Recapping my fantasy basketball draft for the 2020-21 NBA season

I’ve been waiting a long time for the 2020-21 NBA season to start ... Sike. Last season basically just ended (back in October), and the offseason was incredibly short. We didn’t have much of a choice and with the season about to get underway on Tuesday, it meant fantasy basketball draft SZN! I’ll admit, I haven’t done many fantasy basketball season-long leagues (I’m more of a DFS junkie).

So I figured it would be a good idea to get a season-long league going to help out with work. I invited a handful of my shithead friends from College and we got a 12-team, head-to-head points league going. I’ll go over the scoring a bit and then get into how my draft went and share some insight into why I made my picks.

Here’s the scoring system:

3-point Shots Made (3PTM) — 0.5
Points Scored (PTS) — 1
Total Rebounds (REB) — 1.2
Assists (AST) — 1.5
Steals (ST) — 3
Blocked Shots (BLK) — 3
Turnovers (TO) — -1

So if you take a look, the scoring system isn’t too far off from DraftKings. The only difference is there aren’t any bonuses for a double-double or triple-double (I think that’s it, double check for me). I’m the commissioner of the League, so I wanted to do something basic that everyone could get on board with. H2H categories is OK but I feel like it can skew how good or bad a team actually is all season long. Also if you count record as how many catty’s you win each week, tiebreakers can get annoying later on in the season, so points it is!

Okay, let’s take a look at my team and then go into a little bit of analysis.

PG: Luka Doncic, PG/SG — first round (No. 1)
SG: Zach LaVine, SG/SF — second round (No. 24)
G: Malcolm Brogdon, PG/SG — sixth round (No. 72)
SF: OG Anunoby, SF/PF — seventh round (No. 73)
PF: Christian Wood, PF/C — fourth round (No. 48)
F: Evan Fournier, SG/SF — ninth round (No. 97)
C: Deandre Ayton, C — third round (No. 25)
UTIL: Jusuf Nurkic, C — fifth round (No. 49)
UTIL: Ricky Rubio, PG — eighth round (No. 96)
Bench: Lou Williams, PG/SG — 10th round (No. 120)
Bench: Richaun Holmes, PF/C — 11th round (No. 121)
Bench: Jordan Clarkson: PG/SG 12th round (No. 144)
Bench: Miles Bridges, SF/PF — 13th round (No. 145)

Luka over Giannis

Yeah, yeah, I know, I’m the commissioner who “mysteriously” got the No. 1 overall pick. Well, we did the random generation before the draft and I’m of the school of thought that pick doesn’t mean shit in any fantasy draft. I wasn’t mad about picking first though, because I was able to get my boy Luka. If you’ve read anything I’ve written all offseason, you know I’m high on Doncic this season. I think he wins MVP over Giannis and that’s sort of the reason I went with him over The Greek Freak at No. 1. Antetokounmpo was kind of the pick there, but this also isn’t an overly competitive league. I’ll die on the Doncic hill this season, gladly.

Simmons stolen from me

I was one pick away from landing Ben Simmons at the end of the second round (he went the pick before I was up to my friends brother). So I opted to go with two young players who have some upside and potential to make the All-Star team. LaVine has the chance to jump into the top 10 scorers in the NBA this season and Ayton is in a great situation on the Phoenix Suns, who should be exciting. A few other names in that range were Nikola Vucevic, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Zion Williamson and Ja Morant. LaVine and Ayton seemed safer and with more upside.

Will Wood boom or bust?

Moving along I kind of thought Wood in the fourth round was somewhat of a reach. He’s got a lot of boom-bust in him this season. Preseason sort of took some of those worries away, but I’ve still got concerns over consistency for a player like Wood, who took a while to develop. Still, if James Harden sticks around with John Wall, Wood should get a ton of easy buckets down low. He can also space the floor a bit, so Harden and Wall penetrating and kicking it out to Wood for 3-pointers and mid-range jumpers seems ideal.

Guard depth

I really like my guard depth led by Doncic and solidified by LaVine, Brogdon, Rubio, Lou Will and Clarkson. The two last names mentioned there should be competing for 6th Man of the Year this season. Both can fill it up so I like the idea of having that extra scoring punch off the bench. Brogdon oddly dropped down a ways. I view him as a borderline All-Star if he can stay healthy. Rubio back in Minnesota on a pretty talented Timberwolves team that could be sneaky good was nice to find in the eighth round. I didn’t have a ton of 3-point shooting, so Fournier can help in that department.

Center depth

I’m somewhat concerned about center behind Ayton. Nurkic has the potential to be a steal but he also has injury history and the Trail Blazers are a deep team. Nurk will be mostly just a rebounds and blocks specialist, which is fine. If anything were to happen to Nurk or Wood ends up being a bust, the only other guy I have there is Holmes. I’m high on Holmes since he should see minutes at PF for the Kings, but Hassan Whiteside and Marvin Bagley III could make up that starting front court.