The 2023-2024 NBA season is still far away, but it’s never too early to start speculating how the fantasy basketball landscape could shake out. With no guarantees as to which teams will make moves this offseason or knowing where some highly-regarded rookies will land, there’s always room for bold predictions when looking ahead to next season. And who knows if another role player will emerge during the NBA playoffs that’s destined for greater heights, like Jalen Brunson a year ago.
But before we witness another exciting postseason, here are my initial bold reads for the 23-24 season.
The six-year pro doesn’t have a top-10 finish in per-game value under his belt (he finished 11th this season), but he’s on the verge of becoming one of the best — if not the best — fantasy basketball players in the land. I put Tatum as the fourth-overall selection in my early first-round mock draft last week, but assuming Jaylen Brown is on the outs, that prediction could be too low.
His 2022-2023 campaign was by far his strongest statistical season, seeing increases in 4 of 9 categories in H2H formats: Points, rebounding, assists and field-goal percentage.
He was one of six players to average over 30 points per game and scored the most points this season (2,225) thanks to playing 74 games. Sometimes availability is the best ability, which is another area where Tatum will compete amongst the likes of Nikola Jokić.
Here are Tatum’s total value finishes each of the last four seasons in 9-cat leagues:
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2019-2020: 9
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2020-2021: 8
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2021-2022: 5
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2022-2023: 4
His team is loaded with talent, so he’s set up for success whether he loses his co-pilot or not. It certainly helps, however, to have some sample size of performance to understand what life could be like without Brown: In 13 games without Brown this year, Tatum’s scoring (31 PPG) and rebounding (8 RPG) were virtually unchanged, but he did see an uptick in assists and FG percentage (over five assists and 48 FG%).
Obviously, any improvement in assist rate and FG percentage would drive up his per-game value if he could sustain that throughout the season. Plus, he posted a career-best 31.9% usage rate. In 13 games without Brown, that number climbed to 35%, just shy of entering the Giannis Antetokounmpo, Joel Embiid and Luka Dončić tier of usage.
I know the 2023 All-Star Game wasn’t the most competitive forum, but hey, the man set the record for most points in an All-Star Game with 55 and was the first Celtic to win the ASG MVP since Larry Bird in 1982.
My pre-NBA-playoffs projection for Tatum heading into next season is 32.1 points, 9.2 rebounds, 5.1 assists, 3.5 3PM, 1.3 steals and 0.9 blocks with 48/37/87 shooting splits. Those numbers will undoubtedly have him running for the top three in fantasy.
Rudy Gobert finishes outside the top 80
Maybe I’m overreacting to the Frenchman’s most recent faux pas, but regardless, I’ve had concerns about Gobert’s future outlook. While he’s only finished outside of the top 70 once in his 10-year career (his rookie season) and has been one of the most reliable bigs in fantasy basketball year after year, he’s not a good fit with the Timberwolves. It’s only a matter of time before he’s either traded (good luck with that, Minnesota!) or fallen out of favor.
In a rare case, the general public and NBA personnel are aligned in that the Wolves gave up far too many assets to acquire the three-time Defensive Player of the Year. I’m on record saying that I would draft Walker Kessler over Gobert ahead of the 2023-2024 fantasy season, and frankly, there are other players I’d put ahead of him now, too — Brook Lopez, Evan Mobley, Nic Claxton and depending on the Rockets frontcourt situation, maybe even Alperen Sengun.
That’s how unimpressed I am with Gobert.
The truth is, he’s not that bad and his floor is higher than most centers. He can give you 12 points with 11 rebounds. But, with only 1.4 blocks per contest, a limited number of assists, poor free-throw shooting percentage and volatile playing time, I think his trajectory is pointing down. According to Basketball Reference, his block percentage was a career-low 3.9% this season.
Oh, and thankfully he hasn’t added a three-point shot. This fadeaway is, for lack of a better word, gross:
I’ll spare you on his off-hand hook shots — he barely converted on his right hook on a guy standing less than 3 feet from him!
But I digress. Gobert finished the 2022-2023 season 58th in per-game value and 71st in total value. A solid year, but let’s not forget that Karl-Anthony Towns missed 53 games.
And yet, he could only muster up a top-60 finish?
He’ll never be a threat offensively — especially playing with more effective scorers and playmakers like Anthony Edwards, Towns, Mike Conley and Kyle Anderson. So, if you’re really buying into Gobert, you’re getting the double-double. But for the price of admission (a likely 3rd to 4th-round pick), you can wait for a player like Jalen Duren, who does the same thing at a much lower draft cost. Gobert was 86th in per-game value over the past three months, so it’s not like this take is preposterous — I’m just getting ahead of the curve.
Gobert’s antics are already wearing on his teammates, as evidenced by needing to be sent home and eventually suspended for the Play-In game versus the Lakers. While he’s just 30 years old and probably still has a lot of basketball left in him, the Twin Cities are too small to support two bigs along with an ascending talent like Ant-man.
Or, Gobert could be morphing into Andre Drummond.
If I were the Wolves, I’d consult Danny Ainge on how to fleece the next team on taking on Gobert because all indications are that this experiment will not work out.
