Fantasy Basketball Draft Guide 2025: Rookie Impact Report

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  • By goncaloteiga33

    Last Updated on August 14, 2025 8:07 pm by Keston Paul | Published: August 14, 2025

    Introduction

    Draft Day is a special day for us, be it for Redraft or Dynasty Leagues. And on that fateful day of a Dynasty League I’m in, a wise man said “for 75% of the players drafted today, their value will never be as high as it was today.” While this statement is truthful (well, this is a made-up number for a dramatic effect!), we’re here to analyze those 25% of rookies who can be valuable in year one! Almost all fantasy managers want to discover fantasy gems and bet on the rookies they trust, and that’s one of the many things that make fantasy fun, but the draft is a tough proposition that even NBA teams haven’t cracked yet. We’ll try to help you navigate through the uncharted waters of the 2025 NBA Draft and look to decipher the value in this year’s class. But first, some history!

    History

    Notes:
    y-axis indicates number of rookies

    Top-50 = player(s) who finished 1-to-50 (dark blue)

    Top-75 = player(s) who finished 51-to-75 (orange)

    Top-100 = player(s) who finished 76-to-100 (green)

    Top-150 = player(s) who finished 101-to-150 (light blue)

    All data gathered from Basketball Monster’s per-game rankings.

    Players like Joel Embiid, Ben Simmons and Chet Holmgren were treated as rookies in their first playing season, as they were in the NBA.

    Data from 2014 to 2022 extracted from the 2023-24 NBA Draft Guide: Rookie Report

    Since the 2014 NBA Draft, we had between 2-to-10 rookies rank in the top-150. And in those 11 evaluated drafts, we’ve seen just seven top-50 rookies. Any way you look at it, just those numbers point towards fantasy-relevant rookies being way fewer in number than the aforementioned 25%. So how can we find value amongst them? Opportunity, draft capital and talent go hand in hand in hand in determining how rookies fare, and the 2023 is a prime example of that.

    Amen Thompson was picked fourth in the 2023 NBA Draft, and his talent and draft capital were never in question in previewing his rookie performance. But Houston had a plethora of talent on the team, with Fred VanVleet, Alperen Sengun, Jabari Smith Jr., Tari Eason, Jalen Green, Dillon Brooks and company. The prevailing question was if Amen would get enough opportunity to showcase his fantasy talent. In his first four games, Amen played between 12 and 21 minutes and Houston had just one win. Thompson was sidelined with an injury until the end of December and came back to a 13-11 team that was surpassing expectations. Amen’s talent was never in question, but how would he fare on a team prioritizing winning and playing veterans heavy minutes? Talent prevailed and Amen got his opportunity, starting 17 of out Houston’s 18 last games, and is now a bona fide fantasy star after two years.

    Dereck Lively II is another great example from the same draft of how a situation can impact a rookie. Duke’s big man entered the draft after playing just over 20 mpg in his freshman season, but he entered the league in the perfect situation – catching passes from Luka Doncic. Moreover, his skillset fit perfectly in what Dallas needed: a center to split playtime with Daniel Gafford, anchor the paint, set screens and finish plays. Thus, Lively started the season producing on the back of FG%, rebounds and blocks, and with secure playing time he developed trust in his passing game, showing interesting flashes. Lively had the perfect opportunity to produce in his specific role, and he rewarded his fantasy managers with a 116th ranked season in 9-cat.

    But not all rookies are fairytale stories. In fact, most of them aren’t, as was the case for the 2nd most hyped prospect of the 2023 Draft – Scoot Henderson. He entered the league with the car keys supposedly in his back pocket after Portland traded franchise legend Damian Lillard to the Milwaukee Bucks. Scoot struggled early on with efficiency and turnovers, dragging your team down by a considerable amount in these two categories, finishing his rookie season as the 336th ranked player in 9-cat. In 8-cat, Scoot saw a seismic shift in his value, ranking 184th.

    This is the case for most rookie guards, wings, creators and ball-handlers. While Lively was in an almost-perfect situation and Amen’s defensive and connective talent made him rise to the top in Houston, being a rookie tasked to create for others is a completely different world. With this, we can analyze 8-cat rankings and compare them to 9-cat, and last year’s draft gives two excellent examples of that.

    Despite being PF/C eligible, Alex Sarr handled the ball a lot for the Washington Wizards, and his turnovers and efficiency dragged his value down to the 164th spot and out of the 9-cat chart. But we see a third top-150 rookie in the 8-cat rankings, as Sarr ranked 149th under these setting. Continuing on the same thought process as Henderson, if we take out FG% and FT% in the 8-cat rankings, Sarr soars to the 86th spot! Another prime example of the importance of 8-cat rankings is Isaiah Collier, the assist maestro who was helpful to a lot of fantasy squads in the 2nd half of his rookie season. From January onward, Collier ranked 259th in 9-cat rankings, but for most of that time he was impossible to find on most waive wires. That’s because he ranked 142nd in 8-cat and 116th if you take out FG% and FT%.

    Curiously, the two rookies who could be found in the top-150 from the 2024 draft are centers who stepped right into a favorable role – Kel’el Ware and Zach Edey, with Yves Missi and Donovan Clingan knocking at the door with 192th and 160th ranks, respectively.

    Historically, defensive stats can be seen as a rookie’s best friend, with Herb Jones’ 76th ranked 2021 rookie campaign being a prime example. Inversely, turnovers and efficiency have a longer adaptation period, and we can see players who have undeniable offensive talent entering their rookie season struggle due to these categories. In addition to this, big men, be it because of playing limited roles or fitting into a perfect situation, tend to orbit the top-150 range, as it was the case for Lively, Ware or Edey.

    We can even extract one more valuable nugget of information from this analysis. Looking at Paolo Banchero, Anthony Edwards and Luka Doncic, three fantasy stars in today’s NBA, they ranked 209th, 118th and 98th in 9-cat, respectively, in their rookie seasons, despite their counting stats pointing towards a much higher value. Again, turnovers and efficiency did their job. On the other hand, Victor Wembanyana, Chet Holmgren and Karl-Anthony Towns, rookie big men who excelled in the fantasy gold trifecta – steals, blocks and threes, all posted top-20 9-cat rookie seasons.

    Before looking into the 2025 NBA Draft, we need an exception to the rule to open our horizons and look further than defensive stat merchants or big men. In the 2017 NBA Draft, we have four top-75 rookies, the most of our 11-year sample size. Donovan Mitchell highlights the rookie class, ranking 54th in 9-cat and 48th in 8-cat, being the rare efficient guard right off the bat. With all of this historic information in our back pocket, let’s analyze this year’s draft class and examine the upside they possess in a best-case scenario setting!

    2025-2026 Lookahead

    Top-50 Upside

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    August 14, 2025, 8:07 pm