Post Hype Breakouts for Fantasy Basketball (2026)

September 1, 2026

Dan Besbris breaks down the fantasy basketball potential of several NBA players who could be poised for big years in 2026-2027 season.

What the heck is a Post-Hype Breakout? For this piece, we will define a Post-Hype Breakout as a player who was either over-drafted the prior year (or years) or has simply been forgotten by time, but is now ready to break out in a big way.

A fantastic exercise during fantasy draft season is to comb through the results from the prior year to find players that left the general public feeling disappointed. Odds are at least one of those sad emojis is ready to rocket up the boards one season later than everyone hoped. Oftentimes, the players are young up-and-comers that don't quite find their footing, but that is not always the case. Studs can hit a multi-year fluky rough patch, as well.

We have isolated five of this exact type of target going far too late in drafts, and after one or more poor seasons, 2026 is the year they finally pop...or pop again!

Fantasy Basketball: Post-Hype Breakouts

Dejounte Murray, PG - New Orleans Pelicans
Yahoo Rank - 59

Sometimes the stars align to light up the fantasy sky, and we are getting that brilliant, glowing constellation for Dejounte Murray. Let's examine each star, one by one.

Star number one: Murray is nearly 20 months removed from an Achilles injury suffered roughly halfway through the 2024-25 season, so restrictions, if any, should be relatively light.

Star number two: Dejounte gave us a sneak peek of what he can do at the tail end of the 2025-26 season, playing just under 28 minutes per contest in 14 games. He looked healthy and spry, posting averages of 16.7 points, 5.4 rebounds, 6.4 assists and 1.6 steals per game despite the safe workload.

8 MONTHS DOWN….💪🏽 I Had To Learn How Walk Again. I Had To Learn How To Jump Again. Wow I’m Proud Of Me And I Do It For The LOVE And The Ones That Fall And Dont Believe It’s Possible To Get Up!!! 💯 #DM5🖤 ALL WORK pic.twitter.com/zVuXfeGBhW

— Dejounte Murray (@DejounteMurray) October 30, 2025

Star number three: the year prior, when Murray suffered his injury, he ranked #66 in 9-category leagues due to a field goal percentage anomaly. That partial season, Dejounte shot just 39.3%, a full 6% lower than his career mark. That bricklaying created something of an artificial dip in his ranking when he would have otherwise been a 3rd round value.

Murray is getting a truckload of airtime in every piece of content I produce and is one of my favorite values on the entire draft board because no one can remember the last time he was amazing. But we can. Dejounte Murray is set to play point guard for an uptempo offense, and with the minutes (and field goal percent) headed back toward his career mark, this is the year Murray bounces back to a top-25 player.

Keegan Murray, PF - Sacramento Kings
Yahoo Rank - 118

Speaking of Murrays, a late-round power forward surname-sharing pal is also in post-hype mode.

I will admit, last season I was among those that took the bait and drafted Keegan Murray around pick 120 while he worked his way back from a hand injury. In general, I advise avoiding players that are hurt to start the season, but Keegan's lower body was fine, and with nothing stopping him from keeping his conditioning up, it felt like a less risky play.

Not so fast, said the basketball injury gods, as Keegan injured his ankle after only a short stint back, and then seemingly hurt one ankle, the other, or both, repeatedly, until the Kings finally shut him down.

Before Murray got put on ice, though, he showed signs of a breakout season. During his 23 active nights, Murray set career highs with 13 shots, 2.1 free throws and 1.6 blocks, and tied his career high with 1.7 assists and 1 steal per game. But no one noticed.

Fast forward a few months, and after two perceived down seasons in a row, expectations are at rock bottom. Keegan is going just as late in drafts this season when fully healthy as he did last season when he was expected to miss the first month of the year!

DeMar DeRozan is gone, Zach LaVine is being phased out, the youth movement is on, and Keegan Murray is poised for a top-65 fantasy season.

Paul George, SF - Boston Celtics
Yahoo Rank - 75

Perhaps post-hype is not the proper terminology for someone who has been in the NBA since 2010. We need a new buzzy name for an old goat breakout candidate fueled by media hate. Maybe the "Still Got It" Breakout?

For our purposes, the name doesn't matter. What does matter is that Paul George is being treated like a puppy pee pad by the national media, one of the scraps the Sixers had to part with to fleece the Boston Celtics in their offseason acquisition of Jaylen Brown.

Paul George sees and hears all of this. We know he's piped in with the media - he had the nickname Podcast P after all!

Drafting PG is not without risks. George rarely plays a full NBA season, and is coming off yet another year where he played in fewer games than he missed.

Those risks, the negative attention, the exasperation the fantasy community feels for Paul George, it all mushes together to create this post-hype bubble that we are set to exploit. Because buried within all the bad was just enough good to give us confidence for this coming season.

Last year, despite the injuries and suspension, George still somehow managed a top-35 ranking as the third fiddle in Philly behind Tyrese Maxey and Joel Embiid. This year, PG goes back to being the number two option, deferring only to Jayson Tatum, a role that more closely resembles his place in the Clippers hierarchy of seasons past.

Paul George is the player I am targeting the most in fantasy drafts. The cost is low - a pick in the 70's is easy to replace if it flops - but the upside is a player that has touched the first round and may push into the top-20 again.

Ausar Thompson, SF - Detroit Pistons
Yahoo Rank - 92

The truest definition of a post-hype player, Ausar Thompson started draft season last year outside the top-100, got hype-blasted into the 80's, stunk to high heavens for the first four months of the 2025-26 campaign before finishing with a push up the rank board. His early rank and ADP this year reflect the sour taste he left in every fantasy manager's mouth that overspent on him a year ago.

The arrow is pointed up for Ausar in year four, though his potential growth seems to be less about throwing a coin in a fountain and wishing for offensive improvement and more about the fact that he is so incredible on defense that teams are gameplanning on how to avoid him. That was a needlessly long way of saying that his 26 minutes per game from last year is fairly likely to tick up.

2025-26 Chaos Creator Landscape (top 50 in deflections per game)

⬆️ Higher STOP% (possession ending plays)
➡️ More Deflections pic.twitter.com/TxPE64XDBp

— Basketball University (@UofBasketball) August 31, 2026

Ausar's value won't come from points or threes. His field goal percent is adequate, and he actually regressed at the foul line last year. Thompson rebounds and assists fine, but neither of those is likely to be a particularly notable impact category, either.

Ausar Thompson's fantasy rank will be tied to two categories and almost nothing else: steals and blocks. And those markers pretty much tell the tale of last season. From October through the middle of January, Thompson averaged 2.4 combined steals and blocks and was ranked #191. From January through the end of the season, Ausar averaged 3.4 combined steals and blocks, and his rank skyrocketed to #46. There were small upward trends in both percentages as well.

Thompson comes into this season with all of that momentum, plus the defensive clinic he put on during the playoffs. In 14 postseason games in 2026, Ausar collected 2 steals and 1.8 blocks per game!

This is the year Thompson puts it together on a more consistent basis. One year late is better than never.

Kel'el Ware, C - Milwaukee Bucks
Yahoo Rank - 82

If you want to nitpick, Ware probably doesn't qualify for this list. He beat his ADP last season by a considerable margin.

Still, until the news broke during the preseason that Ware and Bam Adebayo were unlikely to share the court, Kel'el was a player that many thought was set for a breakout. And while his rank might read #59, averages of 11 points and 9 rebounds with a steal and a block just didn't feel like one.

I would argue that even though Ware was quietly decent last year, we are still operating in a murky pocket of public confusion. Many folks were turned off by Ware's nauseating inconsistency and low playing time, ignoring the marked improvements he showed in almost every area of his offensive game.

This year, Ware joins a Bucks team in rebuild mode as one of the feature pieces sent packing when the Heat acquired Giannis Antetokounmpo. The Bucks have Myles Turner on the roster, but Turner is unlikely to play as much as Adebayo did in Miami. Moreover, Ware has shown enough quickness to log some minutes at power forward, where his main competition for minutes is the aging carcass of Kyle Kuzma.

I would be fairly surprised if Ware's playing time did not increase by at least 10%, and more is very possible. The Bucks will want to see what Kel'el can become; he will get a far longer leash to play through mistakes; and given he was already ranked inside the top-60 in only 22 minutes per game, even a small-to-medium boost in opportunity could land Ware inside the top-40. Look for Ware to approach 14 points, 10 rebounds, and over 2.0 combined defensive stats on strong percentages in this breakout year.

Regular, Old-Fashioned Breakout Quick Hits

Ty Jerome, PG/SG - Memphis Grizzlies 
Yahoo Rank - 87

Jerome already posted a top-40 fantasy season with the Grizzlies, but the public is skeptical of that number after Ty played in just 15 games.

There are reasons to fear that he isn't part of the Grizzlies' long-term plans, but even 22 to 24 minutes per game would be enough to snatch three rounds of value. Take the shot on a season-long breakout after Jerome posted a one-month breakout preview last year.

Norman Powell, SG/SF - Chicago Bulls
Yahoo Rank - 91

At this point, Powell has an assigned seat on any Besbris Old Man Squad list. He has rolled up a pair of top-40 first halves each of the past two seasons, filling in for Kawhi Leonard and then Tyler Herro.

In Chicago this coming year, Norm doesn't need any stars to get out of his way, and the only knock on his value is that his name will be in trade rumors all season long. Expect top-50 production out of Powell as long as he stays put.

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