Fantasy Basketball End of Season Roundtable: Biggest fantasy surprise

While some fantasy managers are competing in leagues that run through the end of the NBA's regular season, most were done by the end of Sunday's games. Congratulations to those who won their leagues and the money (and bragging rights) that comes with it. Those who did not will reflect on what went wrong and how they can avoid a similar fate next season.

With the fantasy season effectively over, now is a good time for the Rotoworld fantasy basketball staff to have a few roundtable discussions. Monday's question is simple: Who was your biggest surprise in fantasy basketball? Nick Schlain, Noah Rubin, Raphielle Johnson and Zak Hanshew answered this question, and each writer had a different choice.

Who was the biggest surprise in fantasy basketball this season?

Nick Schlain: Dyson Daniels had a preseason ADP of 136 on Yahoo! but is the fifth-ranked player in total game value on Basketball Monster this season. In his first season as a full-time starter, Daniels has seen his numbers increase across the board. No stat has been as crucial to Daniels’ fantasy success than steals, the category where he leads the league with three steals per game. Daniels has vastly outperformed expectations in his first season with the Hawks after coming to Atlanta last offseason in the Dejounte Murray trade.

Noah Rubin: I have long been a pessimist regarding Austin Reaves’s productivity in fantasy basketball. I have had the opinion that he is a really, really good player, but that doesn’t always translate to fantasy production, especially in category leagues. On a team with LeBron James and Anthony Davis, why would Reaves have the ball in his hands enough to return top-tier value? Trading for Luka Doncic certainly didn’t make me more optimistic, and yet, Reaves has been better while playing alongside a ball-dominant superstar. Over the past two months, he has returned third-round value this season and ranks in the top ten in nine-cat formats. He is averaging career highs in points, rebounds, assists, steals and three-pointers and has solidified himself as an All-Star talent. He shattered his Yahoo! ADP of 87.8 and has been a league-winning producer recently.

Raphielle Johnson: Many people laughed when Norman Powell discussed the loss to Paul George as “addition by subtraction” for the Clippers. PG's exit meant more opportunities for Powell and Ivica Zubac, and both got off to hot starts. However, while Powell's production tailed off due to injury, "Big Zu" has been consistently excellent for the Clippers. Ranked just outside the top-50 in eight-cat formats, Zubac heads into the season's final week safely within that threshold in nine-cat. He's averaging career highs in points, rebounds and assists while shooting 62.4 percent from the field. While expecting Zubac to be a top-100 player was well within reason, he's been even better than that.

Zak Hanshew: Maybe I should have seen a resurgence coming, but hindsight is 20/20, right? After years of finishing as a perennial top-10 fantasy option, Karl-Anthony Towns's value took a big hit over the last two seasons. The fit alongside Rudy Gobert wasn't ideal for Towns from a fantasy standpoint, but his move back to playing a pure center role in New York has done wonders for him. He's averaging a career-high 12.8 rebounds with 24.4 points, 3.1 dimes, two triples and a steal. Towns is shooting a career-best 42.6% mark from beyond the arc, and he's cut his turnovers to his lowest mark in seven seasons. Towns's revival is surprising based on the raw numbers alone, but the fact that he's leading his team in rebounds and sits second in scoring while playing on such a loaded roster is the most shocking aspect of his meteoric 2024-25 rise.