2021-22 Fantasy Basketball Draft Busts: Forwards

October 11, 2021

Antonio Losada looks at NBA forwards who could be draft busts in the 2021-2022 season. These are players who you should consider avoiding in fantasy basketball drafts.

A key part of doing a fantasy draft is avoiding players who find themselves in a bad situation. The wrong pick can completely tank your season.

Today, let's talk about some potential busts at the forward position. For whatever reason -- be it talent, lack of opportunity, or some combination of those two things -- these are players who I'm actively avoiding in my fantasy leagues this season.

Let's look at some forwards who have bust potential this year in fantasy basketball leagues.

Kevin Durant - Brooklyn Nets

I have a very simple question for you. Would you draft any of LaMelo Ball, Harrison Barnes, Jerami Grant, Fred VanVleet, or Draymond Green with a top-6 pick for your fantasy team? Not sure about that, huh? Well, all of those players outscored Durant last year and finished close to the top-50 in fantasy leagues, but obviously, none of them is even remotely close to KD's talent. We all know that. What we also know is that Durant missed half the season last year and, more worrying if you ask me, that Brooklyn has everything to lift the Larry O'B with a postseason effort, not a regular-season one. In other words, whether he gets injured or not, I'm betting on Durant missing games because of load management this year. He will play a ton, sure, and he will produce as the best player in the world he is, alright, but I'm not drafting Durant in the top half of the first round of my drafts anytime soon to see him fall down the leaderboards because of some silly precautions. It pains me, but I just can pay so much for KD given the question marks around his/BKN and approach to the season.

Anthony Davis - Los Angeles Lakers

If you didn't like Durant's blurb above, you are probably going to hate this one too. The reason to add Davis here is the same as that of Durant: injury concerns, the potential of missing time, and a ton of warm bodies taking chances from each other while sharing the first unit of the Lakers in 2022. Davis not only will be fighting LeBron for touches once more but will now have to share the court with Russell Westbrook. Someone will need to give, that's obvious, and we'll see who ends being the greatest loser of them all. It might not feel like it, but AD only played 36 games (one more than KD) last season and could only finish as a top-115 player in fantasy leagues. The per-minute production and even the per-game FP were as good as those of the 10th-best forward, but Davis' current ADP of 12 (late first-rounder, that is) looks too high for the risk I'd be taking here. Not liking the sky-high price with the bunch of questions about Davis and the Lakers as a whole.

Michael Porter Jr. - Denver Nuggets

Most folks out there are making the simplest of deductions from the Nuggets and their outlook without Jamal Murray for the 2022 season: MPJ will be a top-30 fantasy player just on pure opportunity. And I mean, they might not be wrong and I definitely want to be proved wrong myself with my reasoning, but I don't think it's that simple and clear that Porter Jr. will become a killer all of a sudden having to play without the Nugs lead-guard and someone taking tons of attention and schemes-against from opposing defenses. Assuming that means assuming Porter Jr. is just going to produce on a linearly improving basis, which I'm not convinced will be the case. He already played 31.3 MPG last year and although his 1.08 FP/min production was great, it was not that of the bonafide superstars (1.30+) of the L. The usage was kinda low at 21.7% and should get bumped up a bit, but even then I'm not entirely convinced MPJ is already a third-round value, and definitely not a top-10 player at the F position.

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