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Bruski 150SportsEthos 2026 Fantasy Basketball Draft Guide
Fantasy Basketball Draft Guide 2026: Value of First-Round Picks for Dynasty
Last Updated on September 10, 2026 11:19 pm by Keston Paul | Published: September 10, 2026
Sooooo…we’re back at it again…again! It’s been two years since I have refreshed study. To keep it simple,I am examining first-round draft picks’ fantasy production through their first three seasons to test how impactful young players are to dynasty teams. You can read further about the methodology the original article in 2023 here if you want a refresher on the entire process.
This time around, I’ve added two years of prospect data from the 2022 and 2023 NBA Draft Classes. Finally, Victor Wembanyama enters the sample, along with names like Amen Thompson, Chet Holmgren and Jalen Williams. We also see less-illustrious names such as Johnny Davis, Jordan Hawkins, and AJ Griffin enter the sample. Quite the varied list of names there!
Noting some key points. First, since I am examining just the first three seasons of players’ fantasy production, the additional data in this data set is from the 2022 and 2023 NBA Draft Classes. That means names like Cooper Flagg and Stephon Castle are not part of the data set analyzed. From the original study’s data points of 900 in 2023, to the first updated study’s data points of 990 in 2024, the sample size is now increased to 1,170 individual player seasons.
Second, I want to emphasize something below, taken directly from the original article:
My last decision was how many years I should gather data. I landed on using the first three years of each draft class. I want to stress that this does ignore these players’ prime fantasy years and is not indicative of a player’s future fantasy value. This should not be treated as “young players are bad; therefore, I will not roster any youth.” But I would expect most managers cannot go more than two or three seasons of bottoming out, whether due to lack of competing or wanting to place in the money spots. Additionally, if a contending team is wondering about the value proposition of trading a prospect for a win-now player, I would only be looking at a two- or three-year horizon.
Many of these younger players’ values are tied to their future peak production. That tends to be found in their prime fantasy years, typically around ages 26-30. In the years I am analyzing, the ages of the players are almost always well below that range. It’s understandable that prospects’ early years should not result in outstanding fantasy production; rather, a prospect’s peak production is normally baked into a ranking well above their current production level.
Results
Alright enough with the boring mumbo-jumbo stuff. Onto the actual data!
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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.