Typically it takes an professional’s eye to see one thing earlier than everybody else does, reminiscent of Tyler Herro ending No. 13 on the Participant Rater, or Ivica Zubac placing up 16.8 PPG and 12.6 RPG, like every of them did final season.
How many individuals noticed this coming?
For those who did, you had a serious leg up on the competitors in your fantasy basketball leagues — that’s for positive!
With that in thoughts, we gathered our fantasy basketball specialists — André Snellings, Eric Moody, Eric Karabell, Jim McCormick and Steve Alexander — and tasked them with detailing their boldest fantasy predictions for 2025-26.
At present going eighty fifth on common in ESPN dwell drafts, Miller’s teaching employees already trusts him to seek out his personal shot, and his capacity to create offense for others is simply rising. With the potential to loft an absurd variety of 3-pointers per sport and his knack for amassing defensive numbers, he might comply with the Trey Murphy III path to changing into a particular 3-and-D fantasy wing as early as this season. Few gamers his dimension are this expert at each slashing and taking pictures, making Miller an outlier at his place. — McCormick
Embiid and Leonard are each ultra-elite fantasy hoops performers on a per-game foundation which have a historical past of lacking important portions of time. Final season, they missed a mixed 108 of the doable 164 video games. However I search for this season to be bounce-backs for each. Each are coming into the season comparatively wholesome and all it will take is 60-65 video games at their typical ranges to succeed in these milestones. — Snellings
No staff has tried and made extra 3-pointers than final season’s Boston Celtics, and that can hardly change simply because star Jayson Tatum is out for many, if not the whole lot, of the season. 4 Celtics — Payton Pritchard, Derrick White, Anfernee Simons and Sam Hauser — will end among the many prime 10 in 3s made this season, whereas a fifth (main scorer Jaylen Brown) will come shut. — Karabell
I foresee the Bulls beginning him and giving him round half-hour per sport, and his stat set is constructed for fantasy, hopefully offering blocks, steals, 3-pointers, rebounds and blocks. He’s being ignored till later in drafts after final season’s less-than-stellar numbers, however he has as a lot upside as nearly any participant on this 12 months’s drafts. I’m making an attempt to get him all over the place. — Alexander
Ball has elite fantasy upside when he’s on the ground. Everybody is aware of that. He averaged 25.2 PPG, 7.4 APG, 4.9 RPG and three.8 3-pointers final season, displaying his all-around affect. The difficulty has all the time been well being, with simply 105 video games performed over the previous three seasons. I believe that is the season Ball performs greater than 70 video games. He’s solely 24, is absolutely recovered from ankle and wrist surgical procedures, and Charlotte’s added depth ought to assist handle his workload. If he stays on the courtroom, he has top-15 fantasy potential. — Moody