
Fantasy Basketball Point Guard Tier Rankings [NBA]
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Locked On Fantasy Basketball breaks down why tier-based drafting may not be the best approach for your NBA fantasy basketball strategy. Josh Lloyd explains why positional tiers can mislead managers and why fantasy basketball draft value, stats, team context, and player analysis should drive your decisions instead.
This episode focuses on point guard tiers for fantasy basketball and features key fantasy basketball targets and rankings discussion around Luka Dončić, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Cade Cunningham, Anthony Edwards, LaMelo Ball, Tyrese Maxey, Jamal Murray, and Jalen Brunson. Josh Lloyd also covers ADP trends, positional eligibility, injury risk for stars like Steph Curry and LaMelo Ball, roster construction, positional scarcity, and reactions to surprising player rankings, including Donovan Mitchell and Payton Pritchard. If you want better NBA fantasy basketball draft strategy, smarter rankings, and actionable advice for your fantasy basketball league, this episode is for you.
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Locked On Fantasy Basketball – Daily NBA Fantasy Basketball Podcast — Fantasy Basketball Point Guard Tier Rankings [NBA]. Machine-transcribed; use the interactive transcript above to jump the player to any line.
This is the Lockdown Podcast Network celebrating 10 years of your team every day. This is Jake from Lockdown. When the game's on the line, the best no end to pass. Because the right assist can change everything. And off the court, it's no different. That's where your State Farm agent comes in. Whether it's protecting your car, your home, or helping you prep for the unexpected, they'll help set you up with a game plan that works for you. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. And cover options are selected by the customer, availability and eligibility, vary by state. Thank you for making Lockdown your first listen every day. For your second listen, find the Lockdown NBA Podcast where there's no off season. West Matt and Hayes keep you up to date on contract negotiations, rumors, and everything you need to be the most informed NBA fan. Find Lockdown NBA on YouTube or wherever you listen to podcasts. Start of the Lockdown Podcast Network.
Your team every day. Yeah, it's T is positional T is. And we're going to start with Point Gods, Fantasy Basketball, Michael Bolton. Thanks Josh. It's Michael Bolton here and it's time for another episode of the Lockdown Fantasy Basketball Podcast. Let's get to it. Let's get to it in day. You are Lockdown Fantasy. Your daily NBA fantasy podcast, part of the Lockdown Podcast Network. Your team every day. Hello and welcome to the Lockdown Fantasy Basketball Podcast brought to you by Basketball Monster. My name is Josh Lloyd and I'm the one who's been feeding all the info to Grant Cone, apart from his stuff about the bonk. But yeah, I don't know where he got that from. What are we talking about in today's show? I think you're aware, because I've said it already, we are talking about positional tiers, which I tried to do something a little bit different with the positional tiers last season. People didn't really like it.
That's okay. You don't have to like it. We're going back to traditional positions. Now, part of the reason I didn't do it in traditional positions last season is I believe I don't want to provide information to you guys that is misleading or creates confusion or is just something that leads to worse results. And I actually think positional tiers can do that. I think they can. For numerous reasons. Fantasy Basketball is not like fantasy football. We're not that focused on positional groups. You must get a center. You got to get two running backs. Right. It's not really how it works. In fantasy football, there's reasons for it. Here's your tier and there's a big drop off in running backs here, so stack up some wide receivers or whatever. In fantasy basketball, outside of just making sure you've got enough positional cover across your roster, you don't do it that way. You really don't. And you build fluctuates all through the draft, depending on what you've done with previous
picks. And part of the reason why I'm going to de-emp it again, this is self sabotage from me here. As we talk about tiers. I don't want you following and thinking that this is the bele and end all of what you do for point cuts. So what I'm talking about here is again, it's going to be leaning towards categories, but on every sheet that I show you, every piece of information I show, it will have the respective points league using Yahoo default scoring points league tier attached to that player. Yes. Cool. This just gives an idea of sort of a break between where the player sit, but again, in basketball, players have multiple positions. So many of these guys that I'm going to talk about in the point guard tier show are going to appear on other shows. They're going to appear in other positions. So there's that confusion that lies within it as well.
And in general, you're not really looking for positions most of the time when you're drafting. You're looking for particular statistics or particular statistical shapes. The position part comes to focus maybe around eight, around nine or all. Gotta make sure I'm just filling up these holes, Giggity. And I can actually field someone in my center spot or my point guard spot because I haven't drafted anybody yet. So this PSA is more about I'm doing this show because people like it. And they want to hear about it, but I would beg you, employ you. Do not use this as a foundation of your drafting. Do not look at this and go, he's in tier one and tier two. Why is he not in this tier? Well, I've got to get a tier one player. Now it's a big drop off. So I've got to target other positions. Do not look at it that way. I beg you not to. I do these shows because again, people want them. And I'm going to put it here with these caveats because I think it's important if someone wants to see it. Otherwise, they'll go and find the information somewhere else, but maybe they don't get
the explanation or caveats around it. So I do the show, but explain the reason behind it because I want you to make better decisions when you're drafting versus going off a tier list. I've done these shows for years. I don't know how long it's been, but I don't know how long I've even been doing this like 12 years. They're 12 years at least. I've never once. Never once. That's not a real word, once. Never once have I used a fantasy basketball tier system for drafting. Never once in my life. I don't approach it that way. And again, I'm doing the show. It'll give us some discussion on players. And please, if you disagree with one of my tierings of players, I would love for you to send death threats. Is there any photobic comments? Would be great. Yeah, don't give up your day jobs. That's all the stuff. It's all great. Send all that through this basically what I do the show. Honestly, it's a good stuff. So that's really what we're looking for.
So in saying all of that, we're doing positional tiers before I do that. I will tell you that Giveaway 3 in the basketball monster monster drop has been one. So congratulations to Sarah Matthews. Check your email. Sarah, your membership is live active ready to go. They're coming soon. That's three winners. The three giveaways. One, two and three. Today's Giveaways, Giveaways 7. So be on the lookout for the codes that drop during the show. All right. So we're talking point guard tiers, like I said. So let's talk about tier one. This is not particularly complicated to see which players sit here. There's two players in tier one of point guard tiers. Look at Don Chitch and Shay, give it a sell exam. If you are watching this on YouTube, you can see the columns. There's a Yahoo rank column where they currently ranked on Yahoo, the Yahoo ADP and their fan track's ADP, which is FADP. I find it interesting that Shay has a Yahoo ADP of seven.
The Yahoo ADPs are really weird at the moment. It hasn't really delineated. Now of course, seven is average, but what the hell is happening? What leagues is Shay being taken after seven? That's a very strange number. I've got Luca in tier one for points, but Shay is below that. Do not in a million years consider Shay over Luca in a point league. Do not do that. You can consider it in a category if you want. I don't think I would, but it could, but do not do it in a point league. So let's take a look at Shay. He finished last season three, number three in categories, number four in points leagues. You have age 53 fantasy points. The numbers down the bottom are my projected usage and projected minutes. So I've got him at 33 for both. Now if you think, again, part of the reason I'm showing you these projected usage and projected minutes numbers for selected players here is that if you disagree with the positioning of a player, well, I think he's going to get more usage. I think he's going to play fewer minutes.
So I've got Shay at 33 usage with 33 minutes. And again, this is not particularly controversial grouping. I wouldn't have thought of players for tier one for point guards. Pretty straightforward stuff, I think. Monster drop code is custard. This again, not sure there's a gigantic discussion point to be had here, but in tier two for point guards, it's Kate Cunningham. And then Anthony Edwards for some reason, I don't know why, but for some reason, Anthony Edwards has point guard eligibility on fan tracks. Now we'll talk about Aunt Moore on the shooting guard show, which will probably be tomorrow. And that Yahoo ad ep of air here was at 17 and these just bonkers. What does that mean? Kate's got a rank of five. You saw me do a mock draft yesterday where I took Yarnas at five and I would do that in every any every head to head league, basically. I would take Yarnas at five, probably Kate at six. I don't get how there's a, yeah, that's 17, eight, if you're even the 980 people for
Kate, it just, it doesn't add up to me. These numbers, so I think the Yahoo data that they have is not right. But I've got Aunt and Kate in tier two. Aunt to me is a tier three player for points, these and Kate is tier two. Let's take a look at what Kate Cunningham did last season. He was 12. He said he was 12. He was 6th in fantasy point slicks, averaging 51 points. I've got him projected at 31 usage in 34 minutes. He's had higher usage seasons in the past and maybe he's used to go back up because they lost Toby Harris and replaced him with John Collins. But I think Isaiah Joe's going to take a little bit on. Danis Jenkins will do a little bit more. Then I'm assuming that Jayland Durin does return here. So I've got Kate sitting there in tier two alongside Anthony Edwards, who is a tier three points lead guy. And again, just look at those numbers of Kate there. I'm not, with most of these guys, I'm not particularly worried about injuries.
I know people will have their ideas and Kate got the punctured lung and he had previous a lot of injuries. But like again, Aunt missed a lot of games last season. Who again, again, I just keep saying again, one of those perfect illustrations of if you are drafting someone on the basis of not being hurt, you will get it wrong. Because now that Edwards missed a bunch of time so much so that he missed all NBA because he didn't play enough. Because he just didn't want it enough. He didn't care about the fans enough. He should have played, he didn't care. He didn't want to play, just want to sit back and collect a paycheck. Also I've been told. So that are the, they are the first two tiers of point guards. We're going to come back to talk more point guards. Of course we are. David Lockhe got something. The problem of finding clothes that you can live it all day, be comfortable and do whatever you need to do. Whether it's just chilling, go into meetings, playing golf, being on the move.
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Next, David. Kozierth. We're here talking point guard tears. So we might have talked about some more of these point guard tears and in fact just move ourselves on to tier three of fantasy basketball point guards. Again, the tearing is mainly categories, but every player you can see their point league tier up on the screen. So let's bring that across and I will mention it. Of course, when we do it. Let's bring it across and have a look at tier three for fantasy basketball point guards. A more robust tier and it tends to happen as we move down the board is that we're not going to sit as small in terms of the tears. By the way, the order that the players are listed within a tier is alphabetical by surname. So it's not you me telling you that Lamar ball is the best of this group. This is just alphabetical by tier. So I got Lamar in tier three. He's a tier four point league player.
In fact, a lot of these guys here in tier three of the category leagues are either tier four or tier five players for point leagues. So Lamar, well, I read through the names. Lamar, Steph, Halibut and Maxi, Don Mitchell, the headmaster Jamal Murray and Austin Reeves. And you can see these big differences here. Look, Tarius Maxx, he's got an ADP of eight on fan tracks and a rank of six on Yahoo. But I've got him in the same tier as these groupings because undoubtedly I'm more down on him than others. Let's take a look at Lamar ball. He finished 30 second per game in derand last season, 35th in point leagues. He's not as good in point leagues as he's in category leagues. I've got him projected to see a usage decline. 28% is what I've got is usage down at. His ADP sits him at the back of the second round for 12 team leagues, 23 and 24 on Yahoo and fan tracks. But I've got his minutes rising a lot up to 32. Now maybe, maybe his body cannot handle that. I'm not as convinced that that's the case. But that's a risk factor in this.
If you think you can only play 28 minutes to get enough games in, then you probably want to push him down to tier four. If you think of you play 32 games, that means of 32 minutes a game, that means you only play 50 games, then you drop him down as well. I don't think either of those things to be clear. But if you do, that gives you a way to be able to sort of change your view on these players. I've got Steph Curry in this tier as well. Now Steph is a big, big difference guy versus categories and points. His ADP is 19 on fan tracks. He's ranked on Yahoo's 25, which sort of is split in the middle because it's probably a little bit too low for his category league value, but it's too high for point leagues. The worry with Steph is the knee. Is it just cooked? It could be. Tyres Halliburton's here. He's got a rank of 12 on Yahoo. I'm a little concerned that maybe the first two months, he misses a lot of time just through back to backs and compensation injuries I'm worried about.
And it'll be a bit rusty with some percentages. But maybe it only lasts till Christmas. That's fine. But I think he's going to be pretty awesome after that. And this Tyres Maxi, like I said. He's out here at AP sits at 12. He's getting drafted at 8 in fan tracks leagues. He was great last season, the fourth rank player, 15 points leagues, averaging 51 fantasy points. But he has to do less. He has to. Last season. He played alongside Duel and Bede and his sub 40 games and Paul George in his sub 40 games. He, I've got him projected at 27 usage, but still gigantic minutes from the self-branded hat legend, Nick Nurse 37. But this season he plays alongside Jalen Brown. Duel and Bede who probably plays more than 37 games. And LeBron. Jalen LeBron and M.Bede. And last season it was Maxi and Ubrae and Ejkem.
You might think Maxi's better than Jalen Brown. You might think Maxi at this age is, or this stage is better than LeBron. But that's cool. That's good. That's good for it, man. I'm just not taking Tyres. I've seen Tyres Maxi got five in some drafts. Five. He's great, Tyres. That's, that's to me, he's a crazy number to do. I've got Donovan Mitchell in this tier as well. He's got an ADP of 22 on Yahoo for some reason, fan tracks at 14. I'm a little worried about him. There's this idea that he's just always been this guy. He hasn't. He was like 40th, two seasons ago. And last season, for the bulk of the beginning of the year, Darious Garland was injured. And as was nearly everybody else in the guard rotation. It was because Jalen Tyson was playing 30 minutes tonight if you remember correctly. But then Garland came back and eased himself in, but then Jim Hardner arrived. And the assist rate for Mitchell plummeted. His usage was okay. He got by in some really high steel numbers and incredibly high 2.0 percentage numbers. But I don't think that he's the same guy that he was last season.
The next guy to look at here is the headmaster, Jamal Murray. Murray was excellent last season. He was 17th in around 11th in fantasy point sleeves. He's going at pick 19. He's going to, got a projected usage of 28 with a minutes at 35. He's had some injury history, yes, not particularly worried about it. But if I look at the names that I mentioned above, Curry, Lamello, Halliburton, Maxi, even Mitchell. I feel the most confident out of that grouping about Murray's role. It's not changing. I'm not worried about Demada Rosen, honestly. Maybe you are, but I'm not really. I think Murray is pretty safe in the middle of round two. And the last name on this list in this theory is Austin Reeves, who is going towards the end of round two. But we have to remember, we can look at Reeves as numbers from last season. And that was with a lot of LeBron. He put up big numbers to start the year then he got hurt. Then we came back, he was sharing it with LeBron and Luca. But he doesn't have to share it with LeBron and Luca. And if something happens to Luca, don't switch this season.
Austin Reeves is the number one. I would not be shocked. And I've got all these guys in one tick. I just don't know if Reeves can sustain it. But Reeves could be a top 10 player. That is, I know that sounds outrageous. But he could be very easily. It's incredibly easily. Tons of free throw attempts, great free throw percentage. Assist points threes. He's not a good defensive stack guy. Yeah, and the efficiency in the field goal shooting can be a problem. But he's going to see tons more assists, tons more on ball time, big usage big minutes. Just hope he doesn't get hurt. That'll bring us to tier four. So we should probably just go and have a look at tier four, because it's not quite as big as what tier three is. And some of the names that I've got in there, Darius Garland sits in in what tier is this tier four, but I've got him as a tier five point sleep player.
I've got Josh Giddy in this mix. He's on a gallon. There's a big difference. Look at this. Giddy has got a rank of 27 on Yahoo. And I've got him in tier four. And Garland's got a rank of 53 and I've got him in tier four. I'm not tiering them based on how Yahoo's ranking them. I'm tiering them how I value them. So again, this is what I'm talking about where tiers can be confusing. Garland's got an 80p 58. The bottom name on this list is Trayon at 26. You could theoretically draft three players out of this tier four grouping of point guards. But you don't have to go and take Darius Garland in the same spot that you would take Trayon, because evidently no one's drafting him at the spot that I think is correct. Because Giddy and Tray are at the higher end in terms of their 80p's. So there is differences with that. Let's have a look at Giddy. I've got him projected only at 23 usage with 33 minutes and nights. Last season he was 37th and 21st in point sleeves. I've got him as a tier four point sleeve player.
He's going sort of the start of round three. I think that's completely reasonable. Norman Powell, Martis Puzzallis, they're going to get shots. Giddy's going to get a few, but he's not a high usage player. He's an incredibly high rebound player. He's incredibly high assist player. We hope that these three points shooting goes back up. And he suffered, I believe, a dip in his free throws for the first time in a few years. But some of his numbers last season are hurt by the fact that in the tank portion of the season, well, he saw his minutes decrease and he didn't play as many games. And I'm not really worried that that's going to be something that happens this season. The other names here in tier four, I've got Jim Harden, who's going at 27 on fan tracks. We saw Harden in Cleveland last season see a big drop in his usage. He's still an absolute elite assist guy, but he's scoring load and he shot attempts went way down. His free throw attempts were down as well. I'm not really sure that reverses. So the days of James Harden being a first round player at age 37 or whatever it is, not happening.
And I don't even think he's a round two guy anymore. I'm in Thompson. I could easily make an argument for a man to be pushed into tier three. I know that a man was around two guy last season and people didn't like that. But I think overall he returned value enough in that area. But it's all going to be depending on what you want to do. He's not going to score 20 points again most likely with free throw and leap back his assist might drop, but it might mean that he pushes closer to the basket defensively and can get more of the blocks back. Focus a little bit more on get the steals back. And he figured out a way to be highly efficient as a shooter without hitting threes. And the last name of this group is Trayon. Now young last season the numbers are bad. 80th overall. 60th in point six. But he played like 25 minutes. He's not going to do that. I'm projecting a 29 new sit with 33 minutes again. He's not losing his role to anybody in Washington. He's going to get probably double digit assists. The problem is with going to be of course.
Can he hit his threes at any sort of level that's remotely efficient? Any rebounds any steals any blocks? And where does the usage go between him, Davis, debancer, Sa, George, Riley, Bob Carrington Loll? Like there's some things in terms of just projecting Tray up that may not go as we want. I'm not really concerned about like his role and the numbers from last season. They're basically irrelevant. Because he's going to play a lot more than that. Like it's very clear that he will. Well, I hope it's clear anyway. We are going to come back to talk about some of the other tiers. That was the first four done. We've got five more to do. Today's episode is brought to you by Odo. Running a business shouldn't feel like you're trying to connect a bunch of systems that were never designed to work together. One app for accounting and another for inventory and other for sales.
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We are talking, of course, about point guard tears for fantasy basketball. That is the first four of those tears done. Naturally, that means we can move on to talk about tier five. Let's have a look at the point guards in tier five. Because there's some names that I think people will expect or want to be higher. But sorry, they're not. Nikhil Alexander Walker, I've got in this group. Now, a lot of what Nikhil Alexander Walker did at the end of last season was unsustainable. He was shooting the absolute lights out at like 48% from three and 93% from the line. True shooting of like 72%. It is not going to stick. But the role, sure. I think he's currently probably a little bit undervalued. You can see again, look at the rank differences here. There's a bloke ranked 28th. There's an 80 per 27 and an 80 per 58 in this group of players. It's because we all should value guys differently.
Now, for point sleeves, I've got Alexander Walker in a tier six. And other guys in very different tiers here. I've actually got Derek White in tier six as well for points. But this is tier five for categories. The next guy we talk about in this group is when look at Oldmate Devon Booker. Who I'm looking at it, I've got him tier four for point sleeves booker. This might be low. He's ranked 33 on Yahoo. 27 ADP on fan tracks. He's going middle to the end of third round, which I think is fair. But much like Tray Young, what if he just becomes a fish and hits his threes again? There's a pretty disappointing season overall for Booker from a fantasy perspective. I thought he could have done more, especially with how many guys were out. But he was one of those at times. But I'm just not fully investing in him bouncing back. But the controversial one here is going to be Jalen Brunson. Now, point sleeves Jalen Brunson is a tier four player. But when in tier five for categories, why? He's just not that good in categories.
52nd in the round last season, he was 24th in point six. Huge discrepancy. You can see it there already. He's getting drafted on Yahoo at 23, which is absolute insanity in a category. You are wrong if you do that. I'm projecting a 31 usage in 35 minutes again. But this is a finals. I'll say hangover team. Not necessarily they're going to be bad, but they played two months extra. Compared to most teams, plus celebrations. It is unlikely that he maintains exactly the same production, even that. For categories, it was insane to get him a 23. Now, for point six, reasonably, you want to go to round two, three turn. No problem for Brunson. But I firmly believe this is the right spot for him. I've got QNT George here as well, who is going at 58 in fan track season. I got him tier five for point six. George was a top 30 player per game last season. He sat out with a fake injury slash hamstring at the end of the season, but it's different now.
More Larry Marken and Jaron Jackson's there. Daren Peterson arrives. So it's very hard for me to think that Kionte George can continue what he did. Still think he's going to be good, but I don't think he can continue it. I've got Kyrie in this area as well. I've got Kyrie as a tier six point three guy. He's just not as good in point six now. And a per game basis. Kyrie is probably a tier three player. But I coming off and Tornacell at his age with maybe Dallas being bad and maybe Kyrie being traded. I just don't know. I can't justify putting him that high. So with a lot of these injury concern guys, I bumped them down. Even though their per game numbers suggest they should be higher. So Kyrie is here as he is the Chantamari. Now him, I'm not as worried about injury. I saw him play last season. Now I believe that picking up the Chantamari last season actually cost you leagues. See, literally played two games a week. And that's just not enough. But I saw him play. He ranked 42nd per game. He averaged 36 fantasy points, playing limited minutes. 53, he was ranked 53rd in point six.
He's going like he's out here at a P67. What is that? That's a ridiculous number. I've got him projected it's 25 usage with 33 minutes. Now it is possible that they trade him or they, for some reason decide they're gonna bench him and play Jeremiah Fierze every minute. I really don't think that's gonna happen. I love drafting the Chantamari even in round four at times. And the last name in this tier is Maximum Derrick White who went way too early last season. I did not want to draft him. The spot he was being drafted last season. That turned out to be very correct. But I think he is going to lose usage this season. But surely that means some of the efficiency stuff rises. There is a risk that he's going a little bit too early here. Like for example Derrick White at 39 or Dejonte at 59 would give me Dejonte every day of the week there. But I do think we get more out of him next season. Let's talk tier six. This one for whatever reason,
it's a pretty empty tier. Only three blocks exist in tier six here. And two of them play for the same team. They've been walking bucks. Tyler Hiro, yeah ADP and Rank Range is pretty solid where it is in that 58 to 60 range. Ryan Rollins who's got a rank of 69 on Yahoo and an ADP of 68 on fan tracks. And both of these guys have got his tier six points league players. Rollins, the risk is that they don't start him and they start Kevin Ported Jr. I don't think that Braden Burries is starting by the way. And this is the part of the problem with Burries that there's Hiro, there's Rollins, there's Porter, there's Yaki Chowna, there's the $60 million Gery Trajunia. If they're gonna play him, which they won't, but they do. There's a lot of names there. But Hiro, I'm very confident in what he's gonna do. His role is set. And Rollins should have a pretty set role too. And the next name here is Kobe White, who to me is just egregiously priced. I've got even tier five of points leagues.
His Yahoo rank is 85. His ADP is 87. And yeah, look, look, he's numbers. They are bad, right? And this is where, if you just base stuff off last season, your might as well stick your head up your ass and just not pay attention to anything. What would be the point? Because Kobe White was 188th last season. He was 145th in points leagues. Why? Well, he was injured, had three calf strains in Chicago. So there's unlimited minutes. Went to Charlotte, was a bench player, playing 21 minutes a night. I've got him projected at 28 usage. He's used to sky high in Charlotte last season and the Vlost Lamarro and Miles Bridges. I've got him at 32 minutes a night. I am not worried about Dennis Shrota because I've got a news flash for you. He stinks. Dennis Shrota stinks. White is who they invested in. Now, does it maybe take Kobe White from a 34 minute player? Maybe. It does not bother me at all with a floor of what he can do.
I'm not concerned about Shrota taking minutes or being a minute splitter and like that. At all. Let's talk tier seven. Four fantasy basketball point guards. A bit of a thicker tier. Steph Castles here. He's ADP is 56 on Yahoo with a fan tracks ADP of 62. I've got to be a tier five point sleep player because there is a clear split here in where the value lies in those formats. Castles was 86 in Category League's last season and 51st in Pointesleaks. It is worth remembering that Dianne Fox was in and out of the lineup last season and Dylan Harper played 22 minutes. So if you're going to be bullish on Dylan Harper coming into the season, you have to get those minutes somewhere. And a lot of them will come from Julian Champani, somebody came from Devin Vassel. But also I believe that if Harper's playing more, Castles upside does get limited. It's also what do you believe that he is the atrocious shooter
that we saw the first four months or the pretty good shooter that we saw the last two months? I don't know which one is real yet. He also doesn't generate any defensive stats. So I've got him in this grouping. But in Pointesleaks, he should be significantly higher, significantly. I've also got VJ Edge come here. Now I think VJ is probably getting drafted a bit too higher than 80p of 66, ranked at 71. And he's not going to get an opportunity to do what he did last season where he was the 62nd ranked player averaging 34 fantasy points. I've got his usage down at 18%. But because of Nick Nurse and his insanity, I've got VJ playing 34 minutes. And he should generate very good skill numbers, a smattering of assists, some scoring, some threase, some percentages that are okay. This is risky. He might be like the 110th best player. Just to never touch as the ball. But defensively, I'm okay with him here. Dianna Fox also sits in this same tier.
Fox, I think he's getting penalized too much. As much as I think it's a terrible contract they gave him and their future is gonna be Harper and Castle. Fox is still there when he's going to start and he's gonna have pretty solid minutes. I've got Tide Jerome here, who have got as a tier seven points they got. By the way, I've got Edge, who has a tier eight points they got. Jerome was awesome last season, but remember, much like the Shantamari, he played two games a week on a team that wasn't trying and he just had sky high usage and he will not have that this season. That will not be the thing that he does. But still around this area, T-7 tied Jerome, love it. On a per game basis, I've got Damien a little bit much higher than this, but I'm worried about A, his age, B, the Achilles and compensation injuries and the fact that he'll probably just miss time. And there's a bunch of other guys on that team. But Lillard in this zone, I think is about right, taking into consideration that risk. But you'll see that the next name just should stand out like dogs balls because CJ McCullum has a rank of 115
with an ADP of 111. Now I am not historically, not quite to the same level as the Goat-Nical-Avutra-Vitch. I'm not a CJ guy. Never have been. But that's because CJ in the past would get picked at pick 40 and 50. I got this is insane to do this. Everything in fantasy is about evaluating a player, but then evaluating them in the context of everyone else around them. And CJ going at 117 is bonkers. It's ridiculous to me. I do not. I'm not worried about him being a bench player in Atlanta. Maybe he is. Maybe Dought starts. But they need what CJ does. And when he arrived in Atlanta, he was the point guard, not Nikkei Alexander Walker. The last name in tier 7 is Immanuel Quickly. Is there much upside from to get better in this? Not really. It's going to be tough with choir round. But I think he's just really solid here. I'm going to miss a tier 7 points league player as well.
So let's look at point guard tier 8. We're getting close to sort of fly a territory with some of these players. I've got Iodissumia here, but tier 7 for points leagues. Sasha Jeremiah Fias, who's a tier 7 points league guy as well. Now Fias is ranked 159 on Yahoo. And you compare it to the guy underneath him, Dylan Harper, who's at 79. Now would I take Harper over Fias? Yeah, I would. Because I believe Harper is a significantly better player. But I'm also, you've got to look at context. Although the Palakins context is weird. How do they make another terrible trade today? How do they keep doing it? But Harper is getting significantly overdrafted inside the top 80. And Fias, lasting to round 13, is ridiculously under drafted. When in reality, there shouldn't be that big of a difference. Zach Levine would probably be too tier's higher than this. I've got him in tier 8 in category leagues and tier 8 in points leagues.
But the risk is that it's the King's, man. Look, what is going to happen? Will he be traded? Will he be bought out? I don't think so. I think he's going to start and play 30 plus minutes. But it could go terribly at any point. What's the got 80 Mitchell here? And again, drafting based on tiers will get you into trouble because it's always context based. 80 Mitchell, I think he's going to be pretty solid as the thunder sixth man. Maybe he starts. But I'm also not looking at Ajay. I think there is gigantic upside of him to go crazy here. I talked about this the other day. I talked about Ajay. What does he do that's great? What's the big standout thing? And it's like, he's good. I like him a lot. But what's the thing that's going to blow up? I don't really see it. So taking him here is very safe. Is there a ceiling in it? Like not really. Where's the next guy on the list is to meet Chris Moran. What if he does cook an average of 24 or 9? It seems unlikely. What if he somehow gets 65 games? It seems unlikely.
But it can happen. But in no world is 80 Mitchell averaging 24 or 9. It's never happening. But based on my median expectation of these players, they're all in this same grouping. We've also got Andrew Nemhariya. Much like Ajay Mitchell. Is there any chance that he really blows up? Like not really. His chance to do that was last season. And he was like fine. The assist numbers were really good. They're going to drop with Halibur and back. But he's like just fine in this sort of spot. This is not the end of tier eight, because tier eight is a larger tier. So we've got Brandon Pajemski in there as well. Who I think is a really good solid last round pick. I think he probably does start. If I have no self creation on this team at all, apart from Stefan, if Stefan goes down, oh boy, what is going to happen? Pajemki can be up and down, but I think he's getting a little bit underrated at the moment, I'm not going to tier seven for Pointseaks. I just don't know what Kevin Porter Jr. is going to do in Milwaukee. I've got him as a tier eight pointseater guy. You could easily make an argument to go earlier on him.
But taking him here with a fly, that what if they do start him in a place to do? It's because we're still going to top 30 player, top 40 player from last season. But with hero, Rollins, Yakuachonus, Burries, the big man Gazz Trent, like where does Porter get enough playing time? And you also note that Peyton Pritchett is in this tier with a rank of 80 and a Vantrax ADP of 80. And I've talked ad-nausing about this, but there will be people who don't listen to all my stuff who are just tuning in for this, because Josh, Peyton Pritchett, the Celtics said that he's their Jalen Bronson. They didn't at all, someone in the media speculated that. Right? Right, he's ready for a big breakout without Jalen Brown. You know when the breakout for Peyton Pritchett was on the cards? Last season. Last season was the breakout for Peyton Pritchett. This season, it is worse for him than last season. He did it without Jalen Brown last season. Sorry without Jason Taylor.
And without Paul George. So the equation is, Brown gone, Taylor and George onto the team. And Pritchett probably doesn't even start. He might, but he might not. His opportunity to really break out was last season and he struggled a ton with efficiency. Still fine to grab him, but the idea of why is gonna turn into Jalen Bronson because oh mate's gone, Jalen Brown, the usage equation is more crowded. His chance to do it was last season. Maybe I'm, maybe I'm, I keep looking, it is easily possible that I'm just completely wrong. But just logical line. Suggest to me that it is just harder for him to do more than on this year's team. I got Jalen Suggs here. He's a tier eight point sleep guy. That's mainly because I just can't trust him to stay healthy.
I'd have him ahead of nearly everyone in tier eight, honestly, if I knew that he'd play 70 games or 65 games. But the way that he plays, his body gets beat the hell up every time. So I've got to have him here. Preferably coming back off a tour in ACL. Totally fine as around 10 player. He's gonna kill your field goals, but he's gonna get pretty good skills, pretty good assists. Scoring will be relatively low, but he's gonna start without any question, I think. And it'll be a little bit iffy early on, but overall like you made a Doka, loves to play Blokest 38 minutes. He won't get that to Fred, but maybe he's 35, but then the year. And then the Hong Kong mattress, case and walls is in here. He's ranked 154. I do think he starts. He's gonna be very good at steals. So don't let that over in Fladeys value. Don't get fluffed by it. But there should be much like we're considering there's more to do for AJ Mitchell. There should be more to do for Case and Wallars. The last tier. Got 15 blocks in tier nine. I'm just gonna run through this list very quickly
to finish things off. Darius Akov Jr. Who's a tier eight point say guy? Restorablaak! I've got in tier nine. Anthony Black, Mikael Brown Jr. Yego Dioman, Colin Gillespie. Jordan Goodwin, who not a point say guy whatsoever. And Goodwin, if you didn't have him in this tier, totally reasonable. He's probably a clear 16 team lead guy. 12 team I can see you considering it. Scoot Anderson in this tier. Drew Holiday. Who I don't think is gonna really play any point guard at all, but he's point guard eligible still. Got Drew Holiday here. And then the final names in tier nine. Dennis Jenkins, who, yeah, he's still gonna battle Joe and Robinson for minutes, but should get over 29. And Solid Assist guy. Trey Jones is gonna be a bench player for the Bulls. He's getting drafted that 109 for some reason. I don't know why,
but like Gideon Power ahead of him. But a great pick up if someone gets hurt. The way full D Anthony Melton is ranked very low. There's an outside shot that he starts. And if he starts in place 28 minutes and I pick up everywhere. Davy on Mitchell, ADP of 114. Now he's gonna have to do more in Miami, but can he? I don't really trust the shooting at volume. Steele's he's pretty good at. Assist is pretty good at. But he was a guy that would get like 9.9 assist last season. And obviously Yarnus is there. So it's a bit of a change in the team, but Mitchell's going to start and the role is locked in. I've got Malik Monk there, and if he was super confident about it, because the Kings are clowns, got Scorri Piven, and I've also got Reed Shepard. And if Reed Shepard played 28 minutes tonight, Chuck him in tier six, but given where we're at with him in his career, I don't feel confident in that at all. And that's your point, Gartiers. Again, I will be very clear about saying this.
Please watch this, enjoy it, hate it, criticize it, whatever, but don't use it as a foundation of your drafting. Tear lists are great. It a fantasy football draft. We're not matriculating the pigs skin down the field here, though, are we? Basketball doesn't work that way. Fantasy basketball doesn't work that way. Don't get suck it into considering these tears. Hit value based on ADP, based on team shape, based on what you're building, based on what risks you've taken earlier, if you haven't taken risk, take a fly here. What wins a league? Is just getting value. The guy pick nine, he becomes a 40th best player, bang, you're on your way. That's how it is, not tier based drafting. Please guys, thumb it up, double bang, comments. We're done here. Get your monster drop entries in. Say, uh. I'm.
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