 75 player and he's 137 on ESPN, and funnily enough at FanTrax and Yahoo, too, at Yahoo as well right now, he's the 116th best player according to ADP data. And that's not best player, that's like, oh, he's the 116th guy I should take when I'm like trying to pick out my team. It's almost like, you know, you're in the school and picking teams and like, I'll pick you, I'll pick you, I'll pick you, and 116 115 picks go by and Cason Wallace is just kind of standing there just putting his toe in the sand going like, put me in the game, coach. And you can put him in the game. You can put him in earlier. Now, this doesn't mean you have to drop these players around this point in time, but it's certainly really worthwhile to know how good he is and what value he could potentially give you. So, if his ADP value, let's say, is at around 137 on ESPN, maybe you take him at 110.

12:22 Or or if his current ADP is about 116 there, maybe you still take him at 110 on Yahoo and ESPN. You draft him there. Maybe you take him at 104. Especially when he's a top 75 player and that's around the zone that he's going at, well, that's absolutely when you want to snap this guy up. I think he's going to have an exceptional year this year. I think you guys like AJ Mitchell and these other role players like Jared McCain who's in there, oh, they'll be fine. I do see Cason Wallace having a nice improved role and minutes usage there this year in OKC with the guys who they've sent out. I think this allows him more opportunity to shine. And he's an exceptional talent and he really showed out for them last year. The steals are really what do it for you.

13:01 150 steals last year in his 77 games. That's two steals a game. If you were going for steals, which is and looks also the fit, point guard, shooting guard, small forward, that multi-positional aspect of him on Yahoo is also a priceless here. He had more assists last year, more rebounds, more threes, his free throw percentage is there. His field goal percentage was down, but you expect that. So, maybe if you're punting field goal percentage, he actually shoots up again in your rankings. But the steals and assists are always there.

13:32 He can get you a couple of those a game. He chimes in right across the board, and the great thing about him is the turnovers. Just about one a game. He just gives you one, passes the ball, gets out of the way. Not even a full turnover a game, and you really love that from the guard position because guards, traditionally speaking, can be a little bit higher in that. But his assist to turnover ratio is phenomenal.

13:54 His steals are excellent. Now, the points, he won't get you an absolute truckload of them. There might be some nights that he pops on off because that's what Cason Wallace can do in that system in Oklahoma City. But at the end of the day, you're not going to be crying about it because you've got Cason Wallace, and if you're winning steals every single week, he's helping to get you up a category, he's helping to buy you other positions, you won't complain at all.

14:17 The next one I want to call this next section. This is an interesting one. This is the risk versus reward. This is the safe versus risky. You have the crazy one, you have the safe one. Which one do you take around this zone? Well, you might be faced with that choice, and you might want to get the biggest return. Now, I was going to show one player first, but I'm actually going to show the greatest reward. The greatest reward is that this guy can play and actually get some more games under his belt, and I'm already dubious about the Golden State Warriors this year. But where he's fallen right now for a top 50 player is just so, so interesting to me. Now, Fantrax have him at 109.8 currently, and KP, the Zing a Burger, is just the ultimate risk versus reward in fantasy basketball. We all know what he can do. He is a phenomenal talent. He was the unicorn before there was a Wemby. He was the one who pioneered the unicorn statement. But this guy, Kristaps Porzingis, if he can remain healthy, he's an absolute weapon. He only played 32 games last year. We expected him to be healthy when he started the year with the Atlanta Hawks.

15:30 his his medical condition didn't make that the case. He eventually then ended up getting on the floor a lot more for Golden State Warriors. And and and word is that his health is in good nick. Now, we don't know what's going to happen with the Golden State Warriors. This is supposed to be a quote unquote kind of gap year for them this year. And if they're not performing well, he won't play well. They could certainly give you a spot into your playoffs. He can help you win your league. He can help put you in a position with enough wins throughout the course of the season. Or you just rotate him out and you put him in your IR if he's not playing back-to-backs. Awesome.

16:04 You know you don't have to worry about the back-to-back. You can play him in the game, move him into IR, pick up a player for it, ship them off afterwards, or ship them off and bring in another one while he's still in IR before he gets cleared for the next game. And Bob's your uncle. If you can play it like that, puppy, you wait till you took this guy, but he is a top 50 player in fantasy and he's going outside the top 100. But, he is one of the riskiest picks in fantasy basketball. So, make sure that you know your IR and IL positions before you even consider drafting a Kristaps Porzingis.

16:37 Now, if I'm giving you one of the riskiest ones, I've got to give you one of the safest houses ones. And that means, yes, I'm going to talk about this guy for a hot second, Tobias Harris. Now, we all know that I like Tobias Harris, but his current Fantrax ADP is undrafted at 181.3. It's like, yeah, cuz it's Tobias Harris. I don't want to draft him. He sucks. I've seen him. Really? Does he suck? Or is that just a narrative about Tobias Harris sucking?

17:04 True, he doesn't suck. He's just boring. He's Tobias Harris and he shut his mouth up about contracts over time and you might not like the bloke. That's personal. This is fantasy. Don't make it personal. You You wanted to make it personal, we wouldn't drop players who get like charges against them for stuff and then oh yeah, but I might as well put Miles Bridges in my fantasy lineup because he could win my league. Well, then Tobias Harris can win your league.

17:29 This bloke is decent. Like he's he's bloody good. He's a good basketball player. And he's going to probably take the starting role from Julian Champagnie who was a top 100 talent last year. He's going to do the exact same role. And he was decent last year as well. Like this guy was really decent last year over in Detroit. He's given them some good years. Where he goes, he plays winning basketball consistently. And so just about the narrative that Tobias Harris isn't good, yeah, that's probably more because he's not a sexy player.

17:58 Like the guy can score. He can do it on decent percentages. Like why are we so needing to hate on this guy when he has been an absolute weapon at times. Like he played really well in the playoffs for Detroit last year when they needed him. Like that he's going to be getting all the spot-up threes that he can take. Now he's 180 on FanTrax. He's 119 in points league specialist more on ESPN. And he's 123rd in Yahoo. But FanTrax, where you think you'd have it figured out because everyone's like vying for the next best solution, is kind of forgetting about the guy. Because at 100 FanTrax 180, if he's going undrafted and you try to find some upside, you're trying to find upside if you're trying to win your league. And if you're trying to win your league, at some point in time, you're going to be like all right, fine. This is a safe pick. I need what he can do. Now, Tobias Harris historically has been fine. last season, 110th best player.

18:58 Season before that, top 100 player. I see him doing fine work in San Antonio. And if you just need someone who's going to get in there, give you good percentages, if he's going to give you good rebounding, if he's going to give you decent free throw and not hurt that at all, yeah, this is the guy. Now, he's not probably not going to get you a whole lot of, you know, steals. Probably never going to get you too many blocks.

19:24 But, he's probably going to get you a couple of better steals a game. And, he's proven himself in the last month of last season on the lead up with the injuries and outs. In the last month of last season, he was the 51st best player in fantasy basketball. The last 2 months, he's 71st. And, the last 3 months, he's 77th best player in fantasy basketball when he got it going on. Now, that means that between being about the 70th, he has a similar role in San Antonio, maybe the 80th best player.

19:49 That means he jumps 100 spots. That's 100 spots up the rankings. So, for me, that signifies absolute value. The last guys we're going to talk to about today are the bounce back candidates. I'm going to give you two of these guys on one team. It's almost like a two-for-one special. It's a two-for-one. It's a two-for-one. And then, I'm going to give you one name that I think is one of the best draft day steals. You could call it a sleeper because it's kind of like we're sleeping on because we know they're starters. We're a little bit unsure of what's happening in that situation. Three more names before we wrap this one. I'm going to give you two players on the Denver Nuggets who I feel are personally poised for a bounce back season. And why?

20:32 Because I have no idea what is going on anymore with the Denver Nuggets. If I had Nikola Jokic as my franchise player, I would just be wanting to win championship after championship. I'd be wanting to play him as much as humanly possible with the best talent around him every single year in and out. I would be giving and going over the luxury tax and paying it because I've got Nikola Jokic, one of the 10 best players in basketball, probably of all time when all is said and done. He is an absolute beast. We love the Joker.

21:06 But, I'm also starting to be scared of where these other guys are going. Now, I'm probably a little bit higher on Christian Braun more than some this year, but I see him to have a bounce back season ahead. Last year, he was not very good at all. But maybe two things are true. The year before that, he was the 20th best player according to Yahoo. Now, was he the 20th best player? No, but he was really good.

21:31 But I think last year was a really discombobulated year for Christian Braun. And Christian Braun can come back and have a better year this year. He only played 44 games last year. I see somewhere between it being the truth. I don't think he's a top 40 player. I don't maybe think he's a top 70. But the fact this guy is going basically again undrafted in the 180s, I think is absolutely egregious at this point. Like I think it's way too down.

21:57 Like it was just way too down in because there's upside. Like Jamal Murray we think is going to be good this year. Bounce back. Peyton Watson's out of the lineup and going to Cleveland this year. They're not really trying to restock the player pool here. So, I do think we see a little bit more out of Christian Braun this year. And also from his teammate, this guy, Cam Johnson. I think Cam Johnson has a bit of a bounce back year this year as well because he was down on his year before. Now, he played 54 games again in and out of the lineup. He had a really slow start. Both myself and and other friends were really high on him.

22:29 Basically taking the Michael Porter Jr. role. And it did not turn out that way for him in Denver last year. Now, if you're working on I think I think it took him a little bit of time to play off Jokic after some down like down years not playing off someone of the caliber of Nikola Jokic with the Brooklyn Nets. He had that maybe in Phoenix. Maybe he didn't. But he's playing with Jokic and he started to make progress over the course of the year. And that's what I'm into. I'm into the progress that this guy can make. I see him as a top 100 player at the end of the day. And he's in the 180s and he's a worthwhile flyer.

23:03 In fact, I think he got better as the season went on. In fact, he finished the last 3 months of the last season within the top 75 players. Now, I see his role being similar this year. I see him playing better. He acclimated in time in Denver. And I think he can give you like some rebounds, he can give you threes a game, and they're going to need him to play excellent basketball. He's going to be still averaging over 30 minutes a night in Denver. And I think we're playing once that's out of the way, I do think a little bit of that goes to him, but he was the 72nd best player at the end of last season. The last 3 months of that.

23:40 Now, that's absolutely massive, and if Cam Johnson can bring that back down with a current ADP of 180, again, 12 teams, 12 players on a roster, that means he is undroppable. That's 144 players. He's a bit of a deep league special at this point. But I think that he could really signify value for us and get back to that at least 80s or 90s. So, why not take him in the 120s, 130s, like one of your last two You got two last picks.

24:06 You generally only going to run these guys for the maybe those picks for the first week or two before you have to drop them off and start streaming and using the waiver wire. Why not take a gamble and see how it goes those first 2 weeks? There's your upside. So, maybe the patient you took the third last pick is the one that's a dud. But I think Cam Johnson signifies absolute value come draft day. And one guy who I see representing absolute mega value on draft day. he was one of my favorite rookies last year. I have a whole bunch of his rookie cards.

24:36 I think he's going to get better and better. It's Colin Murray Boyles, who is currently ranked 139 on Fantrax. Now, C M B had an absolutely awesome season to start it off with. He finished as the 133rd player according to Yahoo, as you can see here overall. But I had him well inside that in my final things. Not not well inside, but I had him fringe top 100. And especially his run down towards the end of last season was absolutely phenomenal for the Toronto Raptors. He played really well in the playoffs. He rose to the occasion. All the good signs pointing up for him. Now, we don't know what's going to happen in Toronto right now. We assume the Kawhi Leonard trade will go ahead. That should hopefully be resolved sooner rather than later. That doesn't impact him. The only big thing there is Jakob Poeltl and what's going on with Jakob Poeltl. Because if Jakob Poeltl's going to get more minutes right here, he's going to be a top 100 player and have a good return to form. Maybe they do some more power forward business with Kolby Morris playing it and Kawhi Leonard as the you know more forward then. And then you'd have a point guard Scotty Barnes with the Immanuel Quickley situation that I don't think works. But I do see him doing the backup to Scotty Barnes. I do see him being the backup to Kawhi Leonard and if Kawhi Leonard does go to this team and is injured because Kawhi Leonard will be phenomenal in this team. I think it's CMB who gets it. Now, I have him as a potential top 75 player. ESPN has 139 like you saw. And currently in Fantrax who as I said earlier has a bit of the inside league is about 110 for CMB. So, that value is there. Now, if he's about 110, you're probably going to have to be looking at him around 95 to the 105 zone to snag him. But I still reckon that signifies you at least two rounds of value for his potential at the end of the time season. You have to give it time. That's the key with guys like CMB.

26:32 You've got to give it time and not be prepared for them just to be jumping off the ranking straight away. You don't want to like really heavily invest too bad, but if they're there around that market and you know that's their ADP. He's going in 110 on Fantrax. He's going in 120 on Yahoo. So, yeah, you take him in 105. 106 in that round to make sure that you get them because what they could signify for you is two or three rounds of value. And if you can get it shuffling back every single pick that you make shuffling back more and more and more from your draft, you are going to get absolute results and you are going to win your league.

27:08 You're going to win your league by subscribing to all my stuff. I am Maddie G. You can find me at NBA G Wiz. And you can find it by just running the playlist, running the believing fantasy playlist right through it. Like and subscribe to all the things. Take care. I'll see you soon.