If you are short on time this draft season, this is the guide for you. Below are almost 50 six-man combinations that will send you into the seventh round in a strong position. I wouldn’t recommend taking this approach, but if you did no other draft preparation and simply copied one of the combinations below, you would likely finish your draft in a very good spot. The six-man combinations are broken down by first-round pick and punting build. This guide provides combinations for teams led by Cade Cunningham, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Tyrese Maxey, and Jayson Tatum. Part 1 and Part 3 of this set of guides focus on building teams around the rest of the first-round options.
When putting together these teams, I wasn’t trying to make the team as strong as possible after round six. That wouldn’t make sense. Our drafts are not six rounds long. I put these teams together with the goal of helping you finish your draft in the strongest position possible. That means that in most cases, I focused heavily on category scarcity. You’ll notice that a bunch of these combinations are a little light on bigs. That’s intentional since the guard categories dry up much quicker than the big man categories. We can make a comeback late in blocks and FG%, but we can’t make a comeback late in assists and FT%. I tried to be as realistic as possible when coming up with these recommendations. I tried to avoid making too many reaches. That means you may be able to do better than a lot of these combinations, especially if you play on ESPN or in a league with an auction draft. If you play on ESPN or in an auction draft league, use these combinations as starting points. Study them and then see if you can tweak them to make them even stronger.
I have also included some third-round reversal combinations. 3RR is a setting that is increasing in popularity and one that I strongly recommend all snake draft leagues switch to. For those who are unfamiliar with third-round reversals, 3RR drafts are drafts where the team picking last in the first round picks first in the third round instead of last in the third round, as they would in a normal snake draft. This is done to minimize the advantage those fortunate enough to land a top-three pick have. Giving teams led by players like Jalen Johnson and Cooper Flagg a top-25 player in round three instead of a top-35 player gives those teams a better shot at competing with the teams led by the top four players. The 3RR combinations in this guide will not look much different from the regular snake draft combinations due to this guide focusing on the players who will go in the middle of the first round in most drafts. The 3RR combinations in Part 1 and especially Part 3 will diverge much more from the standard snake combinations.
*All six-man combinations were created using Yahoo’s rankings and with 12-team H2H leagues in mind. Yahoo’s current ADP numbers were also considered. Many of these combinations work very well in Roto as well. Punting one category in Roto is a viable strategy.
Cade Cunningham (Pick 5-7)
Punt Threes
Cunningham/Reaves/Leonard/Clingan/Dejounte Murray/Allen – From a per-game standpoint, this is an excellent start to a punt threes team. Punt threes squads tend to struggle with some or all of points, assists, steals, and FT%. This is about an average start in points, and a clearly above-average start in dimes and steals. This group is also very strong in rebounds and FG%. Swapping out Leonard for a safe option is fine, although it could lead to issues with points. Jalen Williams is the best Kawhi replacement in the middle of the third.
Jayson Tatum (Pick 6-9)
Punt Assists
Tatum/Reaves/Murphy/Kessler/Porter Jr./Anunoby – All six players in this combination have the potential to at least flirt with the early rounds when assists are ignored. This group comes with no notable weaknesses. It puts you in a so-so position in FG% for a punt assists squad, which is not a concern. The strong start in the guard categories the build can struggle with is more valuable than a big start in FG%. Once you take your next high-FG% big, you should end up near the top of the standings in FG% anyway. This is an above-average start to the draft in points, rebounds, blocks, and turnovers, and a super-elite start in threes. If you swap Reaves for Mitchell, your team will be extremely strong in steals as well.
2026-2027 Fast Starts Guide – Part 2
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