Sport: NBA<\/p>\n
What you are about to read is an attempt at figuring out what to expect from a bunch of injury-prone players for the 2025-26 fantasy basketball season. Specifically, this includes players who have missed a significant amount of games in multiple seasons and are generally considered to be injury-prone.<\/p>\n
The high-profile players currently out with long-term injuries are not included, as there is not much to discuss in terms of fantasy basketball this season. Just don\u2019t draft them. I\u2019m talking about Jayson Tatum, Tyrese Haliburton, Kyrie Irving, Dejounte Murray, Fred VanVleet, and Damian Lillard. Even if they do return early, they will likely return with a minutes and games restriction. Until then, they will use up a valuable roster spot.<\/p>\n
What!? Your fantasy football league wasn\u2019t hosted on Fantrax last season!? Once you see how Fantrax stacks up to the competition<\/a>, we think you\u2019ll be singing a different tune in the 2025-26 season.<\/p>\n 2025-26 Fantasy Basketball: Should You Draft These 10 Injury-Prone Players GP (last 3 seasons): 52, 68, 37<\/p>\n ADP: 46<\/p>\n Current Status: Healthy.<\/p>\n Getting lost behind all the salary cap circumvention talk is that Kawhi Leonard seems to be the healthiest he\u2019s been in a while. Dare I say, he even looks somewhat athletic. In the two preseason games so far, he\u2019s averaged 17.5 points in 18.5 minutes. If he keeps up the performance he had in the second half of the last season, and only misses a few games here and there, he could provide quite good value at his ADP of 46. Of course, Kawhi is still an injury risk, so a trade after a good start to mitigate the risk would be appropriate, too.<\/p>\n Verdict: Cautious optimism.<\/p>\n Joel Embiid (C) \u2013 Philadelphia 76ers<\/p>\n GP (last 3 seasons): 66, 39, 19<\/p>\n ADP: 53<\/p>\n Current Status: Recovering from a knee injury.<\/p>\n Embiid has just started to scrimmage with the team and is questionable to play in Friday\u2019s exhibition game. In theory, he could ramp up his activity to play in the season opener. In practice, does anyone trust his knees? For 82 games? Even if he stays totally healthy, he\u2019ll likely rest a bunch of games and therefore be unreliable for fantasy basketball.<\/p>\n Verdict: It\u2019s a no from me.<\/p>\n Jimmy Butler (SF, PF) \u2013 Golden State Warriors<\/p>\n GP (last 3 seasons): 64, 60, 55<\/p>\n ADP: 54<\/p>\n Current Status: Sprained ankle, but probably not a big deal.<\/p>\n Jimmy Butler, famously, is not too bothered about regular-season basketball. Also, he tends to randomly miss 4-5 games 4-5 times every season. These things do not make him a good fit for fantasy basketball.<\/p>\n Verdict: Do not draft.<\/p>\n Anthony Davis (PF, C) \u2013 Dallas Mavericks<\/p>\n GP (last 3 seasons): 54, 76, 51<\/p>\n ADP: 9<\/p>\n Current Status: Healthy.<\/p>\n Drafting Anthony Davis at 9 on average is a pretty ballsy move. He has been a top 5 player on a per-game basis for the past three years, but still carries a significant injury risk. The risk may be mitigated by the Mavs having a very strong big-man rotation, so Davis should be protected from low-post physicality. Still, it is hard to trust Anthony Davis to stay healthy for the whole season.<\/p>\n Verdict: Better to take a sure thing that early in the draft.<\/p>\n LaMelo Ball (PG) \u2013 Charlotte Hornets<\/p>\n GP (last 3 seasons): 36, 22, 47<\/p>\n ADP: 30<\/p>\n Current Status: Healthy.<\/p>\n LaMelo has flirted with top 10 fantasy value while healthy. \u201cWhile healthy\u201d does a lot of heavy lifting in that statement, but he does have a few things going for himself in 25-26. This is the first start of a season that LaMelo has been healthy for in a while. So he has had the whole summer to build up his strength, which he has allegedly done. Let us not forget that Stephen Curry started his NBA career with very similar ankle injuries. Especially at around pick 30, Ball has significant upside potential.<\/p>\n Verdict: Worth the risk.<\/p>\n Paul George (PF) \u2013 Philadelphia 76ers<\/p>\n GP (last 3 seasons): 56, 74, 71<\/p>\n ADP: 95<\/p>\n Current Status: Recovering from a knee injury.<\/p>\n Unlike his teammate Joel Embiid, Paul George is still not able to play with the team. Turns out 15 years of NBA basketball might ravage your body. When healthy, he is still extremely skilled, but I wouldn\u2019t go out of my way to acquire him. More of a Nic Batum than Jalen Williams, if you will. More of a 1 Michelin star than 3.<\/p>\n Verdict: Wait and see if he gets going at some point.<\/p>\n Ja Morant (PG) \u2013 Memphis Grizzlies<\/p>\n GP (last 3 seasons): 61, 9, 50<\/p>\n ADP: 38<\/p>\n Current Status: Out with an ankle injury but expected to play in the season opener.<\/p>\n For the past two years, Morant has been held back by injuries and\u2026 other reasons. He received MVP votes in the two seasons before that. Going into this one, there is some reason for optimism. The new head coach has put together a more Morant-friendly offense, which can be seen from the box scores from the end of the last season. Also, the Grizzlies may just be a worse team than in the previous years, which may not sound great, but may give Morant a bigger opening to go all out.<\/p>\n Verdict: 38 seems about right in a draft.<\/p>\n Zion Williamson (SF, PF) \u2013 New Orleans Pelicans<\/p>\n GP (last 3 seasons): 29, 70, 30<\/p>\n ADP: 39<\/p>\n Current Status: Healthy.<\/p>\n Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice\u2026 won\u2019t get fooled again. How about fool me seven times? We may just be getting fooled for the seventh time, as Zion is looking great in the preseason games. An ADP of 39 would require a career year, both stats and games played-wise, to be worthwhile. He does look very slim, and hopefully that will put a lesser burden on his body, but super-explosive players get injuries anyway. Not like Blake Griffin was a big fatso.<\/p>\n Verdict: Are you expecting a career year? I just don\u2019t see it.<\/p>\n Chet Holmgren (PF, C) \u2013 Oklahoma City Thunder<\/p>\n GP (last 3 seasons): 0, 82, 32<\/p>\n ADP: 30<\/p>\n Current Status: Nursing a sore shoulder.<\/p>\n Speaking of big fatsos, here\u2019s Chet Holmgren. Despite playing only 32 games last season, he played them where they counted the most \u2013 the playoffs. After returning from a long-term pelvic injury last season, he still missed single games with injuries to his calf, ankle, lower leg, hip, and back, as well as for rest. When healthy, in his (second) rookie year, he was able to keep pace with Victor Wembanyama for a while, which is a sign of considerable upside. Holmgren is one of the best shot blockers in the league. Having said that, OKC will still likely prioritise the playoffs and take no chances with Chet, so expect a lot of missed regular-season games.<\/p>\n Verdict: Too injury-prone.<\/p>\n Lauri Markkanen (SF, PF) \u2013 Utah Jazz<\/p>\n GP (last 3 seasons): 66, 55, 47<\/p>\n ADP: 60<\/p>\n Current Status: Recovering from a wrist injury.<\/p>\n Markkanen averages 56 games per season for his 8-year NBA career. Now, last year\u2019s number of 47 might not be very accurate to his true status, as the Jazz very clearly held Markkanen and many others back to get a better draft pick. Entering this season, most of the other veteran players are gone, leaving Lauri as the only player in his prime on the roster. From a fantasy perspective, that can only be a good thing \u2013 he has all the space in the world to showcase his skills while not endangering the team\u2019s plans for a high draft pick. Getting traded will likely lower his value, but whether a trade will happen is still up in the air.<\/p>\n Verdict: Steal at 60.<\/p>\n Fantrax is one of the fastest-growing fantasy sites in the fantasy sports industry, and we\u2019re not stopping anytime soon. We are the most customizable, easy-to-use, and feature-rich platform in the industry, offering the greatest fantasy experience for your dynasty, keeper, redraft, and best ball leagues. Fantasy sports doesn\u2019t sleep, and neither does Fantrax, with seasons running 365 days a year. Take your fantasy leagues to the next level now at Fantrax.com<\/a>!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sport: NBA What you are about to read is an attempt at figuring out what to expect from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":214937,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[118119,64,63,726,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-214936","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-basketball","8":"tag-2025-fantasy-basketball-draft-kit","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-basketball","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214936","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=214936"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214936\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/214937"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=214936"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=214936"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=214936"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nKawhi Leonard (SF, PF) \u2013 Los Angeles Clippers<\/p>\n