SportsEthos 2026 Fantasy Basketball Draft Guide

Fantasy Basketball Draft Guide 2025: Face-off, Joel Embiid vs. Zion Williamson

By SportsEthos Staff Published October 17, 2025 Updated August 24, 2026 2 min read

Last Updated on August 24, 2026 12:32 pm by André Lemos | Published: October 17, 2025

Our Fantasy Face-Off series will feature two SportsEthos staffers making their arguments in a head-to-head battle of comparable fantasy players.

Zion Williamson is going in the fourth and fifth round of drafts, while Joel Embiid is going in a similar range. Today it’s Mike Passador representing Embiid and Keston Paul taking up the battle for Williamson.

Last Season

Joel Embiid

C, Philadelphia Sixers

Season	Team	GP	GS	MPG	FGM	FGA	FG%	FTM	FTA	FT%	3PTM	3PTA	3PT%	PTS	REB	AST	STL	BLK	TO
25-26	PHI	38	38	31.6	9.0	18.3	48.9	7.5	8.8	85.4	1.4	4.2	33.3	26.9	7.7	3.9	0.6	1.2	2.9
24-25	PHI	19	19	30.2	7.4	16.6	44.4	7.8	8.9	88.2	1.2	4.1	29.9	23.8	8.2	4.5	0.7	0.9	3.3

Zion Williamson

PF, New Orleans Pelicans

Season	Team	GP	GS	MPG	FGM	FGA	FG%	FTM	FTA	FT%	3PTM	3PTA	3PT%	PTS	REB	AST	STL	BLK	TO
25-26	NO	62	55	29.7	7.8	13.0	60.0	5.4	7.5	71.6	0.0	0.1	25.0	21.0	5.7	3.2	1.0	0.5	2.0
24-25	NO	30	30	28.6	9.6	16.9	56.7	5.3	8.0	65.6	0.1	0.4	23.1	24.6	7.2	5.3	1.2	0.9	3.0

Two players with elite talent. Two players with immense injury risk. Two players whose fanbases are starting to turn on them. It’s not a fun matchup, but it’s an interesting one.

Joel Embiid won a gold medal with Team USA and then returned to his actual job with a balky knee. It derailed Philadelphia’s entire season and although he tried to gut through the injury, he was a shell of himself even when active. Embiid played a career-low 19 games (besides the 2015-16 season, which he sat out entirely) and scored 23.8 points per game, his lowest mark since 2019-20. His .444 FG% and 0.9 blocks were new career-lows and 8.7 rebounds were the second-lowest in his nine seasons. Per-game, Embiid finished at 23/42 in 8/9-cat scoring. That’s not terrible but for a player who was a consensus top-3 selection just a couple years ago, it was a sharp decline.

Zion Williamson was limited to just 30 games last season, leaving a bitter taste in the mouths of managers who took a gamble on him. His 28.6 minutes per game were also the second lowest of his career, only being beaten by his rookie season. On a per-game basis, he was only ranked 68th/102nd (8-cat/9-cat); however, if you were punting FT%, his per-game rank improved to No. 19 last season. We have seen flashes of the upside Williamson possesses, but sustained success is far from guaranteed.