Yahoo usually does a good job of avoiding ranking players too high. The Yahoo Sleeper List is always fairly lengthy, but it’s been a few years since the Yahoo Busts List has included more than a dozen names. That’s not the case this year. Yahoo’s rankings are surprisingly mediocre this year. There are quite a few obvious mistakes in their rankings. For sharps like us, that’s not a bad thing because it means that less talented fantasy players will be wasting picks on players ranked multiple rounds higher than they should be. Most of the players on this year’s list fall into two buckets. The first bucket is injury-prone players or players on tanking teams who are not worth the risk at their current price. The second group is players whose lines are not good fits for category leagues. These players tend to excel in the popcorn categories (points, rebounds, and assists) that fantasy players always overvalue. Remember, you don’t get extra points for winning points or assists.
A player appearing on this list does not mean they are a bad pick this year. It just means they are poor value at their current spot.
This list will be updated as draft season moves along.
*Comments and rankings are for nine-category H2H leagues unless otherwise noted.
Paolo Banchero (Y! – 14) – Let’s start this list off with a quick player comparison.
Player A: 25.9 PPG, 1.9 3PG, 7.5 RPG, 4.8 APG, 0.8 SPG, 0.6 BPG, 45.2 FG% on 19.8 FGA, 72.7 FT% on 8.4 FTA, 3.0 TOPG
Player B: 25.1 PPG, 2.8 3PG, 10.0 RPG, 4.1 APG, 0.6 SPG, 0.3 BPG, 45.9 FG% on 18.6 FGA, 75.7 FT% on 6.9 FTA, 2.8 TOPG
Those are fairly similar numbers, although player B has a pretty clear advantage due to his superior numbers in threes, rebounds, and the efficiency categories. Player A is Paolo. Player B is Julius Randle in 2022-2023. The year after Randle posted those numbers, he had an ADP of 54. If Banchero was ranked in the middle rounds like he should be, he’d be a strong target for punt FT%. In that build, he can be a mid-round player. In other setups, he wouldn’t be worth that price. In nine-category leagues, the All-Star is coming off a top-130 finish, and in eight-category leagues, he was just a top-90 player in 2024-2025. For the second straight year, Banchero is a DND in category leagues due to his inflated price. Even if he takes another leap, he’s not going to come close to returning value at his ADP. In points leagues, where his weak defensive contributions and rough efficiency numbers don’t matter as much, Paolo is a solid pick in the second.
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