2025-26 Fantasy Basketball: Hacking the Default Rankings
The NBA season starts in just three weeks, and fantasy basketball season is in full swing! While prepping for your fantasy drafts, it’s critical to examine rankings across multiple platforms. That’s where you can gain a decisive advantage over your competitors.
Some managers will draft using “best available” from their preferred platform’s default rankings list. These default rankings can and often do vary wildly, so identifying outliers from one to the next can be quite a helpful pre-season exercise.
We’ll be going through that exercise in this article, trying to “hack the default rankings” by comparing fantasy basketball rankings from ESPN, Yahoo, and Fantrax to our own here at Rotoworld.
Below you’ll find some of the biggest variations among notable players.
Nikola Jokić headlines Rotoworld’s Preseason Top 200, but key injuries across the league make this one of the most unpredictable fantasy seasons in years.
G/F Amen Thompson (Houston Rockets)
Ours: 15
ESPN: 23
Yahoo: 31
Fantrax: 44
Thompson’s 2024-25 season started out slowly but quickly gained momentum. He ended his sophomore campaign with a full head of steam after earning a starting gig and making the most of his opportunities.
Thompson averaged 14.1 points, 8.2 boards, 3.8 assists, 1.4 steals and 1.3 blocked shots for the season, but those numbers rose to 15.9 points, 8.8 boards, 4.9 assists, 1.7 steals and 1.4 blocks across his final 44 games – all starts. His ability to stuff the stat sheet was evident by his 18 double-doubles and three triple-doubles, and he’s already drawing praise from…
