Recency bias is a hell of a drug, and while many managers who are fantasy basketball obsessed can resist the urge to buy into a big spike in production, it’s hard to fight the good fight against the power of the entire draft market out there. Every season there’s a collection of players who skyrocket up the rankings as the season goes on, whether that’s due to a new set of teammates, a greater role or genuine personal improvement. Development isn’t necessarily linear and someone delivering a huge home stretch doesn’t guarantee that they’ve found a new baseline. You can look to Caleb Martin’s 2022-23 playoffs, or Jalen Green’s 2022-23 second half, or most regrettably, Mikal Bridges’ first half-season in Brooklyn to see some clear examples of how you can get burned by buying into a late surge. It’s important to suss out what’s what and figure out what may be able to carry over into next season, and that’s what we’re going to try and do here. We pulled the most intriguing climbers who might have a shot at keeping the gravy train on the tracks.

Yes, this is called “Second Half Sensations,” but for our purposes, we’re not going to be bound by the strict definition of “half.” Our halves are going to be pre- and post-trade deadline, since that gives us the cleanest break for a lot of players who landed on new teams — work smarter, not harder. Even then, not every trade happened on deadline day, and not everyone who pops up in this list did so because of a trade.

We also did not pull every name who made a massive leap. Some guys obviously will not be factors this upcoming season despite a big jump down the stretch (Kenneth Lofton Jr. went from 501 pre-deadline to 79 post-deadline! Alex Fudge jumped 287 spots, but topped out at No. 238.) while others were left off because the answer was too obvious (apologies to Dalano Banton, who went 452 to 180, but with the benefit of an entire guard rotation missing time in front of him). A special shoutout goes to Donte DiVincenzo (86 to 35) and Josh Hart (175 to 61), but that one is quick and easy — the Knicks traded out some guards to open up playing time, and then Julius Randle and OG Anunoby got hurt, opening up even more playing time.

Let’s get into it, with everyone slotted neatly into a handy table where you can see first-half, second-half and total per-game value. You’ll want the total number since that’s what people who aren’t deep-diving will see when they do their own research.

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