Fantasy Basketball Unicorns: Unconventional Assists and Defense with Efficiency

October 9, 2026

Thunder Dan Palyo dives into the data to find players who can help in multiple different categories that are not usually correlated. These Fantasy "Unicorns" can be a league-winners.

First of all, let me congratulate you for clicking on an article with a title like this one. I hope you'll join me on a three-part voyage into the deep crevasses of 9-CAT head-to-head fantasy basketball.

Maybe you love fantasy basketball as much as I do and are a true die-hard player. Or maybe you're new to it and just want to learn as much as you can about it and how to win your league this year. Either way, I think you'll find something useful and informative here. My goal when I started this research project several months ago was to try to uncover something new or different that I had not seen anyone else in this space do before, and while I don't think I made any earth-shattering discoveries, I do think that I found what I was looking for, which was some truly unique players who could help us win multiple categories that may not traditionally pair well together.

We are in search of unicorns, folks! Players who can offer a rare mix of statistical goodness that other players can not. Some names will be obvious, but others won't be. In this piece, we will dive into six different category combinations to see which players can help us build rosters that will ultimately help us win our leagues!

Correlational Matrix

I posted this data in my punting guide earlier this week. Except this time, we will be looking at the categories that are negatively correlated with each other. We are, in essence, looking for players who can buck the trends of traditional punt builds by being useful in categories that do not typically marry well.

These results are from a data set that included 455 players from the 2025-2026 season. I used every player who averaged at least 10 or more minutes per game and who appeared in at least 10 games, trying to avoid as many statistical outliers as possible.

I'll remind you once again that the closer the correlation coefficient is to 1.0 or -1.0, the stronger the relationship. Out of 36 stat combinations, 27 were positively correlated, with only nine combinations negatively correlated (shown in red on the chart).

But wait! Remember that turnovers are bad, and the one statistic that we want fewer of than the others. So when we add those additional seven turnover pairings (all but FG% and turnovers, which showed no relationship), we end up with 16 stat combos with negative correlations.

Here they are grouped together in order from the strongest to weakest correlation.

I've highlighted the category combinations that I am going to analyze in this article, which is part one of a three-part series. Three of these combos have to do with assists, while the other three have to do with defensive stats. We'll start with our unconventional assist combos first.

Peculiarly Prolific Passers

Let's first start by acknowledging that assists are the rarest stat in basketball. The average player dishes out about three assists per game, but if you go up just one standard deviation from the mean, only 56 players averaged 4.8 assists or more. Two standard deviations takes us to 6.6, where we find only 21 players. It's a top-heavy category with a small group of elite passers at the top.

So by consulting our correlation chart, we can see that the stats that correlate the most strongly with assists are, in this order, turnovers, points, steals, FT%, and rebounds.

Traditional builds then would focus on players who are the strongest in those areas, with guards making up the majority of players who thrive in stat grouping. But remember that turnovers are bad and you can't ignore them entirely in 9-CAT. In fact, I think being turnover-conscious gives you an edge over a lot of other folks. I understand a very prominent person in the fantasy basketball industry has removed them entirely from his H2H model, which I find really interesting!

So what if you could be competitive in assists without punting turnovers entirely?

Assists and Turnovers

What we are looking at here are the combined z-scores for assists and turnovers. I filtered the results to exclude any players who fell below the average in either statistic, so these players have a positive impact on both your assists and turnovers. This is one of the shorter leaderboards.

This is a fun list, but the majority of these guards are not major needle movers in the assist market.

Davion Mitchell's 6.5 assists per game last year compared to just 1.5 turnovers is tremendous, but he doesn't score or help that much else in other guard categories (1.0 steals, 1.3 threes). He also isn't likely to sustain those assists with Giannis as point-forward in Miami this year.

Pritchard averaged a solid 5.2 dimes last year in Boston, and Shead's 5.4 assists off the bench in Toronto can certainly be impactful. But most of these players are complementary pieces for your team. McConnell, Spencer (who's basically McConnell with fewer steals and more threes), and Jones are bench guys. Nembhard and Conley may not play much this year, and Bridges and DeRozan are just low-turnover glue guy wings who aren't going to chip in more than 3-4 dimes per game.

I love targeting Pritchard in the middle rounds this season. Hopefully, he thrives in Boston again this year, whether he's coming off the bench or not. But he's certainly not a foundational piece for assists.

Perhaps a better way to look at this would be to look at AST/TO ratios for some higher assist players. Here are the best assist-to-turnover ratios among players (other than those from the first chart) who averaged at least five assists per game last year.

• Dyson Daniels - 3.33
• Andrew Nembhard - 3.19
• Jamal Murray - 3.13
• Derrick White - 3.09
• Shai Gilgeous-Alexander - 2.97
• Jalen Brunson - 2.87
• Nikola Jokic - 2.87

Dyson Daniels is going to show up in a lot of unicorn categories, but his assists did go down by about a half an assist per game last year after C.J. McCollum arrived in Atlanta. Nembhard is moving back off the ball in Indy with Haliburton back, and Derrick White will likely have fewer ball-handling duties with Jayson Tatum running the point again.

Since you need a top-four pick to land Jokic or SGA, that leaves Jamal Murray and Jalen Brunson as the big winners here, with Murray being a fantastic second-round target. His assist numbers are a little inflated because of the run he went on when Jokic missed 12 games last year, but he still managed a solid 6.9 assists per game with Joker in the lineup.

Field Goal Percentage and Assists

One thing I hate doing more than punting turnovers is punting field goal percentage. That's why you don't find me drafting Trae Young or LaMelo Ball very often. And while I know you can cancel out their bad shooting with some superbly efficient shooting big men, I'd just rather not go after the point guards who run and gun. Those 8-for-23 shooting nights are brutal, and I feel like being "FG% conscious" is arguably as important as paying attention to turnovers.

Focusing on efficiency is going to be something that others in your league won't do and can give you an edge. These players contributed positively in both assists and FG% last year.

A lot of first-round guys in here for sure, so let's not take too much time talking about how awesome Jokic, Giannis, SGA, and Luka are, shall we?

LeBron James and Alperen Sengun are interesting guys. I've been tough on Sengun since he can't make free throws, but the fact that he doubled his three-pointers made while keeping his FG% at 52% is something. Will he assists dip back down into the five range with Fred VanVleet back? LeBron's FG% impact is less than it once was as he's taking fewer shots, and his assists dipped to just 7.2 last year. He's still going to dish out plenty of dimes in Philly, even if they already have a bunch of other ball-handlers on that super team, too.

Isaiah Collier's run of relevance is likely over in Utah as he shifts back to the bench, and the same thing likely happens to Tre Jones in Chicago, too.

Hey, there's Jamal Murray and Dyson Daniels again! Maybe we are onto something...

Assists and Blocks

Since we typically associate assists with perimeter players, we see guard stat-focused teams punt blocks often. If you land Wemby with the first or second pick, you can lock up blocks pretty easily later and lean into some more assist guys in earlier rounds. If you go with Jokic, you're going to have to do the opposite since he's only chipping in 0.8 blocks per game.

Some players with really good out-of-position blocks (as guards) on this list would be Jalen Suggs (0.7), Cade Cunningham, SGA, and Tyrese Maxey (0.8 each). Then you have one of my favorite unicorns, Derrick White (1.3).

Some big men who can block shots while also dishing out dimes here are Mobley, Sengun, Kessler, Embiid, and Giannis. I am not sure if Kessler will be much of a hub on offense in L.A. with Austin Reaves and Luka running the show, but he at least has the ability to do it. Embiid's assists could dip if Philly runs their offense through Jaylen Brown and LeBron this year, and I already mentioned Sengun facing the return of FVV.

Perhaps the true unicorn in this bunch is Scottie Barnes, who can post low-end point guard assists (5.9), while also blocking more shots than a lot of centers (1.5). If I draft Barnes in the late first or second round, I would definitely be targeting both assists and blocks as categories I want to try to win weekly. Cooper Flagg is being drafted a spot or two ahead of Barnes, but his impact on blocks (0.9), at least so far, has been far less significant.

Assist Unicorns

Here's where I attempt to find out if any of this research has uncovered anything really substantive and actionable! Let's start by looking at which players pop up on our assist leaderboards more than once. I am including the AST/TO leaders with the chart from the assists and turnovers section.

Players Two or More Leaderboards

• Nikola Jokic (3)
• Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (3)
• Scottie Barnes
• Derrick White
• Dyson Daniels
• Jamal Murray
• Tre Jones
• Luka Doncic
• Alperen Sengun
• Giannis Antetokounmpo
• Walker Kessler

A pretty solid list of fantasy studs here, with a few oddballs mixed in. We all know Dyson Daniels has a unique skill set for 9-CAT, but it's important to note that it's not just a product of his steals, which we didn't even evaluate in this section.

Jamal Murray and Derrick White are two players who I value greatly. White's blocks and Murray's superb FG% are real assets, and both guys popped in our high-assist, low-turnover profiles.

Tre Jones (ADP of 116) is a name that stands out here, but his supporters know that he's an ideal guard to pair with big men on teams that want to remain competitive in assists without sacrificing turnovers OR field goal percentage. The trade-off is that he doesn't shoot threes.

Sengun (who was going to be the cover photo, but was edged out late) is a guy who can boost both FG% and blocks while adding assists. His poor FT% makes him a compelling option for a team that drafts Giannis in the first round, as he has the same strengths.

There's one last group of players to look at here before we move on to the next group of stats, and it's players who managed to contribute positively in all four of the categories that we were evaluating.

These are a special group of unicorns who can chip in with slightly more assists than the average pony, while helping out to varying extents in other areas. The Passer Unicorn Rating is a metric I created by comparing every player's impact across these four categories and then weighing them according to how rare each stat combination is in our data set (i.e., positive assist-turnover contributions were far more rare than assist-FG% and assist-block combos).

It's a funky group of players for sure. Claxton and Vucevic are the guys I'm least interested in this year (Claxton is hurt and probably not a hub on offense in Chicago as he was in Brooklyn, and Vucevic is just a bench guy now in Boston). I'm still pretty high on Evan Mobley and higher than most on Okongwu (check my ranks!)

Everyone loves Ausar Thompson this year, and rightfully so, as he's a one-of-one unicorn for H2H leagues. Hell, let's put him on the cover of this article.

We wrap up this section with the full Passer Unicorn Ratings for all other (relevant) players who had positive impacts in at least three of our four target categories. I included their averages from last season just so we can see their actual numbers here and not just their z-scores.

To no one's surprise, Jokic is well ahead of the field with SGA right up there, too. A few guys we haven't mentioned yet, but rate highly here, are Jalen Williams, Amen Thompson, Josh Hart, Dylan Harper, and Craig Porter Jr.

I have been pretty bullish on Harper this offseason; I just hope the Spurs do the right thing and play him as close to 30 minutes as possible. Hart seems to be perennially undervalued despite his unique stat set. And my guy CPJ is someone to watch closely this year if he can win the backup point guard job in Cleveland. He has some major out-of-position blocks potential, as he averaged 0.6 per game last year in just 18 minutes per game.

Efficient Two-Way Players

Holy moly, this article is going to be long because we are just starting our second group of stats. I suppose this could have been a six-part series instead of three, but who has time for that?

If I haven't lost you yet with all this statistical mumbo jumbo, then you, remaining readers, are my people! You can get "draft these five players I like" anywhere else; that's not what we are doing here!

Now we're looking at players who can chip in with some defensive stats, while also contributing in one of the efficiency categories (FG% or turnovers). And no, these categories are not boring; they are incredibly important (though I value efficiency more than a lot of folks, I am aware!)

Field Goal Percentage and Steals

AKA - the Paul Millsap combo! Can I take one minute to appreciate a former fantasy stud who was a staple of my teams for nearly a decade? Millsap's career average across 16 NBA seasons was 49% from the field with 1.2 steals per game (in 28 minutes) as a power forward! He was a true unicorn of his time and a fantasy force in his prime.

Remember, the rules for the leaderboards are that players have to have a positive z-score in both categories; otherwise, we'd have players with a huge value in one category and a negative value in the other category, muddying things up.

It's basically a combination of guards who don't suck at FG% and big men who chip in more steals than blocks if we really boil it down. Kawhi Leonard, Ausar Thompson, Scottie Barnes, and Scottie Barnes don't quite fit into either of those categories as wing players. And aww, look, the Thompson twins are back-to-back right in the middle of our leaderboard.

Let's stop for a minute and poor one out for Jimmy Butler III, who is going to be on several of these unicorn lists but not someone you should draft this season, as he isn't going to play until the All-Star break and then will probably be eased into minutes, rested on back-to-backs, you know the drill.

I'll try not to talk about the same guys over and over again, so let's skip over Dyson Daniels, the Thompson twins, and the first-round guys. Tre Jones shows up here again at the bottom of the list along with Kris Dunn, a well-known steals specialist and one of the few defense-first players left in the league.

Steals and Turnovers

This is very much Cason Wallace's specialty. His 1.9 steals with only 0.9 turnovers puts him well ahead of the field, with our favorite Swiss Army Knife, Ausar Thompson, close behind.

Jordan Goodwin is a player you've streamed a bunch of times, but is tough to roster when he's just playing backup minutes. In fact, this entire list looks like a bunch of steals streamers with perhaps Herbert Jones, Alex Caruso (when healthy), Mikal Bridges, and Reed Sheppard as the exceptions.

Bridges got some love in the last section, so let's talk about Sheppard a bit. He's free in drafts right now (ADP of 121), as the return of FVV to the lineup, paired with the signing of Marcus Smart, is likely to really negatively impact his minutes.

But he finished 71st in 9-CAT last year in just 26 minutes, and there simply aren't many players who can produce 2.8 threes, 1.5 steals, 3.4 assists, and only 1.5 turnovers. I think he's a really good player and a guy who should be drafted, as FVV is going to rest back-to-backs for a while, and you just never know what could happen with injuries to the guys ahead of him on the depth chart.

Blocks and Turnovers

If there's one list in this article where we have almost all of the same prototype of player, it's this one. This is pretty much exclusively low-usage big men who can block shots.

There are a few exceptions, however, as Keegan Murray (18.4% usage) is a guy who can get buckets and drill threes (1.3). But his 1.6 blocks per game last season (just 22 games) were a major outlier when compared to his career average of 0.8. I still like him a lot this year, and it's probably important to mention that he's still just 25 years old and entering his fifth NBA season.

Clingan and Ware are both guys I wrote about as third-year breakouts here. You'll need to use a fourth-round pick on Clingan and a sixth-rounder on Ware (or higher if he keeps balling out in the preseason; the buzz is substantial).

The rest of these guys are late-round picks to round out your rosters. I do think it's worth mentioning that Jay Huff is really good at what he does (threes and blocks) and could still play enough minutes behind Ivica Zubac to deserve a roster spot. The same thing goes for Robert Williams III (aka the TIME LORD), if he could just stay healthy and earn a consistent 18 minutes a night.

Yves Missi is going to start in New Orleans, regardless of what Derik Queen fans want and should be drafted. And don't be surprised if Myles Turner is actually good in fantasy basketball this year after burning a lot of folks last year. Hey, I don't make the rules, people! Unicorns are going unicorn when they feel like it!

Efficient Two-Way Unicorns

This breakdown is much shorter than the assist section, don't worry! First of all, the list of players who made two leaderboards is super short!

Players on Two of Three Leaderboards

• Ausar Thompson
• Kris Dunn

Ausar Thompson is out here unicor-ing around again! And shoutout to Kris Dunn, who was a silly season hero that helped lead a few fantasy teams to a title not that many years ago. I have no idea what his role is going to be in Clipperland this year, however, and he's not someone I think we need to care about until we need to.

Here's our list of players who were positive contributors in all four of the categories we honed in on in this section, with their 2025 per-game averages included.

Our winner of the two-way unicorn title is very clearly Ausar Thompson, with Cason Wallace being a solid runner-up. Wallace doesn't make this list because his FG% is too low, but he headlines the list of players who hit the thresholds in three out of four categories on the next leaderboard.

We can probably ignore Kyle Anderson, who is slated for a backup role in Toronto, but "Slow Mo" is a truly unique fantasy player when given enough minutes (I don't think he'll get them this year, so let's move on).

A lot of guys to like on this list, though, with some of my favorites being OG Anunoby and Jaden McDaniels. These are the perfect "glue guys" to take in the middle rounds and who are almost always undervalued. Andrew Wiggins fits the mold, too, of a steals-blocks-threes guy who you can get much later in drafts. I love him this year, as I think he'll be asked to score more this year as the third option after Giannis and Bam Adebayo in Miami.

Dyson Daniels makes another appearance here (maybe he should have been on the cover?), along with Kawhi Leonard. Where do we draft Kawhi this year? He'll probably be taken too early AND too late in leagues, but the risk/reward is there as we know he's a bona fide 9-CAT stud when he's healthy.

Shout out to Mitch-Rob as the lone big man on this second list. His impact on blocks and FG% is well-known, but 0.9 steals per game in only 19.6 minutes per game is solid. I think he's maxed out around 20 minutes a night, even in Boston now, but he's well worth drafting in the right roster build (punt FT%).

Final Unicorn List And Closing Thoughts

I know what you're thinking - does a 4,000-word article with a million charts and tables need a conclusion? Yeah, I think that it does! Here's the TL:DR for those of you skimmers (stop it, reading is good for your brain!)

If we omit players who are already first-round picks because they are proven 9-CAT studs and pretty obviously unicorns, I think we arrive at this list of players you should be targeting as league-winners (have to fit those buzzwords in!) this season. In order of their ADP...

• Scottie Barnes (15)
• Jamal Murray (21)
• Derrick White (45)
• Dyson Daniels (65)
• OG Anunoby (68)
• Ausar Thompson (82)
• Jaden McDaniels (91)
• Andrew Wiggins (98)
• Cason Wallace (118)

I am very confident we will see some of these names pop up in subsequent parts of this series (wait, there's more?), but it's a pretty good start to our list, and I sign off on drafting all of these fellas ahead of their ADP!

Stay tuned, part two coming soon!

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