2025-2026 ADP Beaters

In February 2022 Nickeil Alexander-Walker was traded in the middle of a season. He had been playing twenty-six minutes a night in New Orleans and scoring thirteen. He arrived in Utah and played nine minutes a night, scored three and a half, and shot 30% from three.

Eleven months later it happened again — Utah to Minnesota, the second mid-season trade of his career, the second time a coach who had not drafted him looked at the roster and found somewhere else to put the ball.

That is what the middle of an NBA career looks like when nobody is sure what you are. He was a guard who could defend. The scouting line on him, for about six years, was good on the ball, can't shoot, and the numbers agreed: 31.1% from three one season, 30.3% the next.

Then Minnesota gave him eighty-two games two years running, and he was fine. Eight points. Then nine. Steady, useful, entirely ignorable — the kind of season that gets you a contract and no phone calls.

Last October he went to Atlanta, and nobody drafted him.

What happened next

He scored 20.8 points a night. He made more than three threes a game, nearly double his previous best, and made 39.9% of them. He took 1.3 steals. He shot 90.2% from the free throw line, which is a number for specialists, not for career third guards — and he had shot 67.6% as a rookie.

At twenty-seven, in his seventh season and for his fourth franchise, he stopped being a role player.

Sixty-six of the ninety-four voters put him first for Most Improved Player. Three hundred and ninety-six points — more than Jalen Duren and Deni Avdija combined.

The fantasy side of it was worse, or better, depending on where you were sitting. He came off draft boards around pick 153. In a twelve-team league that is the thirteenth round, the part of the draft where you are picking between a rookie you've never seen and a backup center. He finished the season as the twelfth most valuable player in fantasy basketball.

Nobody in the league gained more ground on their draft price. Nobody was close.

The man who improved and cost you the league

Deni Avdija finished third in that vote, and he is the more interesting case, because he has been getting better every single year and nobody ever noticed.

Six seasons: 6.3 points, 8.4, 9.2, 14.7, 16.9, and then 24.2. There is no plateau anywhere in that line. He has been the most improved player on his own team six years running.

Last season he finally got the votes. It was also the season he lost people their leagues.

He was drafted 46th, in the fourth round, priced as a man who had just scored seventeen a night. He finished 76th. Look at what happened underneath the points: his three-point percentage fell from 36.5% to 31.8%. His field goal percentage fell. His steals fell. His turnovers went from 2.7 a game to 3.8 — more than one extra giveaway every night. And he played sixty-six times instead of seventy-two.

He scored seven more points by taking a great many more shots, less well. On television that is a leap. In a nine-category league it is a wash, and he had already been paid for.

Better, and worth more

These are different words and the ballot only tracks one of them.

Most Improved Player asks whether a man got better than he used to be. Your draft asks whether he got better than you paid. Duren is the ordinary case — second in the voting, a genuine leap from 11.8 points to 19.5, and he gained only thirty-four places because everyone saw it coming and took him 57th.

Alexander-Walker is rare because he answered both questions at once, and he could only do that because of those seven years. Nobody prices a breakout from a man who has already been given four chances. There was no history to extrapolate. He had been the same player for so long that the whole league had finished wondering.

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The full list — 2025-26

Everyone drafted inside the first 190 picks, by how far they beat their price.

#	Player	Pos	ADP	Total Rank	Per Game Rank	Gain
1	Nickeil Alexander-Walker	G	153.3	12	28	+141
2	Saddiq Bey	F	187.9	58	86	+130
3	Jay Huff	C	162.1	46	105	+116
4	Neemias Queta	C	150.3	35	61	+115
5	Ryan Rollins	G	142.8	33	49	+110
6	Kon Knueppel	F	118.9	26	68	+93
7	Keldon Johnson	F	178.7	91	192	+88
8	Donte DiVincenzo	G	133.1	48	104	+85
9	Cason Wallace	G	139.3	56	102	+83
10	Derik Queen	C	151.1	68	139	+83
11	Wendell Carter Jr.	C	145.2	63	117	+82
12	Reed Sheppard	G	110.7	29	72	+82
13	Onyeka Okongwu	C	100.4	25	40	+75
14	Tre Jones	G	150.4	75	75	+75
15	Ayo Dosunmu	G	149.0	74	97	+75
16	Donovan Clingan	C	90.6	21	35	+70
17	VJ Edgecombe	G	106.4	38	64	+68
18	Jaden McDaniels	F	112.2	44	66	+68
19	Kel'el Ware	C	97.1	30	56	+67
20	Jeremiah Fears	G	175.3	112	228	+63
21	Brandin Podziemski	G	112.9	55	125	+58
22	Jabari Smith Jr.	F	107.2	50	88	+57
23	Naz Reid	C	107.4	51	89	+56
24	Mikal Bridges	F	71.4	16	43	+55
25	Andrew Wiggins	F	103.1	52	63	+51

Total Rank is the season as a whole. Per Game Rank is per night. Keldon Johnson is the gap in one line: 192nd in the league on a per-night basis, 91st most valuable, because he showed up eighty-two times.

ADP is the consensus of ESPN, Yahoo, Underdog and Fantrax. Finishing rank is nine-category value from our own game logs, regular season only.