Pickups to tip-off the season and bold fantasy predictions | The Playlist
Yahoo Fantasy analyst Dan Titus takes a spin around the NBA in Opening Week offering pickups, schedule advice and some hot takes ahead of the 2025-26 season.
Video Transcript
What's up y'all?
Welcome back to the playlist.
It's week one in fantasy basketball.
NBA tips off on Tuesday, so we got pickups to make.
First one in high score is Tobias Harris.
He's under 55% rostered in Yahoo leagues.
That's crazy.
He should be well over 90% considering that Jaden Ivey is gonna be missing a significant portion of time.
And Tobias Harris probably becomes that secondary scoring option for the Detroit Pistons.
Also, Santi Aldama.
Jarre Jackson Jr. returned to the lineup, but they're still pretty thin in that front court, so Santi Aldama is still gonna play a role.
He can hit threes, get points, and also get steals.
Make sure you add him.
But if you're going deeper, I would take a look at a couple of Oklahoma City Thunder players.
First off, Keyon Wallace, he's under 40% rostered, but he's a guy that's gonna step in to fill the void of Jaylen Williams, whether he's starting or coming off the bench.
I expect him to be efficient and help out all fantasy managers in steals.
The other Thunder player I pick up is Aaron Wiggins.
Now he's under 10% rostered, but in games without Jaylen Williams last year, he averaged 14 points with 4 rebounds.
He had really strong shooting splits.
This is a guy that could potentially start as well if Keyon Wallace doesn't, but he'd still be useful regardless coming off the bench with the Oklahoma City Thunder playing 3 games on the lightest slates this week.
All right, let's get to the schedule, things you need to know.
So as I kind of alluded to it, the Oklahoma City Thunder is a team that you'll absolutely want to target for fantasy this week.
And streaming wise, they play on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday.
Those are all days that you will be able to start any player on that team because the slate is so low.
And if you're looking at Keyon Wallace, if you're looking at Aaron Wiggins, you may even throw a flyer on Luguentz Dort just because he's gonna get the playing time.
So I would look at those teams also take a look at the Golden State Warriors because Brandon Pajewski, Buddy Hield, they both play on Tuesday and Thursday as well.
So those fringe Warriors players will have some value in a streaming week like this.
Now, the teams that I would avoid are the New Orleans Pelicans and the Utah Jazz.
Why?
Because they play only on Wednesday and Friday this week.
Those are the biggest slates, 12 games apiece, and they stop playing after Friday.
So they really won't help you going into the weekend to close out your week.
So all those fringe guys on the Jazz and the Pelicans just don't hold as much value in week one.
All right, let's get to my bold predictions to close out the show.
Last year I had Victor Wembanyama recording a quadruple double.
He got hurt.
I think I got cut short on that.
So I'm gonna run it back.
Gonna run it back, take a mulligan.
Victor Wembanyama to record a quadruple double.
There have only been 4 players that have done it in NBA history.
Nate Thurman, Alvin Robertson, Hakeem Olajuwon, and David Robinson.
Victor Wembanyama in the year 2025 is going to be the next guy to do it.
Also, Isaiah Collier is gonna be top 10 in assists by the end of the season.
Right now, he's dealing with a hamstring injury.
No timetable for his return, but he could make his debut as soon as Wednesday.
We'll see.
We got a good sample size of what Isaiah Collier can do as a starting point guard.
He averaged almost 7 assists last year.
He gets 30+ minutes a game.
Once again, this Utah Jazz team is gonna compete and be better than they were last year.
We could be looking at 8, maybe 8.5 assists for Isaiah Collier in year 2.
That would certainly put him in the top 10 in the league.
My last prediction: Paolo Banchero finishes in the top 30 in 9-category leagues.
Now, he's never even sniffed this because of turnovers and lack of threes.
Lack of stocks, but this rebuilt Orlando Magic team, which brought in Desmond Bane, I think it's gonna be a huge opportunity for Paolo Banchero to not only improve his efficiency from a scoring perspective, but also cut down those turnovers, and he's gonna increase his assists.
We've already seen that three-ball looking a little bit more confident, and if he raises that free throw percentage to about 80%, he's gonna knock this out of the park, and the Orlando Magic are easily in contention to be a Top 3 team in the Eastern Conference.
So, those are my bold predictions.
I'll see you next week on the playlist.