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Bruski 150SportsEthos 2026 Fantasy Basketball Draft Guide
Fantasy Basketball Draft Guide 2026: FT% Boosters
Last Updated on October 11, 2026 1:43 am by Keston Paul | Published: October 11, 2026
Free-throw percentage (FT%) influence in fantasy is a tricky combination of the volume of attempts and the actual percentage. A 90.0% free-throw shooter taking two attempts per game is not going to push the envelope as much as an 87.5% free-throw shooter taking seven or eight attempts per game. That volume provides insulation against any poor free-throw shooters on your roster who may only be taking a handful of attempts per game themselves.
Think of it this way, if you put a 1-of-3 performance at the line next to someone who shot 2-of-2, that would be a 3-of-5 performance for your team or 60.0%. If you put that 1-of-3 player next to a 7-of-8 free-throw performance instead, it becomes 8-of-11 or 72.7% for your team. We are aiming for much higher than 72.7% to be a good free-throw percentage (FT%) team for fantasy, but hopefully that demonstrates the idea. If you add 5-of-5 to that 8-of-11 because you have another good free-throw shooter, it becomes 13-of-16 or 81.3%. Another player shooting 6-of-7 at the line turns your team’s volume into 19-of-23 or 82.6%.
Free-throw percentage (FT%) is one of the more volatile fantasy statistics, meaning it can swing wildly from one week to another and even from season to season for some players. However, the elite free-throw influencers tend to remain consistent from year to year and can be foundational pieces for you to excel in a swing category that might be overlooked by managers in your league. If you end up with multiple players from this list, your free-throw percentage (FT%) should be better protected from the weekly swings of rhythm and shooting touch in the NBA.
Of course, you must apply context to the individual needs of each of your drafts and the skills of the players on this list. You likely can’t draft five or six of these players due other statistical and positional needs, as well as their actual ADPs.
The is the article layout you can look forward to:
- Top Influencers – The top-12 players in descending order of who positively impacts your FT% the most.
- Late-Round Boosters – You can’t influence percentages as easily at this point in the draft, but there are a few names who can give you some last-ditch help.
- Deep-League Heroes – Again, you aren’t likely to find high-volume options beyond the scope of a typical 12-team draft, but these players can have a positive influence when they find themselves at the charity stripe.
The B150 powers the projections mentioned in this article.
Note that I am rounding off to the nearest decimal place.
You can find all of the B150 projections here.
Use our ADP Tracker for all-encompassing updates across multiple platforms.
Top Influencers
Looking back at the data from 2025-26, these are the observations:
Top-100 9-cat players averaged 80.9% from the free-throw line and 4.2 free-throw attempts per game.
Top-100 8-cat players averaged 81.2% from the free-throw line and 4.5 free-throw attempts per game.
That should give you a solid baseline understanding of free-throw volume, as players above the average attempts will have more influence. Players above the average percentage will help your fantasy team, while players below it will be a negative.
#1: Shai Gilgeous-Alexander
Season Team GP GS MPG
FGM FGA FG%
FTM FTA FT%
3PTM 3PTA 3PT%
PTS REB AST
STL BLK TO 25-26
OKC
68
68
33.2
10.8
19.4
55.3
7.9
9.0
87.9
1.7
4.4
38.6
31.1
4.3
6.6
1.4
0.8
2.2
24-25
OKC
76
76
34.2
11.3
21.8
51.9
7.9
8.8
89.8
2.1
5.7
37.5
32.7
5.0
6.4
1.7
1.0
2.4
Current ADP: 3.8/3.0/3.4 (Yahoo/ESPN/Fantrax)
2026-27 FT% Projection: 88.6% (8.1/9.1)
Gilgeous-Alexander has multiple years of data showing that he will provide elite FT% on elite volume. Besides the balanced fantasy profile, if we want to discuss some of the volatility of percentages, the point is that an elite percentage influencer has a much higher baseline. Looking back at 2025-26, SGA shot 88.7% from the line during his first 21 games, 88.9% during his next 17 games, 90.2% over his next 13 games and finally, 83.9% throughout his last 17 games. All of that balanced out into 87.9% throughout the entire season. That last portion of the season represented a downturn after a core injury he had in February, so perhaps that impacted his FT form. Still, even when SGA is “bad” by his standards, that lower value would still equate to positive FT% impact.
#2: Stephen Curry
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Keston majored in Biology and minored in Literatures in English at the University of the West Indies (U.W.I.), St. Augustine. Hailing from Trinidad & Tobago, Kes grew up loving cricket, then football (soccer, not NFL) & never missed a Barça game in the 2010s. Later on, he grew obsessed with basketball/fantasy basketball & unfortunately claims to be a Sixers fan for some reason.