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 Anthony Edwards, Cooper Flagg, Jalen Johnson, and Donovan Mitchell. Part 1 and Part 2 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 Johnson and 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.
*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.
Anthony Edwards (Pick 8-12)
Punt FG%
(3RR) Edwards/Jamal Murray/Davis/Okongwu/Dejounte Murray/Rollins – In 3RR, Davis is going to be an option for a lot of Ant-led teams. You don’t need to take the Wizard, but you should at least consider it. Edwards comes with a relatively low per-game ceiling, so you will need to take some risks at some point in the draft to give your team a championship-level per-game ceiling. Davis works extremely well in both punt FG% and punt assists. This high-upside combination puts you in a strong position in threes, assists, steals, blocks, and FT%. It is below average in rebounds and turnovers, but not by much.
Cooper Flagg (Pick 9-12)
Punt Assists
Flagg/Mitchell/Murphy/Clingan/Porter Jr./Allen – This is a well-rounded start to your draft. This group is very strong in all three big man categories and turnovers. Despite that, it is also about an average start in points, threes, steals, and FT%. If you don’t want to gamble on Porter Jr., Anunoby is an excellent alternative. That swap will put you in a small hole in points and threes, but will also put you in a top-end position in steals. Pairing Mitchell and Flagg makes sense not only from a value and team building standpoint, but also because Flagg has four games in Week 21 when Mitchell will play just twice.
2026-2027 Fast Starts Guide – Part 3
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