2026-27 Fantasy Basketball Keeper Calculator

What the calculator is measuring

Keeper value is the gap between what a player is projected to add to your lineup and what the pick you burn on him would have added instead. Both are measured above a replacement-level starter in your format and roster shape, so the answer is one number with a sign on it. Positive means the keeper is cheaper than the market; negative means he is not. Replacement in basketball is read through eligibility: a player listed PG/SG is priced against the cheaper of the waiver options at point guard and at shooting guard, because that is the seat his manager would refill, and a pure center is priced against the waiver center, which in a league that starts two centers on every roster is a thin shelf. A player the league board does not seat at all, one who would not start for any team in a league of your size and shape, is worth exactly zero here, and keeping him costs the pick and buys nothing.

How the pick gets its price

The pick comes first: round three from slot six of a 12-team snake draft costs pick 30, because the odd rounds run the slots in order and the even rounds run them back. Then every player with both a current draft position and a MustDraft value goes on a curve, the players within a few picks of yours are averaged with the nearest weighted heaviest, and the curve is smoothed so a later pick never costs more than an earlier one. The draft position is the market's, read from the drafts our source publishes and named in the methodology, never a ranking of ours. The range around the price is half a round either side, the smallest unit a keeper rule ever moves a price by. A firm keep or let go appears only when the keeper's value clears that range; overlap is a close call, and a player carried by one projection source never gets a strong verdict, only a lean. The strip under the table shows what each round buys on the same curve, so you can see at a glance where a keeper's round sits.

The round he costs, typed or derived

The common convention is that a keeper costs the round he was drafted in last year, often one round earlier each season he is kept, and some leagues charge a breakout the round he would go in now. Type the round you will actually forfeit and the math holds. Leave it on his draft position and the calculator charges what a fresh draft would: the round his current average draft position falls in. That reading answers a different question, whether the market agrees with the projection, and a keeper priced this way lands near zero surplus when the two agree. A player nobody is drafting yet, a second-round rookie or a man coming back from a lost season, has no draft position, so he cannot be priced until you type a round; the sheet says so rather than guessing at one.

Categories change the currency, not the method

Under the points format the value is measured in points: a point for a point, two for an assist, four for a block, and the rest of the table's weights. Switch to 9-cat and the same player is worth his summed z-scores, how far he moves each of the nine categories against the projected pool, with field-goal and free-throw percentage weighted by attempts and turnovers turned so that up is always good. The method does not change, the units do, and it matters most for the specialists. A center who blocks two shots a game, shoots 65 percent from the floor and never takes a three carries three columns on his own and hardly registers in points, so his verdict can flip from let go to keep when you change the format chip. The category cells beside each keeper are the reason: a keeper with two deep green cells and a red one in free throws is a punt-build keeper, and whether that is worth his round depends on whether those two columns are ones you intend to win. Set the picker to your league's real categories, and to 8-cat if your league drops turnovers, before you read a verdict.

Punting before you decide

Punting is the core category strategy in basketball, and it changes keeper prices more than anything else on this page. A manager who has decided to concede free-throw percentage should not pay for free throws in a keeper, and should not be charged for a big man's misses either. The punt toggle beside each category takes it out of every value on the sheet, the league board is re-seated on the adjusted sums, and the pick curve is refitted, so both sides of the comparison move together. A dominant big with a poor free-throw line kept in round three can be a close call on the full board and a firm keep on a board without free throws; the same toggle on the category rankings shows the same player rise the same way, because both pages read one value. Try the punt before you lock a keeper, because a keeper you cannot use in your build is a pick you spent on someone else's plan.

The cheap center, and the two-center rule

Positional scarcity is weak in basketball because most players carry two positions and every roster has utility seats, with one exception: the center seat. The default roster shape starts two centers, and there are fewer players eligible there than at any other seat, so the replacement center is a worse player than the replacement guard and a center's value above replacement is higher than his stat line alone would say. That is why a starting center kept in round nine is so often the best value on a keeper sheet, and why the same center is worth less on the roster rule with one center seat and three utility seats. Switch the roster rule to your league's before you read a center's verdict; the pool is re-priced for it, and the center's number is the one that moves most.

Injuries, load management and the lost season

The projection behind every value is a per-game line times the games we expect the player to play, and games played is where basketball keeper math goes wrong most often. A star who missed half of last season with a soft-tissue injury is projected on what he does when he plays and a games figure that already discounts him, so his value here is lower than his talent and higher than his last box score. A veteran on a load-management club loses a handful of games to rest, which the games figure carries too. What the sheet cannot know is a surgery announced this week, so a keeper listed out for the season still carries his projection, with a flag beside his name where the status is known. Read the flag before the surplus, and remember that a keeper who spends the year on the injured list costs the pick and returns nothing.

When the answer is let him go

The classic let-go is a player kept at a price set the year he broke out, whose projection has come back to earth while the round has not. In basketball that is usually a scorer who had a season as the first option on a bad club and has since been traded into a smaller role, or a young player whose usage fell when a star came back. When the surplus sits within a point or two of zero, the decision belongs to your roster and your league's rules rather than to a curve. Dynasty, rookie-only and auction keeper formats are outside this version, and so are the best-game formats, where a player's ceiling matters more than his average. Once your keepers are locked, the printable cheat sheet ranks the rest of the pool for the seats you have left, and the mock room lets you rehearse the draft that follows.