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The 2022-23 Rotoworld Draft Guide has arrived! This year’s Guide is brimming with tools and exclusive content to help you dominate drafts, including cheat-sheet Top-200 rankings, positional tiers, projections, player profiles, exclusive columns, and much more.
You’ll find everything you need:
Top-200 Rankings 8-cat, 9-cat, Points and Dynasty Per-game and cumulative Continually updated stat projections for the entire league Points, 3-pointers, Rebounds, Assists, Steals, Blocks, FG%, FGA, FT%, FTA, TOs Draft Guide-exclusive columns (with more added all the time) Staff-Average Top-200 Rankings – The Rotoworld hoops staff Dr. A’s “My Guys” for 2022-23 - Steve Alexander Fantasy Busts - Steve Alexander 2022-23 Schedule Breakdown - Steve Alexander Multiple-Position Eligibility Guide - Zak Hanshew Punting Guide - Zak Hanshew Dynasty League Tips and Strategies - Jonas Nader Hacking the Default Ranks - Noah Rubin Meet the Chuckers - FG% Killers - Jared Johnson Does Summer League Matter? - Jared Johnson Risk vs. Reward - Jared Johnson How Successful are Rookies? 2022-23 Edition - Jared Johnson Ten Players Worth Reaching For - Raphielle Johnson Top 10 Fantasy Rookies - Raphielle Johnson 2022-23 Sophomore Breakdown - Raphielle Johnson Mock drafts including Dynasty, 8-cat ‘industry’, 9-cat H2H, with fresh drafts added through Oct. 16 Position tiers PG, SG, SF, PF, C Average Draft Position (ADP) Trends Report Learn where players are being drafted in Yahoo and Fantrax leagues, all on one convenient page! Customizable Points-league scoring Input your league’s custom scoring settings for personalized rankings and fantasy values Team-by-team Outlooks Customizable Punting Guides and Customizable Rankings (coming soon...spreadsheet available now upon request) 300+ in-depth Player Projections
Below is a small sample of the Draft Guide’s many offerings. We’ll begin with one of our 30 Team-by-Team Outlooks, for the Detroit Pistons:
Detroit Pistons
2021-22 Record:
23-59
Pace:
98.81 (13th)
Offensive Rating:
105.6 (28th)
Defensive Rating
113.3 (24th)
One Potential Sleeper: Jalen Duren. The Pistons have an incredibly promising backcourt and the building blocks for a stable decade of competitive basketball, but 2022-23 won’t be the season they reach playoff maturity. Isaiah Stewart should start at center on opening night, but there are no guarantees he’s still starting after the All-Star break. Kelly Olynyk was jettisoned in a trade with Utah. Nerlens Noel may initially be the team’s backup center, but his durability is suspect and he’s already dealing with plantar fasciitis. As the season goes, Noel will be less likely to earn minutes if they come at the expense of Duren’s development. This is a rookie on a rebuilding team who averaged 17 points, 11.6 boards, 1.8 dimes, 1.1 steals and 3.0 blocks per 36 minutes with Memphis in the AAC last season. If you can be patient, he makes sense as a final-round flier. One Potential Bust: Bojan Bogdanović. The Pistons signaled their intent to win some games this season by acquiring Bogdanovic in a deal that sent Kelly Olynyk, Saben Lee and cash to Utah. The good news is that he’s healthy and he’ll be one of the Pistons’ primary offensive weapons -- he should approach his career-high in usage (24.6% in 2019-20). The unwelcome news is that he does little to help fantasy managers in rebounds (career-high 4.3 last year), assists (career-high 2.1), steals (career-high 0.9) or blocks (career-high 0.2). His FG% skews toward mediocrity, leaving him as a three-category contributor with points, triples and FT%. The biggest red flag is that Bogdanovic, at 33 years old, is the oldest player on Detroit’s roster. The next-oldest player, Kemba Walker (32), is headed toward a buyout. If losses pile up and Detroit can’t even vie for the play-in tournament, the word ‘shutdown’ will haunt Bogdanovic in the season’s final weeks. Notable Number: 23. That’s the number of wins Detroit managed last year, third lowest in the league behind Orlando (22 wins) and Houston (20 wins). The draft lottery flattens odds for the four worst teams, and it wouldn’t be surprising to see the Pistons in that group again, giving them a shot at presumptive No. 1 pick Victor Wembanyama. The point is that this remains a rebuilding/tanking team in 2022-23, which benefits young prospects and adds risk for the handful of veterans still on the roster (see above).
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Our 300+ Player Projections are similarly detailed, and range from the upper echelon of fantasy talent, down to scrubs who may only interest managers in the deepest leagues.
At the pinnacle of fantasy rankings, we have the twice-reigning MVP (in fantasy and reality), Nikola Jokić. Here is the Joker’s Player Profile:
2021-22: Jokic earned his second consecutive MVP award, fending off Giannis Antetokounmpo for the honors after averaging 27.1 points on 58.3% shooting, 1.3 triples, 13.8 rebounds, 7.9 assists and 1.5 steals. All of those numbers were career highs. Denver was playing without two max-salary guys (Jamal Murray and Michael Porter Jr.) but the Joker still propelled them to a 48-34 record before ultimately falling to Golden State in the first round of the playoffs. What’s Changed: Jokic signed a five-year, $270 million extension that stands as the largest deal in NBA history – Jokic will earn a cool $61.5 million during the final year in 2026-27. Not bad for a former second-round pick. He also played for Serbia’s national team during World Cup qualifiers this summer. Outlook: Amid all of Jokic’s eye-grabbing numbers, it’s easy to lose sight of his extreme durability. The All-NBA center has played at least 72 games in each of his seven NBA seasons, including 74 games last year. That’s a big reason he’s easily the No. 1 target in almost any fantasy format, including standard 8-cat, 9-cat, and most points leagues (although Giannis and Luka Dončić may vie for the point-league throne). It’s hard to overstate his fantasy dominance, as he’s been the top-ranked roto option for two straight years…and with games-played factored in, it wasn’t even close last year. The return of Jamal Murray and Michael Porter Jr. may dent Jokic’s scoring, which hit a new high of 27.1 last year, but he’s proven more than capable of making up the difference in dimes, boards and even defensive stats (2.4 stocks last year).
At the opposite end of the fantasy spectrum, we have guys like Jokic’s teammate Jeff Green:
2021-22: Green played 75 games for the Nuggets last season, including 63 starts. He scored 10.3 points per game on career-high 52.4% shooting (his previous best was 49.2%) – he feasted inside the arc, but fell off from the perimeter at 31.5% on 3-pointers. He added 3.1 boards, 1.3 dimes and 0.8 stocks, and did not reliably benefit fantasy GMs. What’s Changed: Green turned 36 years old but he still has a guaranteed contract, thanks to a player option he picked up – he’ll earn $4.5 million before hitting free agency next summer. Michael Porter Jr. said he’s 100% healthy, and Aaron Gordon is still in Denver, so Green should open the season as a reserve. Outlook: Uncle Jeff may never retire. He’s playing for his 12th NBA franchise and was surprisingly effective last season, so he should still have a role with Denver. That said, Zeke Nnaji could overtake him as the backup PF behind Aaron Gordon, and newly-acquired Bruce Brown will also get minutes as an undersized four. We can appreciate Green’s continued contributions on the court, without caring about him in fantasy leagues.
Those are just two out of 300+ Player Profiles, to give a sense of the depth and breadth of fantasy-hoops content we’ve compiled.
Essential to our Draft Guide philosophy is the continual upkeep of Rankings and Projections, and the frequent addition of fresh mock drafts and columns – this is a living document that we update through Opening Night on Oct. 18. If you have questions, just reach out to @ryanknaus on Twitter.
