Fantasy Basketball Punting Guide and Strategies - Top Players To Target for 2024-25 Drafts

September 28, 2024

Max's fantasy basketball punting guide, punting strategies, and top sleepers for 2024-2025. He gives you his favorite targets if you decide to punt categories.

When drafting your fantasy team, there are several different strategies that you can deploy. Rather than blindly building out your roster based on who's available, it's vital to head into your draft with a game plan.

Over the last decade, punting categories have become a tactical strategy across the fantasy community. If you aren't familiar with the term, Hashtag Basketball puts it like this. "Punting is when you ignore a specific category in your draft to maximize your chances of drafting players who make your other categories stronger. Punting a player's worst category can increase their value, making it easier to find players more valuable than where you can usually draft them."

Punting can be a necessary evil; chances are you're not going to be able to assemble a team that can legitimately compete in all 9 categories week after week. I let my first 2-3 picks determine my strategy regarding punting, as opposed to going in with a set plan of what categories I don't care about. The four most popular categories to punt are threes, free throw %, field goal %, and assists. In this piece, I'll discuss the ins and outs of punting these three categories and run through a couple of guys whose value sees a spike as a result.

Punting Threes

Shooting 3's is so heavily ingrained in the NBA at this point, that it's near-impossible to assemble a team with no 3-point shooting. However, 3-point shooters are one of the two most common "specialist" categories (along with rebounds), so by choosing to punt on 3's, what you're really doing is actively deciding that all 3 point specialists (guys like Klay Thompson or Bogdan Bogdanovic) are off your board no matter what.

Punting threes is an interesting strategy that allows you to eliminate players from the queue who are primarily good three-point shooters. As a result, you'll find that most of your options will now be big men, or guys that dominate the paint. This has the potential to help your overall field goal percentage, as most of your guys' shot attempts will come from mid-range or close distance.

When removing threes from the equation, you'll notice that lots of mid-late-round guys suddenly jump the ranks and move up into the first handful of rounds. Looking at the current fantasy basketball landscape, this strategy is at its best if you are stuck picking toward the back half of the first round. Here are a few of my favorite guys to target when implementing the punt threes strategy.

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander - PG, Oklahoma City Thunder

SGA is a consensus top-5 pick this year, but he's the only Guard in the consensus top 35 not making at least 1.5 3's per game. Undoubtedly he's an elite scorer, but the long ball has never been a huge part of his game since moving to OKC.

Scottie Barnes - SG/SF, Toronto Raptors

A career 31% shooter from 3, Barnes shot a career-best 34% from deep in his third year in the NBA. Neither his efficiency nor volume would suggest that 3s are a favorable category for him. Barnes is one of the best on-ball defenders in the NBA and should contribute plenty in other areas - most notably all defensive stats.

Jimmy Butler - SF, Miami Heat

Butler is a wing player who doesn't even average one made 3 per game. He's the poster boy in this punt strategy and a player that pushes you to punt 3s. I would only take him if you're comfortable doing so, and your team through the first 2-3 rounds lends itself to the strategy.

Brandon Ingram - SG/SF, New Orleans Pelicans

Ingram is very similar to SGA where he's heavily involved in his team's offense, sometimes even taking the mantle of the #1 option. While he's not a terrible 3-point shooter overall, he's made less than 90 total 3s the last three seasons, compared to making an average of 145 3s during his first two years in New Orleans. Ingram prefers to get his buckets by other means.

Also consider: DeMar DeRozan, Zion Williamson, Josh Giddey

Punting Free Throw Percentage

Punting free-throw percentage can lend itself to building a well-rounded team, but it can feel like you're restricted in your options at times. Unless you draft a specific player in the first round (more on him in a second), you're not likely to know this is a punt-worthy category until you're starting to hit the middle rounds (rounds 4-8).

If you adopt this strategy; you're going to end up with a lineup that's heavy on big men, but, that goes hand-in-hand with success in categories like rebounds, blocks, and FG%.

Just like punting threes, punting free throws consists of targeting guys whose free-throw shooting is poor. Rather than trying to make up value throughout the draft, you will purposely forget about the category. This has been my favorite category over the years and I've always seemed to love my teams as a result.

Because the majority of big men are typically worse free-throw shooters, there is a great opportunity here to double down on blocks and rebounds. Here are my favorite targets when implementing the punt free-throw strategy.

Giannis Antetokounmpo - PF, Milwaukee Bucks

Giannis makes punting FT% an optimal strategy from the jump. He has the second-lowest FT% in the consensus top 50 behind Rudy Gobert (more on him in a moment) and has come in below his career rate of 70.2% in four of the last five years. It's safe to say that after a decade in the NBA, this is the norm for him. I will note that if your league plays by "Total Number of FTs Made" and not by percentage, Giannis is an absolute stud in that scenario.

Giannis is my guy for this strategy. His poor free-throw shooting forces him to the back end of the first round, so if you can build your punt free-throw team around him, you have the chance to do something special. Believe it or not, he sees the biggest value jump of all players when you remove free throws from the equation. If my draft spot is later than the 5th round, meaning I've missed out on the elite top 5, I'm likely implementing this strategy and taking Giannis. No questions asked.

De'Aaron Fox - PG, Sacramento Kings

Fox registered the lowest FT% among all starting PGs last season. If you're deciding to punt FT% he's a no-brainer for a build like this, since guards are typically much better FT shooters than forwards or centers and there are just so few options at guard that truly stand out.

Rudy Gobert - C, Minnesota Timberwolves

Gobert has the lowest FT% in the top 65 players, and like Giannis, has been a poor FT shooter for a decade. Obviously, you won't get major offensive numbers from him, but he's an absolute beast defensively. If you're able to pair him with an elite PF that's ideal and really sets you up with a solid direction for your team.

Also Consider: Nicolas Claxton, LeBron James, Jaylen Brown, Russell Westbrook

Punting Field Goal Percentage

Our first two punt strategies have been geared more toward playing through big men, but that's not the case here. If you're punting FG% you want all the ball-handling, shot-chucking guards and forwards your roster can hold. With this strategy, you're going to be stronger with offensive categories, and likely weaker in categories like blocks and rebounds. Ultimately, we're looking to sacrifice efficiency for sheer volume.

Trae Young - PG, Atlanta Hawks

Young has always been a high-usage player throughout his career. Last year he "only" averaged a 28.9% usage rate, down from his career average of 32.3%. With Dejounte Murray no longer in Atlanta, it seems more likely than not that usage number will look more like his career average in the 2024-25 season.

LaMelo Ball - PG, Charlotte Hornets

Ball boasts the second-lowest FG% among guards in the consensus top 50. Deep down he's still the shot-chucking 16-year-old at Chino Hills, but when he actually does play, he typically produces a well-rounded fantasy stat line.

Anthony Edwards - SG/SF, Minnesota Timberwolves

The NBA's newest emerging superstar is fresh off an Olympics run where he claimed to be the best player on the team. THAT is the mentality we're looking for when punting FG%. For a player as explosive as Edwards is, you'd expect him to get a fair amount of quality shots around the rim. However, he only shot 46% from the field last year, which puts him at the second-lowest percentage among all guards in the top 40 players.

Nikola Vucevic - C, Chicago Bulls

Much like how the guard options are limited when punting FT%, bigs that fit a build of punting FG% are few and far between. Vucevic is one of three center-eligible players to finish under 50% FG% in the top 75 consensus players, but going into this year he's the only one who seems to be their team's #2 offensive option. The Bulls don't look to be very good this year, but they also don't have any young talent waiting in the wings to usurp Vucevic from big minutes on a nightly basis.

Also Consider: Damian Lillard, Jayson Tatum, Jabari Smith Jr, Draymond Green

Punting Assists

Punting assists is simply avoiding players who typically put up high assist numbers. Most of the top assist mavens happen to be point guards with the ball in their hands frequently, so deploying this strategy should also indirectly cut down on your turnover numbers - can't turn the ball over if you're not the one handling it. By punting on assists, you might be dealing with a bit more volatility due to having a roster largely comprised of wings & bigs.

Kevin Durant - SF/PF, Phoenix Suns

Durant is still a lethal weapon on offense, but in this current iteration of the Suns, the offense doesn't run directly through him as much as it used to in his younger days. Durant averaged less than 5 assists per game last year, while also shooting 41.7% from 3 - his best percentage since his first year in Brooklyn (2020-21 season). It's clear that as he gets older, he's less focused on getting to the rim as he attempted the lowest number of FT attempts per game of his career.

Lauri Markkanen - SF, Utah Jazz

Markkanen averaged less than two assists per game last season and was the only non-center under two assists per game in the consensus top 50 players. He's an excellent shooter and is his team's primary offensive option, and finding a primary option that isn't a ballhandler isn't exactly easy to do.

Jalen Johnson - PF, Atlanta Hawks

Johnson was one of the biggest breakout players in the league last year and was an absolute steal in drafts at his ADP. You're not going to be able to grab him in the double-digit rounds this year, I can promise you all that much. Johnson is set to be Atlanta's secondary offensive option behind the previously-mentioned usage juggernaut Trae Young, and when you play with the guy who led the league in assists last year, there's simply not a lot left to go around.

Devin Vassell - SG,  San Antonio Spurs

With floor general Chris Paul coming to San Antonio to be a veteran presence running the offense, Vassell should cede even more playmaking duties. At this point in his career, CP3 is almost strictly a facilitator, and I don't see Gregg Popovich bringing him in to have him stand in the corner while Vassell initiates. I'd be shocked if Vassell averages close to the 4 assists per game he did in 2023-24.

Also Consider: Jaren Jackson Jr., Myles Turner, Michael Porter Jr., Tyler Herro

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