Welcome To Basketball Monster 2025/26

August 14, 2025 by Josh Lloyd View Comments (82)

Welcome to a new season at Basketball Monster

Ken, Kyle, Matt, and I are pumped to bring you another fun, successful season through our tools, comments, and interactions.

As you jump back into the site, a few things are worth highlighting.

Start here: If you want to see players for the coming season, go to PROJECTIONS, not RANKINGS (Rankings reflect last season).
Before you do that, open SETTINGS and set up your league:

Choose category or points.
Link your provider for automatic roster syncing.
Set your auction budget, roster configuration, etc.

If you skip this, the tools won't be tailored to your league.

How to read the projections

We don't hand-rank players. We project every player's stats and then sort them based on a formula (or projected fantasy points). You can manipulate that order by changing how you display the data.
Per-game vs. totals matters. “How can you have Joel Embiid in the top six if he's going to be injured?” If you're on Per Game, high-performers who might miss time will sit higher. Switch to Totals to factor in games played.
Games played is chaos. Predicting GP is basically impossible and the most volatile year-to-year variable. I create the GP projections—and I personally don't draft off Totals. There's nuance in balancing risk and timing your picks.
In category leagues, don't draft by the top name showing. The gap between, say, 40 and 60 might be 0.1 steals and 1% FG%. Draft for stat set and team build, not an overall number.
Use DURANT (or DURANT H2H) for category leagues. Standard 9-cat ranks can throw up oddities (e.g., Trae Young in the 30s, Onyeka Okongwu over Giannis Antetokounmpo, Amen Thompson in the top seven). DURANT adjusts for scarcity and variance and relaxes strict z-score assumptions—NBA stats aren't normally distributed—so values line up better with how H2H is actually played.
Projections have error ranges—and minutes are intentionally “over.” We project to the best of our ability, but they're not hard caps. Team minutes will sum above 240 because we project season-long totals and add a 5–10% overage for injuries and unknowns. Bench players' listed minutes/stats may look a little rich relative to a fully healthy nightly rotation.

These are the most common questions and misconceptions I see around projections. When you're looking and querying (and please do—questions are welcome), keep these points in mind.

Jump in, enjoy, and leave comments here or on player pages. We'll discuss and explain our rationale.

joshlloyd485.7h

yes. i have just finished the draft and am wriiting it up

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Jarrad_Ashenden6.0h

Will we be seeing a one man mock article again soon? Cheers

JJREDDIT6.3h

Josh, what would the optimal way to organize the projections when drafting in a 12t h2h league on Yahoo? Struggling to find the best layout where I am targeting the best available player in the right round without reaching too far

joshlloyd487.0h

I would do faab for everything

easymoneysniper3517.3h

Josh, FAAB for Waivers and first-come, first-served for free agents?

ken_admin17.3h

I wouldn't update each pick since that can take some time. I typically update a few times each round. Also, the real draft should allow more time between picks than the mocks do.

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rodrigeeez11822.1h

it seems like i will have to manually copy and paste 'pick history' into draft tracker. I did a mock espn draft and felt like i had no time and ended up picking the highest pick on projections. tips to using draft tracker for the first time?

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ken_admin23.1h

Thursday or Friday at the latest.

#19541723.2h

Any idea when the weekly projections will be up on the site? Also, like every year any chance you’ll share the average draft positions from your leagues (both snake and auction)? Thanks as always for all the work you put in!

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ken_admin2.5d

Here's an article from Josh from last season which may help: https://basketballmonster.com/Article.aspx?article=1957

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#731472.5d

Fairly new player here. Want to dive into and use DURANT. Does anyone know which one to use for 12t H2H 9cat. DURANT or DURANT H2H. Both are options.

joshlloyd482.8d

You can do whatever you think works, but I am exclusively been using DURANT this season

The Ankle Taker2.8d

Hey Josh, do you think splitting the difference of my league settings with Durant is the way to go? 7 cats no %, Some huge variations. I drafted last year just using Durant and it worked, just curious on your thoughts.

NbaJam24 4.8d

Im missing the boxscores from the Pelicans game and the lakers suns game, is that right?

#731474.9d

Hey all. Draft slot 8-11 is available in 12t H2H cat (double doubles instead of TO). Is taking 8 a no brainer? Curious to any input of what would be a good strategy.

joshlloyd485.1d

in projections page, go to edit display columns and select durant or durant h2h

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mileshagedorn5.2d

How do I use DURANT H2H projections? Not seeing a place to select that

#731475.6d

Obviously pick 1-4 you get an almost guaranteed star, but are there any other draft slots in H2H cat leagues that anyone prefers. We get to choose our slot this year and I’m 9th/12 to be asked where I want to pick.

ken_admin5.7d

You can set this under Settings/Team Players and Make My Team.

ken_admin10/1/25

The refreshing from Yahoo and FanTrax always take a few seconds since we're waiting on their API to return results. Other pages however should be pretty responsive except maybe the profile pages which do a lot of processing.

#205201 10/1/25

Appreciate boosting the servers. For reference, I'm consistently experiencing significant performance delays across multiple page, each one taking several seconds to load. This doesn’t seem to be an isolated issue on my end, as I’ve tested it across different unique browser instances and on separate networks and devices with the same results. A bit concerned, since the draft tracker takes seconds to load and refresh from yahoo and it may cause the draft tracker to have stale data during draft time.

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ken_admin10/1/25

OK, that's good to know, and we will be boosting our servers tomorrow morning which may help too.

DenimCouch10/1/25

It seemed like yesterday all/most pages were slow, but today it's back to normal for m

ken_admin9/30/25

Is this all pages or specific ones?

#205201 9/30/25

Is anyone finding performance issues for this site? Previous years, latency seems reasonable, but this year seems like couple seconds to refresh a page.

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rsimon11 9/30/25

You should do 3RR because the value of the first four or five picks (four in roto, five in H2H) is so disproportionate to the rest of the player pool. I wouldn't do a roto draft that didn't have 3RR.

#731479/30/25

Is there any consensus in here this season on third round reversal in 12t standard cat leagues? If so, why is good to have?

joshlloyd489/30/25

March 22

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jay14bay9/30/25

What date should playoffs end this season?

jay14bay9/30/25

i support it

OrkunS9/30/25

Plus it is one of the two reasons i have to pay $60 :) Other one is draft tracker.

OrkunS9/30/25

I mean i think mock draft is beneficial. Helps me to visualize my strategy honestly. If it’s not much of a big deal for u, please do that.

ken_admin9/30/25

We should have the min/max today.

BestFranzForever9/30/25

Last year's one-man mock draft was great I thought. Gave a decent indication as to what round players should actually get drafted in.

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corbett_ 9/30/25

any update on seeing the min/max numbers on the projections page?

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butternest9/29/25

I think it would be good if you could do a reflection on how last seasons one man mock draft went, or something along those lines.

joshlloyd489/29/25

I'm debating it. Not sure how much utility it has. happy to hear feedback

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OrkunS9/29/25

One man mock draft this season?

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ken_admin9/23/25

You can send it to support@basketballmonster.com. Thanks

sugardaisy9/23/25

Hi Ken, just on the ESPN auction draft updates, it's as soon as the first pick is made. It has two numbers: the original projected draft price and an updated number that doesn't make sense. Is there a way I can send you a pic via email Twitter or something? Cheers :)

czarlouie9/23/25

it currently seems the "Apply Game Limits" in the Analysis Monster doesnt work. Do you guys have fix for this?

ken_admin9/22/25

It's only used to enable some tools and doesn't affect the projections. BAZEMORE is the value for Dynasty.

corbett_ 9/20/25

awesome, thanks ken will keep an eye out

ken_admin9/20/25

We'll be adding them to the projections, should be this week.

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corbett_ 9/20/25

For the Min/Max projections for each player, is there a way of seeing them in the Projections table? Or can they only be found by clicking on each player's individual page?

ken_admin9/18/25

There's a display column under Edit Display Columns on most pages.

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dwhite9/18/25

Where can I find the Durant H2H rankings?

ken_admin9/18/25

Currently, it needs to be set for each. A bulk option or ability to import from one to another would be nice, and we'll give this some thought.

rbuehler9/18/25

Is there a way to get Draft Monster to remember how I like my display columns? Or do I need to change them for each new league? (Aka, I'm hoping there's a "save as new defaults" button somewhere and I'm just blind.)

DenimCouch9/18/25

Thanks! I've been using it and Durant H2H rankings for my mocks and have been liking it so far!

ken_admin9/18/25

Yes, I believe it'll do everything the old one did and more. If you find something's missing, just let us know.

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DenimCouch9/18/25

I'm assuming you guys recommend using Draft Monster over Draft Tracker for all leagues except ones that do manual entries?

nvf31 9/18/25

For roto do you recommend to use DURANT?

ken_admin9/15/25

For the Min/Max projections, they're ready, but I wanted to wait for Josh/Kyle's thoughts before deploying so they should be available shortly.

ken_admin9/13/25

That does sound a bit odd. Does this occur after the first pick or much later in the draft?

sugardaisy9/13/25

Hi Ken. Doing mocks for ESPN salary. When a player is drafted and I update it gives a weird number eg -$285 as well as the original projected price for each player. Can we just have the updated price that the player is now worth according to the real draft numbers? I don't want to be doing math mid-draft! TIA :)

ken_admin9/12/25

We should have Min/Max projections for each player this weekend.

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Spree9/12/25

I thought the site was adding an option of best case projection vs worst case projection? Is this option available and if so where can it be found?

joshlloyd489/11/25

At this point, i'm not making any projection updates due to this scoring change

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Pincus 9/11/25

In 8-cat roto are the weights the same as in H2H?

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bfly2119/11/25

@jay24bay, I figure it will most likely help tick up the FG% of primary ball handlers by a tiny fraction (e.g., Steph, Ant Man) and maybe add a few more long 3PM that otherwise wouldn't have been attempted, but so infrequently as to not really impact projections. I supposed in a rare case it could swing a H2H matchup.

jay14bay9/11/25

I guess that the NBA rule change for not counting (missed) heaves in fg% will carry over to fantasy since it's an official change? I also guess that won't impact anyone except maybe someone like Payton Pritchard a tiny bit? Anything to see here? I could see it swinging some H2H matchups though.

Anesta 9/10/25

What kinds of evaluation did you use on how DURANT performed last year and what did you find? I've created custom variance adjustments in the past and while the rankings they produce intuitively make more sense, they haven't actually back tested any better than standard z-scores on the results within my league

Toyicek 9/10/25

Hello @Joshlloyd48, @ken_admin, do you still prefer using the weights suggested last year (0.8 for Threes and Blocks, 0.7 for steals, and 0.5 for FG% and FT%) or would you recommend using H2H Durant valuation only? Thanks.

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#21656 9/9/25

Still a relative ghost town around here. Looking forward to a new year of elite level discourse w/y'all.

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jay14bay9/6/25

glad to be back for another season

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KevinCue259/4/25

Yea, thank you! It would be nice to combine both to see the total value of the player, I guess. For example, Zions a top per game guy, but obviously not as great totals wise. I'd want to see where he'd be ranked if both are taken into consideration.

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ken_admin9/4/25

You want to view Total Stats and then also Per Game Stats? We could probably do that.

KevinCue259/4/25

Is there any way to combine both "Total Stats" and "Per Game Stats" when evaluating players in the projections instead of viewing each individually?

ken_admin9/3/25

For manual draft tracking, the Draft Tracker does support that, but we're also planning on adding a tool that only works with manual entry which should be ready this month. If you have a slow draft, you can manage rosters under Settings/Team Players and Settings/Custom Auction Prices, then import those into the draft tracker.

ken_admin9/3/25

I believe the categories are the same order as the past. What are you seeing?

Szczupak9/3/25

Why do you mess with the order of categories??

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Jocko103099 9/2/25

How can I use draft Tracker for a live auction that does not use a draft room. is there a way to manually enter the data for every player drafted. per team. Assume 20 team league

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ken_admin9/1/25

Under Settings/Team Players, there's a Clear Rosters button.

#2747519/1/25

How do you clear rosters? Page says I need to clear rosters. Do I just need to clear my cache for that?

ljin8/31/25

good link to see who are the likely tanking teams. https://randomaimusing.com/who-will-be-the-tanking-nba-teams-in-2025-26/

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mrfuentes278/29/25

BB provides the winning information.

#206697 8/29/25

Excited for another year! LETS GO!

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Massmonic 8/26/25

Thank You! Reporting in that Durant with DD looks great.

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ken_admin8/26/25

It will only appear if all of your categories are supported. We did add support for more categories today. Does it show now? If not, are you using some less common categories?

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HS Slam PhD8/26/25

Hi! I added the DURANT H2H and DURANT columns but I don't see any values in those columns in the projections. Any idea what I'm doing wrong? Thanks.

#232837 8/26/25

LETS FKING GO 2026!!!! UP FOR WINS, DOWN FOR BDNR

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#2113868/21/25

props for mentioning the column to show last years per game values. makes it really easy to see risers/fallers in this years projections

ken_admin8/21/25

DURANT weights are fixed so yours won't affect them.

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#1049238/21/25

What if I have weightings in my settingd and looking at Durant H2H? Does that mess with Durant H2H or there is no effect?

joshlloyd488/21/25

you can add that in 'edit value columns'

mcraig238/21/25

Hey guys, love all your work. Thought for the projections. Unless I'm missing it, there doesn't seem to be a column to show a players increase or decrease in value from last seasons rankings. Similar to the 1 week +- in value, but showing the possible big movers in 25/26. Cheers

100% (1) UP

#2113868/20/25

im assuming if your league is h2h you would use the one titled h2h

nvf31 8/20/25

Which one do you suggest to use more when drafting? DURANT or DURANT H2H?

ken_admin8/20/25

You may see less game if you have playoffs and you choose to end the stats when those end. That can be adjusted under Settings/League Settings.

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#2113868/20/25

its based on your league settings. if you go all the way until the last day of the regular season, it will be higher

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JZSonic 8/20/25

Why am I seeing different projections than other people? I see 184 players projected to play at least 70 games.

eyeatoma 8/20/25

Curious about games played, no player over 70 games this year. Is it just the times we're in, and the fact that resting happens so frequently?

#465388/19/25

great to be back!!

100% (2) UP

ken_admin8/18/25

Yes, for ESPN, it will update all rosters, import the $ prices, and then adjust the remaining prices based on budget remaining.

100% (1) UP

sugardaisy8/17/25

Hi gents, good to be back for another year! We are restating our ESPN points keeper league (auction draft). I've never tracked the draft on here, but I'd like to. I see you need to copy/paste every now and then to update which is fine. My questions are: 1. Will that update the $ of players left on the board? 2. Will it update all teams rosters so I can see how I'm tracking during the draft (like how it's used in cat leagues to see how you're going in each cat, scarcity, etc). TIA :)

ken_admin8/17/25

Yes, Matt is working on the position tiers.

100% (1) UP

#215365 8/17/25

Hello, Last year you had articles about Drafting Tiers by position. Are getting something similar this year?

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Semaj1990 8/17/25

Got it. Thanks Ken.

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ken_admin8/17/25

For more than top 10, under Projections, you can use Edit Value Columns to show a total and per-game next to each other along with many other options.

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ken_admin8/17/25

Here's Josh's old DURANT article: https://basketballmonster.com/Article.aspx?article=1957

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Semaj1990 8/17/25

Hello On the homepage I can see the 'Top 10 (Per Game and Total Games Values)' Is there a way to see this nice simple view for more than the top 10? I like being able to see the per game and the totals side by side but on the projections screen I can only see how to sort by one or the other. Thanks

#1049238/17/25

Can we get something about what is DURANT,how and where to use it etc. I am member here for years but honestly I lost the track recently/last few years with all this new options and have no idea what any of this means,how and where to use etc. Didn't had time to read previous articled if there was any let alone to listen the pods.

itzon46518/17/25

Been listening to locked on fantasy pod for years now and finally took the plunge into a basketball monster membership. Fantasy ball 4ever

100% (3) UP

Massmonic 8/16/25

For non-standard leagues where Durant and Bazemore columns are blank it would be great if there is a link or way to see these ranks for a standard league.

fantasyballfan088/16/25

for DURANT H2H, can the values be adjusted when we enter a custom projection? Thanks for this way to evaluate players, by the way. It helps value players like giannis, ant, banchero, dyson, in a way that makes more sense.

ken_admin8/15/25

I have Dark Reader installed, and it seems to work well.

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NbaJam24 8/15/25

No, I haven’t tried that. I use Brave as my internet browser, so if there’s an add-on for it, I’d be happy to give it a try.

ken_admin8/15/25

Yes, we should give this a better effort and will see what we can do. I probably mentioned this last season, but have you tried a browser add-on that may do this?

100% (1) UP

NbaJam24 8/15/25

I’m super excited to be back here! You’re doing a great job, compliments for that. The only thing I’m wondering about is whether there will be a proper dark mode on the website. I asked about this last year as well, but unfortunately not much has been done with it, and the current dark mode isn’t great. Anyway, thanks, and here’s to a new season!

AaronElWhite 8/15/25

Are there any BBM leagues gonna run this year? I swear there have been in the past and I always miss out signing up.

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AaronElWhite 8/15/25

LFG!!!!

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stylesofbeyondyes8/15/25

YESSIR WE BACK!

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HeriSaVeL 8/15/25

Hi! By clicking the “Durant H2H” it also put, using the trae young example, in the near 30s. Is that correct or i am doing something wrong? When I do punting TO he goes up.

Oatmeal 8/15/25

Use ATO, and Fantrax offers massive customization options compared to the big box sites.

kylemckeown168/15/25

A huge welcome to all the returning BBM and new members. It's looking like it's going to be another fun, wild season of NBA fantasy.

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Massmonic 8/15/25

Glad to be aboard!!!

100% (2) UP

#1940738/15/25

Will it be open soon?

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joshlloyd488/15/25

Pretty sure you can do it in Fantrax

DirtyD8/15/25

Are there any sites that offer a cat for 'TO's per games played'? We always have trouble with a couple of teams dropping off and 'winning' TO's by not playing anywhere near the 820 games?

zebrafish748/14/25

if you are working in some non-standard cats I’d also like to suggest 3pt% and A:TO ratio if it’s not too much work, they seem to be the other typical “10th” cats from anecdotal experience

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joshlloyd488/14/25

I can work on getting that in

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Massmonic 8/14/25

Will durant h2h work for leagues that have a non-standard category like DD?

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goonit878/14/25

Stoked to be back in for another season, best fantasy content out there and it's not close. Can't wait!

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joshlloyd488/14/25

there is a durant h2h $ option in the edit display columns

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#228151 8/14/25

For auction draft leagues, how do we get the $ value to reflect the DUR H2H value? When I sort by DUR H2H the $ values do not change. Thanks!

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catsinoakland 8/14/25

Ladies are here FOR IT, bitches be balling let's gooooooo

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joshlloyd488/14/25

we do not know about yahoo

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joshlloyd488/14/25

Yes, that's what i was trying to say. the weightings are already a part of the DURANT H2H formula

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Bigticket24108/14/25

When does mock drafting open up on Yahoo?

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Pincus 8/14/25

What about for individual categories? Once we've customized settings for a league and activated the DURANT column, are the weights applied to the categories or do we have to apply them manually?

Massmonic 8/14/25

I am very much looking forward to the GRAND OPENING tomorrow. This is by far my favorite fantasy basketball site. Lots of years together.

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Massmonic 8/14/25

I am very much looking forward to the GRAND OPENING tomorrow. This is by far my favorite fantasy basketball site. Lots to year together.

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#2113868/14/25

lets get this money gentlemen

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ken_admin8/14/25

We'll be opening Friday morning.

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maik 8/14/25

when will the next season open? cant wait already!!

joshlloyd488/14/25

DURANT H2H has the weightings in it already

100% (1) UP

#257705 8/14/25

Excited to run it back for another year! For the Durant H2H metric, would you recommend changing the stat weighting in settings for our league on BBM (Similar to the Durant 2.0 post you did last year around weighting each cat to reflect your Durant formula and normalise stat distribution), or will changing the weighting in settings have no impact on Durant H2H? I am keen to use that in the Draft Tracker (Which I assume will also be Draft Tracker 2.0 this year)

#568038/14/25

I'm ready to enjoy this season with all of you again. As an aside what site do y'all find has the best paid leagues? I'm lookin to join a few more leagues this year

JZSonic 8/14/25

Hooray! We are back!!! Can't wait for the season to start!

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joshlloyd488/14/25

not yet

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butternest8/14/25

Absolutely pumped for the new season, thanks for all your hard work Josh, Ken, Kyle, and Matt! My office job has been tough going without any fantasy to get me through the day.

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Baldfark8/14/25

I’m a member from last season but can’t seem to renew for this season. Is it now open?

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