RotoBaller Fantasy Basketball Writers League Draft Recap

On Wednesday night, the RotoBaller writers got together for our annual fantasy basketball draft. In the past, we did a 14-team league, but this year we cut it down to a more "normal" size with a 12-team league.

Now that the draft is over, I thought it would be a good idea to go over some of the things that happened in the draft, so that readers can see what kind of moves were made during the draft.

Below, I'll be covering some of the key observations from the RotoBaller fantasy basketball draft. And when I talk about ADP, I'll be drawing from FantasyPros' averages, which you can find here.

The Draft Results

Here are some screenshots from our draft of all the teams.

So, there's your draft board. Apologies for not typing the whole thing up in an easier-to-read format. Take a gander at it. See what mistakes we made. Now, read on for some of my thoughts on this draft.

The First Round Picks

Winning in fantasy basketball begins with your first round pick. Here are our first-round picks, in order:

I don't think there's a ton to say about most of these. Joel Embiid fell a little lower than I would have thought, likely because of injury concerns. I'm personally lower on James Harden this year than I usually am. But most of this is pretty chalky.

But I want to highlight three of these picks to go deeper on.

4. Karl-Anthony Towns

Towns is 11th in FantasyPros ADP. He was drafted fourth in our league. That was enough to spur some intense discussion in our league group chat.

Towns was taken fourth by Kev Mahserejian, which seems high, except that Dan Palyo was drafting fifth and said he would have taken Towns there, so it wasn't just Kev who was this high on him.

But a handful of our other writers were a lot lower on KAT, largely because the addition of Rudy Gobert is going to draw Towns away from the basket. Fewer rebounds. Fewer blocks. More shooting, but in a 9-cat league, will that dip in rebounds/blocks overshadow the other stuff?

I guess it really depends on what you're looking for in a player. We start two centers, so Towns gets a little boost in value because of that. I wouldn't have taken him fourth, but I would have considered him over Tatum at eight when I picked.

11. Dejounte Murray

There are 11 players taken in our first round that I said "yeah, makes sense," and then there's Dejounte Murray. He's 23rd in ADP, yet he went 11th in our league.

I like Murray. He's a really good basketball player! But I've written before about why I don't think Murray is a great pick this year at his ADP, and now in our league he went a full round above ADP???

Anyway, here's what I wrote about Murray earlier this offseason in a piece about potential busts:

Murray's jump in production last year came in part because he posted a career-high in usage rate and assist rate at 27.3% and 40.6% respectively.

My concern is that he joins a Hawks team that already has that role filled. Trae Young was fourth in the NBA in usage rate and first in assist rate last year. Murray's probably going to be more efficient in Atlanta. He'll get more open looks. But he'll also get less looks overall, and the ball won't be in his hands as much, which limits his assist upside as well.

Murray's a good player. But I think he's being drafted at his ceiling right now. If his ADP dropped a round or two, he'd be a great pick, but I just see too much uncertainty here.

I stand by all of that.

12. Tyrese Haliburton

Haliburton was 14th in ADP, so this isn't necessarily a shock, but I just wanted a chance to talk about how much Haliburton has shot up draft boards this year.

One year ago, Haliburton was in Sacramento, where he averaged 14.3 points and 7.4 assists per game over the first 51 games. But then he was traded to the Pacers, where he played 26 games. His numbers took a jump: 17.5 points, 9.6 assists, 4.3 rebounds and 1.8 steals per game while shooting 41.6% from three on 5.3 attempts per game. He shot over 50% from the floor in Indiana.

The Pacers are a bad team. Haliburton is going to wrack up numbers on this bad team. He'll have the ball in his hands on virtually every play, looking to either score or assist.

Fantasy Basketball Draft Reaches

Let's just quickly look at a few players who went a good bit higher than ADP.

Keldon Johnson - ADP: 78, Pick: 49

Johnson took a big step forward last year, going from 12.8 points per game to 17.0. Now, he's going to have even more chances to showcase what he can do a rebuilding Spurs team. I think Johnson can easily average 20-plus points per game, if for no other reason than the fact that the Spurs don't really have a go-to scorer now that Dejounte Murray is in Atlanta. While I think he might have still been on the board a round later, this is a fine pick.

Keegan Murray - ADP: 87, Pick: 61

I really didn't like Murray when he was drafted, but he's growing on me. In two preseason games, Murray has averaged 16.0 points on 70.6% shooting, while also shooting 70% from three and adding 4.5 rebounds and 2.0 steals per game. Obviously, he won't shoot 70% in the regular season, but his role on this Kings team will be pretty secure. With Domantas Sabonis taking attention on the interior, Murray should have plenty of chances to get open looks both at the basket and behind the arc.

Jonathan Kuminga: ADP: 159, Pick: 109

A lot of the reaches in our draft were met with applause. This one was kind of universally hated.

Kuminga was the No. 7 pick in the 2021 NBA Draft. He played 70 games as a rookie, averaging 9.3 points and 3.3 rebounds per game while shooting 51.3% from the floor and 33.6% from deep. He's got a lot of talent, but I also think his role on this team gives him a fairly low ceiling. These are the defending champions, who have Draymond Green and Andrew Wiggins starting at the three and four. Kuminga will provide solid minutes backing those two up, but how much can he really do when the Warriors have so many scoring threats?

Fantasy Basketball Draft Fallers

Here are some players who went a good bit below ADP.

Ja Morant - ADP: 12, Pick: 22

Honestly, I think this is less a case of Morant falling below his ADP and more a case of his ADP being too high. Morant's a fun player and he took a massive scoring leap last year up to 27.4 points per game, but his assists dropped a little and he only shot 34.4% from three, making 1.5 of them per game. He's never shot over 80% from the free throw line either. He's a first round pick in the right punt build, but he's more of a mid-second if you're trying to put together a well-rounded team. Not a knock on Morant as a player or anything—I just think that our league understood how he helps and hurts a fantasy lineup and drafted accordingly.

Kawhi Leonard - ADP: 25, Pick: 32

Leonard didn't go that far after his ADP, but I guess I expected someone to reach a little for his upside instead of someone—it was me—getting a nice bit of value with him.

Leonard missed all of last season with an ACL injury and he hasn't played more than 60 games since the 2016-17 season. But if you look past the injuries, Kawhi's 2020-21 numbers were good, as he averaged 24.8 points, 6.5 rebounds, 5.2 assists. 1.6 steals and 1.9 threes per game. He's an elite player when he's on the floor, and I think this pays off for me if he can play at least 50 games. Sure, I'll need to micromanage my lineup more to account for Leonard being out, but that's fine with me. (I say right before I proceed to forget to update my lineup for like three weeks in January or something.)

Klay Thompson - ADP: 65, Pick: 95

One player who scared all of us was Klay Thompson, whose ADP is 64 and who didn't go until the 95th pick of our draft. Huge shift there. So, why'd it happen?

I would guess that we were all scared of the shooting last year. After missing two seasons in a row, Thompson returned last year and played 32 games. He shot 38.5% from three, which is really good, but not when compared to his career as a whole, since he had never shot under 40% from deep.

If Thompson can't get back to being one of the NBA's most efficient three-point shooters, he loses some value, because he doesn't really do much these days aside from score. He averaged 3.9 rebounds, 2.8 assists, 0.5 steals and 0.5 blocks this year. Accompanied by threes and scoring, those numbers are workable, but otherwise, he starts to drag your team down.

Still, I wish I'd taken Klay. I took Herbert Jones in the eighth round. Big regret doing that with Klay on the board. I just kind of thought he might keep falling.