{"id":757749,"date":"2026-06-24T19:19:18","date_gmt":"2026-06-24T19:19:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/757749\/"},"modified":"2026-06-24T19:19:18","modified_gmt":"2026-06-24T19:19:18","slug":"the-biggest-fantasy-basketball-losers-from-the-nba-draft-featuring-kingston-flemings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/757749\/","title":{"rendered":"The Biggest Fantasy Basketball Losers from the NBA Draft Featuring Kingston Flemings"},"content":{"rendered":"<p id=\"inline-text-0\" class=\"mt-[18px] md:mt-0 mb-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"60\">The top of the NBA Draft had gone great for all teams and players involved. That will generally be the case in such a draft. The top players go to the top teams in need. When looking further down the board, things get hazier. Teams selected players who can play a beneficial role for the team. It may not, however, be as beneficial to the player&#8217;s ceiling. That results in these 4 draft picks being losers in the 1st round. <\/p>\n<p>8th, Kingston Flemings, Hawks<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-2\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"66\">There is a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nba\/draft\/rounds\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">big knock of Flemings <\/a>\u2014 shooting. He shot 47.6% in 2025-26 with Houston, but his shot is not considered NBA-quality. Combine that with the fact that Flemings playing time may become limited, and we find him a loser. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-3\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"69\">Flemings certainly will not flop in Atlanta, but he has competition at the guard position. Those competitors include CJ McCollum and Nickeil Alexander-Walker as the most clear-cut of the bunch. Flemings may easily play 25 minutes per game, but he lacks the 32+ minute upside he would have found more easily if the Kings or Bucks had drafted him. <\/p>\n<p>14th, Hannes Steinbach, Hornets<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-5\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6f\">Steinbach is on a long line to get in the door. The Hornets currently roster Moussa Diabate and Ryan Kalkbrenner as two productive centers. At power forward, they have Miles Bridges and Grant Williams on the roster. Steinbach has a lot of risk on his plate with this Hornets depth chart and for that reason, his ceiling is vastly limited in the short term,. <\/p>\n<p>17th, Ebuka Okorie, Thunder<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-7\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6l\">Okorie first plays behind the best point guard in the NBA, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. He also has to compete with young rising prospect Jared McCain and Ajay Mitchell. Isaiah Joe plays a key bench role, and Alex Caruso and Lu Dort stretch to play shooting guard at times. Okorie is viewed as a depth piece, and his playing time will have to be earned, which will be very hard to do behind experienced, tenured stars on this NBA Finals-caliber roster. <\/p>\n<p>18th, Christian Anderson Jr., Hornets<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-9\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6r\">Anderson Jr. has been graded an &#8220;F&#8221; in our <a href=\"https:\/\/www.si.com\/onsi\/fantasy\/rankings\/fantasy-basketball-nba-draft-grades-first-round\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">full first-round player grades<\/a>. LaMelo Ball and Brandon Miller play high minutes in supreme usage. Anderson Jr. then has to compete for any inkling of minutes off the bench with Sion James and Coby White. When Anderson Jr. does finally get on the court, he will rarely be a primary scoring option. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-10\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6u\">The Hornets have the luxury of a deep roster, but that luxury steals any great upside that Anderson Jr. could otherwise have found in a different city. <\/p>\n<p>More Fantasy Sports On SI News:<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"22\" height=\"22\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/assets.minutemediacdn.com\/platform\/google_discover_icon.svg\" class=\"shrink-0\"\/>Add us as a preferred source on Google<a aria-label=\"Follow si.com on Google News\" href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/preferences\/source?q=si.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" class=\"flex h-[30px] w-[30px] shrink-0 items-center justify-center rounded-full bg-primary font-group-large text-sm font-medium text-white transition-colors hover:bg-secondary focus:bg-secondary md:w-auto md:gap-2.5 md:px-4 md:py-[5px]\">Follow<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The top of the NBA Draft had gone great for all teams and players involved. That will generally&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":757750,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,590,85],"class_list":["post-757749","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/757749","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=757749"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/757749\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/757750"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=757749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=757749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=757749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}