Fantasy basketball punting categories: which punts the 2026-27 board rewards

What punting is

A 9-category league scores you in points, rebounds, assists, steals, blocks, 3-pointers made, field goal percentage, free throw percentage and turnovers. Punting means giving up one of the nine on purpose. You stop drafting for it, accept that you will usually lose it in a head-to-head week (or sit near the bottom of it in roto), and spend every pick on the other eight.

The case for it lives in the z-scores. The Parlae board scores each player in each category against the top 156 players, then adds the nine numbers. A player who is far below the pool in one category carries that hole in his total. Remove the category and the hole is gone.

Giannis Antetokounmpo is the cleanest example. His FT% score is -4.5, the worst in the 9-cat top 60. It erases his FG% score of +3.6 and leaves his total at 0.5, which ranks 50th. Take FT% out and his total is 0.5 + 4.5 = 5.0, which ranks 7th. Same player, same box scores, 43 places higher.

How the punt ranks are built

The punt ranks on the 9-cat board do one thing. They take each player's standard 9-cat total, subtract one category's z-score, and re-rank the top 156. They do not re-measure the pool. The averages and spreads behind the other eight scores are still the full 9-cat ones, and nothing about your punt changes how the rest of your league drafts. Read a punt rank as a fast estimate of where a player sits for your build, not as a new board.

Two smaller notes. Category scores are printed to one decimal, so a hand sum can land 0.1 off the printed total. And FG% and FT% are weighted by attempts, so a poor shooter on high volume scores far worse than a poor shooter who rarely shoots.

Punt FT%: where the board moves most

Source: Parlae 9-cat board and punt FT% ranks, Oct 12 2026; FT% from Sleeper's 2025-26 season totals. Places gained is the 9-cat rank minus the punt rank.

The biggest jumps start low on the board, but the landing spots that change a draft are near the top: Giannis at 7th and Gobert at 18th. Gobert's 9-cat total is -0.5. Without his -3.3 at the line it is 2.8.

The punt FT% top 12 adds five players: Giannis, Anthony Davis, Evan Mobley, Anthony Edwards and Jalen Johnson. It drops five: Donovan Mitchell, Lauri Markkanen, Jamal Murray, Stephen Curry and Trey Murphy. Every one of the five who drop shot 86.5% or better at the line last season (Curry 92.3%, Markkanen 89.6%, Murray 88.7%, Murphy 88.6%, Mitchell 86.5%). In this build, their best category is the one you gave away.

The build also leans on field goal percentage. The three biggest FG% scores in the 9-cat top 60 that come with a negative FT% score belong to Giannis (+3.6), Jalen Duren (+3.0) and Jarrett Allen (+2.3). Mobley fits the same shape at +1.3 in FG% and -2.7 in FT%.

The other five punts

Source: Parlae 9-cat punt ranks, Oct 12 2026, compared with the standard 9-cat top 12.

Punt FG% barely touches the top. Cade Cunningham comes in and Scottie Barnes goes out. The risers are guards and wings who shoot a lot of threes at low percentages: Morant at 41.0%, Grayson Allen at 40.3%, Donte DiVincenzo at 40.6%. Higher on the board, LaMelo Ball (-2.2) and Derrick White (-2.1) have the two worst FG% scores in the 9-cat top 60, so they are the early fits.

Punt TO is the build for high-usage creators. Ten of the standard 9-cat top 12 have a negative turnover score, led by Luka Dončić at -2.7 and Nikola Jokić at -2.4. Josh Giddey goes from 60th to 30th and Deni Avdija from 67th to 34th. Ja Morant has the largest jump on any punt list, 79 places, but he played 20 games last season and 9 the season before. That is a games risk this rank does not price.

Punt AST, 3PM and PTS reward the same kind of player: centers who rebound, block shots and score inside. Mitchell Robinson is a top riser on four of the six punt lists (FT%, AST, 3PM, PTS), and Ryan Kalkbrenner on three (AST, 3PM, PTS). Their best landing spots sit between 47th and 58th, so these punts reshape your middle and late rounds more than your first three. Punt 3PM does pull Jimmy Butler into the top 12, and Sleeper lists him Out with a knee injury today.

Six players who fit every punt

Jokić, Victor Wembanyama, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Kawhi Leonard, Tyrese Maxey and Dončić are in the top 12 of all six punt boards. If you pick in the top six of a 9-cat draft, your first pick does not need a plan yet.

Dončić gains the most from one specific punt. His 9-cat total is 6.2 and his turnover score is -2.7, so punting TO lifts him to 8.9, third on that board behind Jokić and Wembanyama. Leonard is the age question in the group: he is 35 and played 37 games two seasons ago before 65 last season.

What to do on draft night

1. Take the best player first. From the top six, your opening pick fits any punt. Decide the build in rounds 2 and 3, based on who is there.
2. Let Giannis trigger punt FT%. If he is available after the top six, the board has him 7th in that build. Pair him with the bigs from the table, and read his 36 games last season as the risk you are taking. His player page has the full line.
3. Stop paying for the punted category. In punt FT%, Curry, Markkanen, Murray, Murphy and Mitchell lose most of what made them top 12. Let someone else take them.
4. Check a double punt by hand. The board ranks one punt at a time. To test two, subtract both scores from the total: Mitchell Robinson is -2.2 overall with -2.0 in FT% and -1.7 in 3PM, so punting both puts him at -2.2 + 2.0 + 1.7 = 1.5.
5. Check status before you commit. Gobert is listed GTD (rest), Nurkić Out (foot) and Butler Out (knee) on Sleeper today. See the injury report, and the points vs categories guide if your league is not 9-cat at all.