Gallagher’s 2023 Wish List

Fantasy basketball drafts can get wild more often than football ones because most fantasy football sharps respect ADP a lot, making it a little easier to paint a picture of how your draft is going to go. Plus, in hoops there’s not a lot of groupthink like in football, so you may have no idea who your opponents are pouncing on. There’s no zero RB, hero RB, robust RB or all RB (OK, all RB isn’t a thing) that can push entire positions a certain way. Plus, in category leagues, that could also shift how someone drafts. All this said, you need to have a slew of options at the ready when you’re up.

I used to do a perfect draft column, but one option isn’t enough after you get through the first couple rounds. I’ll be lining up guys I want to take at certain spots based on some ADPs. I’ll also try to mix in a variety of positions to give you options as you go through your draft.

Before you draft, if you’re drafting off ESPN or Yahoo!, I would suggest you check out those Exploiting the Default Rankings columns. I’m thinking in terms of eight- or nine-cat leagues., and I’ll try to keep the guys in order. Let’s get to it.

First Round

In the first round, you can pretty much just go off the rankings. The projections team worked an incredible amount of time to get those together (myself included!), so feel free to use those or my Top 150 for 8/9 cat.

Early Second Round (meaning you picked late first, talking like pick 13-18)

Wish list: Damian Lillard, Devin Booker, Anthony Davis, Jaren Jackson Jr.

Analysis: While it’s very unlikely Dame is there, any of these guys would be fantastic picks. I’m certainly OK with Trae Young or Mikal Bridges on the back end of this spot.