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Nikola Joki\u0107 absolutely dominated in December, posting the highest single-game score in Yahoo Fantasy High Score to date (108 FPTS).<\/p>\n
Happy New Year! As we wave goodbye to 2025 and welcome in 2026, fantasy basketball managers are making resolutions for the new year. Unfortunately, there\u2019s no way you can go back and draft Nikola Joki\u0107<\/a> (though the Nuggets\u2019 big man is out at least a month due to a knee injury). But you can make plans to be the best roster regulator this year in an attempt to take home a championship. We\u2019ve learned plenty through the first three months of High Score on Yahoo.<\/p>\n Let\u2019s wrap up the year with the perfect lineup from December:<\/p>\n Here\u2019s a look at the top-six scorers in High Score from the month of December.<\/p>\n More on the top performers<\/p>\n Luka Don\u010di\u0107<\/a>: The Lakers\u2019 superstar has been one of the best case studies so far in High Score \u2014 a player who almost always hits a ceiling week-to-week despite missing games and busting out. For example, Don\u010di\u0107 missed three games in December and posted low scores of 47 points and 21 points (due to injury) in certain spots. But he also dropped 99 fantasy points on Dec. 18 vs. the Jazz, one of the highest scores all season. December wasn\u2019t Don\u010di\u0107\u2019s best month; he averaged 31 points, 7.9 assists and 7.2 rebounds while shooting 44.1% from the floor and 28.9% from distance. We\u2019d like to see a more consistent showing from Luka to start 2026.<\/p>\n Cade Cunningham<\/a>: Cade is in the NBA MVP conversation with the Pistons set to enter 2026 atop the Eastern Conference. In the new year, Cunningham should look to be a more aggressive and efficient scorer; he shot 48.7% from the floor in December but only averaged 17.2 attempts per game.<\/p>\n The volume scoring is holding Cade back from his true potential, which we\u2019ve seen with massive fantasy outputs this season. But his assist and steals totals are helping him remain atop the fantasy scoreboard most weeks. He dished out 17 assists \u2014 one shy of a season high \u2014 on Dec. 26 against Utah to help him reach 80 fantasy points in High Score.<\/p>\n Nikola Joki\u0107<\/a>: It\u2019s upsetting that we enter 2026 without Joki\u0107 on the court. To start the last week of 2025, Joki\u0107 hyperextended his left knee<\/a> and is expected to miss at least four weeks. At least the Nuggets big left his managers with a parting gift for 2025 in the form of a season-high 108 fantasy points in a Christmas Day win over the Timberwolves. Joki\u0107 picked apart Minnesota with 56 points, 16 rebounds, 15 assists and two steals. It was the eighth game this season Joker had 80+ fantasy points.<\/p>\n It was looking like, at minimum, managers with Joki\u0107 on their roster would be a shoo-in for the fantasy playoffs. There\u2019s no replacing him in the short-term; you can only hope he comes back healthy and picks up where he left off.<\/p>\n Kawhi Leonard<\/a>: After missing the start of the season and pretty much all of November, Leonard is back (and then some). He\u2019s playing every night, something we\u2019ve rarely seen throughout his injury-riddled career. His numbers in December are looking MVP-worthy: 29.8 points, 7.4 rebounds and 3.1 stocks per game while shooting 49\/36\/96 over 12 games. Kawhi dropped a career-high 55 points with 11 rebounds and eight stocks in a win over the Pistons on Dec. 28 to reach 94 fantasy points for that week. If Leonard can keep this up, he\u2019s looking like one of the steals of drafts.<\/p>\n Alperen Sengun<\/a>: Like Joki\u0107, the Rockets\u2019 big man is going to start 2026 on the shelf while dealing with a calf injury that has caused him to miss two games. But he enters Wednesday ranked ninth in average fantasy points per game in High Score at 53.2 on the season. Sengun has sort of been a Joki\u0107-lite to start his fifth NBA season, producing across multiple categories (rebounds, assists, stocks). The issue has been scoring volume, which we don\u2019t always see, given the presence of Kevin Durant<\/a> in Houston. Sengun\u2019s top score in December of 88 just made the cut on Dec. 1 against the Jazz (of course, it was against Utah). The elite stock coverage will always elevate Sengun\u2019s floor; he averaged 3.5 stocks in December.<\/p>\n Scottie Barnes<\/a>: The Raptors\u2019 swingman snuck his way onto this list thanks to a historic rebounding performance to close last week. He helped Toronto force OT and eventually take home a win over the Warriors on Sunday, scoring 23 points with a career-high 25 rebounds and 10 assists for his first triple-double of the season. Barnes also added a pair of assists and three stocks to help him reach 80 fantasy points and knock Hawks forward Jalen Johnson<\/a> off this list. Barnes has a high ceiling given his category coverage, but the lack of scoring and rebounds giving you only 1 FPT hurts his floor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nikola Joki\u0107 absolutely dominated in December, posting the highest single-game score in Yahoo Fantasy High Score to date…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":386739,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,207488,85],"class_list":["post-386738","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basketball","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-basketball","tag-nba-fantasy-yahoo-high-score-top-performers-for-december","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386738","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=386738"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386738\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/386739"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=386738"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=386738"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=386738"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Perfect-December-Update-470x588.png\")
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