Punting assists is a strategy that almost every fantasy player should consider. It is a relatively straightforward strategy that comes with both a high floor and a high ceiling. If you are new to punting, this is a great strategy to start with. The theory behind punting assists is easy to understand, and it is a build that is almost impossible to screw up. In my personal leagues, this is my most used strategy. I don’t need to say much to the punting veterans reading this. You know how nasty a well-put-together punt dimes squad can be. Read the guide, practice your strategies in the revamped Team Building Tool, and then go crush your draft.
The theory behind punting assists is the same as the theory behind punting any other category. Unless you are playing in a league with beginners, it is not going to be possible to have a team that is above average in all nine categories. Even if we hit on every single pick, we are going to have a weakness somewhere. The host site’s draft room rankings and auction prices guarantee that. So why try? Why weaken our teams in eight categories by trying to be average in a ninth category we don’t need to win anyway? Instead, we want to strengthen our strengths. Give ourselves a better chance in the other eight categories and give ourselves some room for error. If you’re not punting in a H2H league, you are playing a very dangerous game. A team that is punting a category or two—and doing it correctly—is going to be tough for a balanced team to beat. A balanced team may begin the week with a category or two locked up, but they are also likely going to be weaker in almost all of the remaining categories. Taking a balanced approach also puts you at greater risk of having your championship hopes torpedoed by a bad pick or injuries. And let’s be honest, both are going to happen. This is fantasy basketball we’re talking about. We’ve all made godawful picks in our fantasy careers, and if one of our early-round picks’ hamstrings or calves go, there’s not much we can do about it. If you drafted Walker Kessler or Zach Edey last year, you are probably nodding your head right now. If your team is average across the board, playing down an early-round pick is going to make you below average almost everywhere. That’s not going to be the case when you punt. Punting a category or two allows you to be well above average in a handful of categories, so when that injury hits or that player busts, you can still be average or better in the categories you need to win consistently.
Punting assists is an effective and smart strategy for numerous reasons. All of which we will get into in this guide. The math behind the strategy is sound, it’s a good fit with about half of the likely first-round picks, and it takes advantage of the fantasy basketball community’s decades-long struggle to understand that assists is just one category that you don’t get bonus points for winning. If you’ve done a fantasy basketball draft before, you know that point guards and the assists they bring get reached for constantly. You will see some point guards go dozens of spots higher than they should for no reason other than that they put up big numbers in assists instead of one of the less flashy categories. Punting assists allows us to scoop up all the value that drops while our opponents are reaching for dimes. You’ll find that when you punt assists, you often end up with an extremely strong group of bigs and wings and plenty of players that outperform their draft position.
There is one more advantage to punting assists that I want to mention before we jump into the math. When we punt assists, we are somewhat neutralizing Nikola Jokic. And that’s big. Very big. With such a gap between the top picks and the rest of the field, we have to keep the teams built around the truly elite players in mind when putting together our draft strategy. That is especially true if one of the league’s top managers lands a top pick. Due to who is at the top of draft boards, opting for the punt assists (or punt blocks!) build makes a lot of sense.
Punting assists also puts you at a huge advantage during weeks when you are matching up with one of the many point guards likely to be drafted in the first round this year. Most of those point guards turn into forgettable mid-round players when dimes don’t matter. Luka Doncic won’t, but if you make his assists irrelevant, the advantage that the Luka team holds over your team if you got stuck with a later pick won’t be nearly as large.
2026-2027 Punt Assists Guide (Yahoo)
2026-2027 Punt Assists Guide (ESPN)
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