Fantasy Basketball Draft Guide 2025: Second Half Sensations

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  • By Mike Passador

    Last Updated on August 31, 2025 3:07 pm by Keston Paul | Published: August 20, 2025

    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. The final run of games after the All-Star break is a perfect petri dish for this kind of thing as rosters get shaken up and organizational priorities shift, allowing players to take on new roles that could highlight their abilities. You’ll notice that a lot of these risers came from a small pool of teams, which should not come as a surprise.

    Development isn’t necessarily linear and someone delivering a huge stretch of production doesn’t guarantee that they’ve found a new baseline, however. You can look to Caleb Martin’s 2022-23 playoffs, or Jalen Green’s 2022-23 second half, or Nikola Vucevic’s astounding start last season for examples. 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-All-Star break. Going around the trade deadline would give us the cleanest break for a lot of players who landed on new teams, but the All-Star game was a week after the wheeling and dealing, and should eliminate a few of those early post-trade contests when lineups were incomplete and rotations were being juggled on the fly.

    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 (Jacob Toppin was the biggest jumper, going from No. 499 to No. 103… in one second-half appearance. Kai Jones and Keion Brooks Jr. also had huge climbs but are currently free agents.) while others were left off because the answer was too obvious (Sorry to Brandon Williams, who went from 439 to 94 thanks to a ton of favorable breaks.).

    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.

    WordPress Data Table Plugin
    Josh Giddey
    SG, Chicago Bulls
    SeasonTeamGPGSMPG FGMFGAFG% FTMFTAFT% 3PTM3PTA3PT% PTSREBAST STLBLKTO
    24-25 CHI 70 69 30.2 5.3 11.4 46.5 2.5 3.2 78.1 1.5 4.0 37.8 14.6 8.1 7.2 1.2 0.6 2.9

    Second Half Stats: 34.2 mpg | 21.2 points | 10.7 rebounds | 9.3 assists | 1.5 steals | 0.8 blocks | 1.9 3-pointers | 0.500 FG% | 0.809 FT% | 3.4 turnovers

    Nobody finished the season in more shocking fashion than Giddey, who became a sleepwalking triple-double as the go-to guy in Chicago. The first half of his season was more of the same, putting him under serious scrutiny as the lone return for Alex Caruso (rather than an assortment of futures), but Giddey took the world by storm down the stretch with a legitimate league-winning run of production. The numbers speak for themselves, but what went into them?


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    August 20, 2025, 6:34 pm