Fantasy hoops is all about depth, and these solid players from struggling franchises could give you just that.
We can hear you now: So, um, Playboy, I haven’t even done my NFL fantasy draft, and you’re already talking about fantasy basketball? Why? Why?!?! Why!!?!????
Legitimate question. But we have a legitimate answer: The NBA schedule dropped last week, so now we know that the season tips on October 22, 2024 with a New York Knicks/Boston Celtics bloodbath at the TD Garden and wraps on April 13, 2025 in San Antonio, where the Spurs and the Toronto Raptors will play out the string.
We also know that according to Positive Residual, the lucky Western Conference stud Denver Nuggets have the easiest strength of schedule, while the unfortunate Western Conference dud Portland Trail Blazers have the toughest path to the Larry O’Brien Trophy.
Armed with this meager, albeit semi-useful collection of analytics, we can speak somewhat intelligently about the coming fantasy basketball season—and right now, we’re going to speak somewhat intelligently about finding chunks of gold buried in piles of mud.
Listen, we all know that Victor Wembanyama, Nikola Jokic, Luka Doncic, and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander are at the top of your draft board, but NBA fantasy leagues are generally won in the trenches—having a roster consisting of two high-level beasts and a shallow bench ain’t gettin’ it done.
A reasonable strategy to shore up your depth is to target box-score-stuffing second or third options on teams that won’t sniff the playoffs. Drafting Giannis Antetokounmpo is easy, but drafting an Atlanta Hawk in, say, the eighth-round who will take you over the hump, not so much.
To that end, here are 10 semi-under-the-radar options whose teams have just an incremental chance to sneak into the postseason, and no chance to win a ring—but could give you a chance to win your NBA fantasy league.
Note: Average Draft Positions (ADP) courtesy of Yahoo Sports.
DENI AVDIJA
- Team: Portland Trail Blazers
- ADP: 137
- Cool Stat From 2023-24: In the 20 games the wing played between February 29 and April 14, he put up 9 double-doubles.
- The Skinny: The Portland roster is thin, thin, thin—can you say “tank?”—and the former Washington Wizard is, for all practical purposes, the team’s only small forward, so we’re looking at minutes galore. The native of Beit Zera, Israel missed just seven games last season, and averaged a solid 30.1 MPG, the most of his career. He should see plenty of opportunities in his new digs, and will almost definitely outplay his ADP.
NIC CLAXTON
- Team: Brooklyn Nets
- ADP: 55
- Cool Stat From 2023-24: The slender center was 0.1 rebounds away from averaging a double-double.
- The Skinny: Are the Nets a team in transition, or are they a team that DGAF about much other than landing a high draft pick in a loaded 2025 NBA Draft? We’ll go with “B” for the time being, which means first-year coach Jordi Fernandez will let his young guys eat—and despite the fact it seems like he’s been in the league for about a decade, Claxton is a mere stripling of 25. In 2022-23, the University of Georgia product finished ninth in Defensive Player of the Year voting, so if you’re focusing on the blocks category, Claxton might be your guy.
JOSH GIDDEY
- Team: Chicago Bulls
- ADP: 82
- Cool Stat From 2023-24: The Aussie posted career highs in games played (80) and free throw percentage (.806), but career lows in points (12.3), rebounds (6.4), and MPG (25.1).
- The Skinny: Last season, if we may put it inelegantly, Giddey was cockblocked by backcourt-mate, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander; Giddey’s usage percentage plummeted to 23.1%, while SGA’s climbed to a career-best 32.8%, good for 10th in the league. Being that the Bulls, in order to acquire Giddey, gave up a perennial Defensive Player of the Year candidate in Alex Caruso, the Chicago braintrust will do everything they can to help the 21-year-old succeed—and that means ramping up that usage percentage, which will ramp up his fantasy value.
JADEN IVEY
- Team: Detroit Pistons
- ADP: 153
- Cool Stat From 2023-24: The athletic guard hit double figures in 22 of his 25 final games.
- The Skinny: The Pistons have one true star in Cade Cunningham, and he deservedly dominates the rock, diminishing Ivey’s fantasy usefulness. But first-year coach J.B. Bickerstaff wants to, y’know, keep his job, and CadeFest hasn’t proven to be a successful strategy—the team’s record with the ex-Oklahoma State Sooner on the court is 9-53 (yikes)—so a democratic offense that will very much benefit Ivey (and Bickerstaff) will likely be a thing.
JALEN JOHNSON
- Team: Atlanta Hawks
- ADP: 31
- Cool Stat From 2023-24: Atlanta’s record when Johnson tallied double figures was 15-7.
- The Skinny: Atlanta’s undeniable alpha dog is Trae Young, but with the departure of Dejounte Murray, their beta dog position is, to an extent, up for grabs: It could be Johnson, it could be Deandre Hunter, it could be Clint Capela. Young is a James Harden-level ball hog, and based on our 2023-24 eye test, fourth-year forward Johnson has the balls to force Ice Trae to be more generous with the rock.
JAKOB POELTL
- Team: Toronto Raptors
- ADP: 108
- Cool Stat From 2023-24: Poeltl posted 20 double-doubles, good for 31st in the league, ahead of 2024 All-Star bigs Kevin Durant, Paolo Banchero, and Lauri Markkanen.
- The Skinny: Like Portland, the Raptors roster is thin, thin, thin, and the other five centers currently gracing their bench are, in alphabetical order, Branden Carlsen, Ulrich Chomche, Christian Koloko, Jamal Shead, and Malik Williams (oy gevalt), which leaves the door wide open for Poeltl to improve on last season’s 26.4 minutes, thus further leaving the door wide open for an across-the-board statistical jump.
JABARI SMITH JR.
- Team: Houston Rockets
- ADP: 80
- Cool Stat From 2023-24: With Smith in the starting lineup, the Rockets’ winning percentage was 46.1%. With Smith not in the starting lineup, the Rockets’ winning percentage was 35.2%.
- The Skinny: Houston’s #1 option Alperen Şengün’s season came to an end on March 10, and, as alluded to in our “Cool Stat…” section, Smith thrived when he was fully unleashed. The starting power forward position is Smith’s to lose—his backups are undersized Tari Eason and 37-year-old Jeff Green—so a near a double-double average isn’t out of the realm of possibility. Smith’s ADP, while reasonable, might actually be a scootch low.
JONAS VALANCIUNAS
- Team: Washington Wizards
- ADP: 72
- Cool Stat From 2023-24: In his age-31 campaign, the Lithuanian center played a full 82 game season for the first time in his 12-year career
- The Skinny: Jonas’s 2023-24 season could’ve been better, especially in the land of pretend basketball, where he finished 29th amongst centers in fantasy points—but that was on a mish-mosh New Orleans roster in which he was on the court a mere 23.5 minutes a night, the second-lowest average of his career. That won’t be the case during his first year in the nation’s capital, as he’s currently the only player on the Wizards’ roster listed as a center. Additionally, he’s a mere two seasons removed from a career-high 30.3 MPG, so we know he can handle burn, thus one could fairly expect rookie coach Brian Keefe to give the veteran journeyman all the burn he can handle.
DEVIN VASSELL
- Team: San Antonio Spurs
- ADP: 68
- Cool Stat From 2023-24: The Spurs were 12-8 when Vassell and Victor Wembanyama hit double figures, and 10-52 when they didn’t.
- The Skinny: The NBA’s per-36 analytic—which tells us what a player’s stats would look like if he averaged 36 minutes a night—doesn’t always paint a useful picture of fantasy value, but man, last season, Vassell’s per-36’s were sweet. We’re talking 21.2 points, 4.4 assists, 4.2 boards, and 1.2 steals, making him an ideal option if your strategy is all about diverse, across-the-board box-score-stuffing.
GRANT WILLIAMS
- Team: Charlotte Hornets
- ADP: 142
- Cool Stat From 2023-24: When starting, Williams averaged 11.7 points and 5.8 rebounds. When coming off the bench, his averages were a nearly identical 10.1 points and 4.1 boards.
The Skinny: Last season, the sixth-year man out of Tennessee was among the league’s most frustrating fantasy options, racking up a mere two double-digit rebound games, an unimpressive number considering that virtually every one of his college scouting reports touted his strength in the paint. But the Hornets are lacking at the four-spot, so as is the case with the majority of the players on this list, Williams has the skill-set to thrive statistically if he sees the minutes. Being that his only true competition for minutes off the bench is 19-year-old rookie Tidjane Salaun, dude will eat.