Fantasy Basketball Teams to Target and Opening Night Streamers: Mike Conley, Jaden McDaniels, Rob Dillingham and More
Six teams to attack with fantasy basketball players at the beginning of the season. We then look at a few fringe players who are worth grabbing on Tuesday.
Fantasy sports are all about finding value. We all know Luka Doncic is going to put up huge numbers, and his value matches his fantasy draft spot. Every fantasy team has a few studs, and while they need to meet expectations, the best fantasy owners win along the margins, swapping players in and out on a daily/weekly basis according to matchups.
With no games played yet (I don’t count the preseason; no one is showing anything real or playing a true rotation), last season is the best information we have. Changes to rosters and coaching staffs will cause some teams will play differently, but it also takes time for change to happen, so last season will creep into the beginning of 2024-25.
To find teams that are the best to target with fringe players, I like to use NBA’s pace statistics and defensive ratings along with our FantasySP positional defensive fantasy rankings. The positional rankings are simple: which players perform the best against which teams?
Pace and defensive rating are NBA quasi-advanced stats that are fairly easy to understand compared to other overly complicated statistics:
- Pace is a measure of how many possessions a team averages per 48 minutes (the length of a game). Team pace numbers last year ranged from about 96 to 103 with a median around 99.
- Defensive rating measures how many points a team allows per 100 possessions. Last season’s ratings ranged from approximately 108 to 120 with a median at 114.5.
Essentially, I’m looking for teams that play fast and allow a lot of points. Since defensive rating is measured per 100 possessions, it’s not affected by pace. Those 100 possessions can happen at any rate and be measured equally across teams.
Teams with high pace and defensive ratings get a lot of possessions and give up a lot of points during those possessions. That means more points, assists, rebounds, and everything else, producing better fantasy scores.
Teams to Target
Six teams ranked in the top 10 in both pace and highest defensive rating in 2023-24:
- Atlanta Hawks
- Detroit Pistons
- Indiana Pacers
- San Antonio Spurs
- Utah Jazz
- Washington Wizards
Most of these teams will be bad on defense again; Atlanta, Detroit, Utah, and Washington seem most likely. None of the four made major additions that will affect winning, and a similar look to last season wouldn’t be a surprise.
Indiana made it to the Eastern Conference Finals on the strength of the second-most efficient offense in the league. They added Pascal Siakam before the trade deadline, and the Pacers were 18th in defensive efficiency after the All-Star break, still below average but not bottom-10.
It’s possible the Pacers could look better on defense, especially after winning big; it’s time to buckle down! They are still likely a below-average defensive team, though, and will play at a lights-out speed. They’re a team to target.
The Spurs are the most interesting case. Victor Wembanyama was a first team all-defense selection as a rookie and will be a menace every season. San Antonio had the 10th-worst defense over the full season but the 12th-best D after the All-Star Game.
They made two major veteran additions in the offseason, bringing in Chris Paul and Harrison Barnes to play roles around their young players. They are both over 30 (Paul will be 40 in May!) with their best defensive days likely behind them, so they might be vulnerable at times. Wemby will clean up a lot of mistakes, though, making San Antonio a tough proposition.
I will tentatively target the Spurs early in the season, but that could change quickly. The five other teams are sure targets for at least the first few weeks, and I’ll be talking about them often.
Opening Night Fantasy Streamers
None of our target teams play on the first day of the season, so we’ll have to dig a little deeper to find the best options. The Knicks visit Boston in the opener, then Minnesota and the Lakers square off in LA in the nightcap.
New York and Minnesota made a major trade late in the offseason that saw Karl-Anthony Towns head to the Knicks and Julius Randle and Donte DiVincenzo end up with the T’Wolves.
The Celtics aren’t a fun team to face in the fantasy world. They had the second-best defensive rating last season and played at a below-average pace. Boston brought back essentially the same team from last year, so I’m not targeting them with anyone other than stars.
It will take some time to know what the Knicks will really look like with Towns, especially on the defensive side. New York had a top-10 defense last season; Towns was part of the best defense in the league in Minnesota. How much can he bring to his new team?
The Knicks played at the slowest pace in the league last year, and Towns is a slow player, so that’s unlikely to change much. A slow team that plays good defense isn’t a good target for fantasy players. Only play your top guys from both New York and Boston.
Minnesota played at a bottom-10 pace and had the best defense in the league last season. They were a terrible matchup for every fantasy player. The team will likely take time to coalesce after the major trade, but a lot of pieces are still there, including Anthony Edwards and Rudy Gobert.
LeBron James and Anthony Davis will always be in your fantasy lineup, but the stream-level players are likely to struggle to produce.
The Lakers were giving to both guards and forwards last year, ranking in the bottom 11 in points allowed to point guards, shooting guards, small forwards, and power forwards. LA played at the fourth-fastest pace and had an average defense overall.
Minnesota’s streaming players are worth considering. Mike Conley, DiVincenzo, Jaden McDaniels, Nickeil Alexander-Walker, and rookie Rob Dillingham are all guys who could benefit from what was a friendly matchup last year.
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