Last Updated on November 28, 2025 12:35 pm by Mike Passador | Published: November 28, 2025

First and foremost, I hope that everyone (who celebrates) had an excellent Thanksgiving. A league-wide day off was a nice little reset for everyone, and hopefully your fantasy players are rested and rejuvenated after a little break in the schedule. It’s always a bit jarring to have a random hard stop in the middle of the race but you’ll take it when you can get it, and it was nice to have a night free of box-score refreshing and some time away from the screen.

Although, I guess that depends on what the rest of your Thursday entailed, so maybe it wasn’t. In that case, isn’t it good to be back to basketball?

Giving Thanks

In the spirit of the season, here’s an assortment of things to be thankful for so far.

Days with no back-to-backs. It’s so nice just trusting that everyone who can play, will play, and the games are a lot more competitive and entertaining. Creating the schedule for the entire league is an insane task but it would be amazing if we could somehow get to a day when there are no back-to-backs. The league clearly knows that they reduce the quality of play — notice how there are no back-to-backs on NBA Cup nights?

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. The guy is playing three quarters more often than not and still dominating. He is in cruise control as the No. 2 fantasy value right now and hasn’t even broken a sweat yet.

Brandon Ingram. Specifically, he has turned the Raptors into one of the league’s most efficient half-court offenses after they were one of the worst last season. But this one isn’t so much about the specifics — it’s just cool to see a move like that work out. There are very valid concerns as to the long-term fit here but it’s a lot more fun to follow the league when a gamble like that pays off. It encourages more teams to be bold in their decision-making, and adding more competitive teams to the mix is always a good thing.

Mikal Bridges, who is sporting top-10 fantasy value so far this season. The defense that has been missing over the last couple of season has returned with force as Bridges is on track for career-highs in both steals and blocks by a significant margin. With career-high FG% to match, Bridges is back to being a true 9-cat monster. Not bad for a middle-round pick who wasn’t generating a ton of buzz in draft season.

The new Pelicans coaches. The season is over already but the Pelicans have made their change behind the bench already, and we’ve seen a few fantasy-friendly tweaks come into play between the outright benching of Kevon Looney and the increased role for Jose Alvarado. The roster is a mess but the previous staff was leaving some easy money on the table.

Clear injury timelines. They don’t pop up a lot these days — it’s pretty funny that Jalen Williams dropped out of the sky and is available to play on Friday with zero updates since the summer — but when they do appear, you appreciate them.

Jalen Johnson. He has been awesome from the jump and has easily outproduced a lot of the guys going near him in drafts. The Hawks look decent even without Trae Young in the lineup and have seen that Johnson can run the offense for a team that’s suddenly not a pushover defensively…

Alex Sarr’s efficiency. The Wizards roster is still quite weak but it’s better than last year, and improved teammates seem to be helping Sarr grow as a player. His FG% is way, way up from last year, fueling a top-40 start to his season. Can’t get much better than that.

Panic. Yes, be thankful for panic. Just not yours. Think about how many people were able to get Reed Sheppard on the cheap — he’s a top-60 guy and it feels like he has had less than a handful of truly great performances. Overreaction season is when the lions hunt, and if you get to be on the right side of that it’s definitely a big spot for gratitude.

Schedule Breakdown

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Mike Passador

Mike graduated from Boston University’s Dual Degree Program with a BA in Economics and a BS in Business with Concentrations in Marketing and Operations Management. He is a faithful supporter of Toronto sports and the Detroit Lions and is always ready to be let down. Tweet to him @Mike_Pandador, but if you badmouth Jose Calderon you might get blocked.

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