Last Updated on November 19, 2025 12:12 pm by Mike Passador | Published: November 19, 2025

Dynasty rankings/player evaluations are one of my most time-consuming content pieces. I enjoy it immensely, but there are constant internal debates in my head over whether Player X is too low, if Player Y is placed appropriately, if I’m letting my initial bias take hold of me on certain players, an so on. At the end of the day, after I pour hours upon hours upon hours into my rankings, I tend to have strong convictions about the end results.

For the majority of NBA players, a month into the season isn’t enough for me to change my outlook. However, a select few have shifted my projections one way or another. I’m already working through my updated dynasty rankings, but it’s worth discussing some of my more significant shifts already. Below I’ll detail just what these players have shown in the early going to convince me to change my stances on them. Most of them will be risers (because hyping up players is more fun than bashing them), but a few fallers sadly deserve mention as well.

Any other players you feel I’m missing? Let me know either in our Discord!

Disclaimer – I will not mention any rookies below. It’s too early in their careers to start making any declarative statements when playtime, team context, and adjustments to the league are in flux. There are rookies who have impressed me more than I thought they would (hello Cedric Coward!) and rookies I may have been too hopeful on (sigh, Kasparas Jakucionis), but generally I’ll cede more weight to my initial scouts of them until we have a larger NBA sample.

All stats are from Basketball Reference and as of 11/18 unless otherwise mentioned

Stephon Castle

I made a point this offseason to slow everyone’s roll on the reigning Rookie of the Year. “Undeserved!” I said. “Overrated!” I exclaimed in numerous articles and podcasts. Maybe I was just the pawn and Castle is the king here.

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Mark C

After years of playing redraft fantasy basketball leagues with my friends, I branched out to dynasty leagues. As my hunger for competitive leagues grew, I found myself having lengthy conversations in various forums and developing my own thoughts on rookies and veteran players alike. Among the dynasty community, I found a gap in understanding on-court play and valuing transactions properly and thought to myself “I have a lot to say that could help dynasty managers!” I eventually came onto Sports Ethos as the Dynasty Lead, producing Dynasty Fantasy Basketball content such as rankings, rookie profiles, and other sorts of articles to enable managers to make informed decisions on their own squads. I pride myself in marrying on-court NBA and fantasy basketball analysis, giving readers and listeners of my content a holistic knowledge base of not only dynasty basketball projects but also the NBA itself.

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