Nikola Jokic and Victor Wembanyama lead 10-team fantasy mock draft

Nikola Jokic and Victor WembanyamaVictor WembanyamaSpurs · France · Center were the first two players selected in a 10-team roto/category fantasy basketball mock draft published in the last week of September. The mock places the pair at the head of the board in a format that ranks managers across statistical categories rather than in weekly head-to-head matchups. Which of the two was taken first has not been established.

2025-26

Season 2025-26

Who went at the top of the board

The exercise names Jokic and Wembanyama as the opening selections, with the rest of the field following behind them. That much is fixed by the mock itself. What it leaves open is the order at the very top: the two are listed together as the first players taken, so which manager picked which is unsettled. For fantasy purposes the distinction is narrow — both are gone inside the first two picks — but it is the question the format invites.

How roto/category scoring shapes a draft

Thomas S · CC BY-SA 2.0

Roto, or rotisserie, leagues are not decided week by week. Teams accumulate statistics across a fixed set of categories and are ranked against every other team in each one, with those rankings combining into a season-long table that shifts as games are played. A 10-team draft in that format rewards managers who think about balance, because a player who contributes across several categories tends to be valued above one who dominates a single statistic. The specific categories used in this mock have not been detailed.

Why the first two picks carry weight

Bando31 · CC BY 4.0

Putting Jokic and Wembanyama at the top is a valuation, and it is one a category format tends to amplify. A first pick sets the statistical floor for the rest of a roster, so the opening selection shapes the middle and late rounds as much as it shapes the top. Read the pair as the reference points the rest of this mock was built around.

What the mock does not answer

• Which of the two players was taken with the first pick.
• The complete order of the first round.
• How the picks were made — live, simulated or otherwise — and who took part.
• The exact statistical categories and any roster settings beyond the 10-team roto/category format.

Mock drafts are preparation rather than prediction. They give managers an early sense of where players are likely to be taken and how quickly a position will be emptied, and they are revised constantly as new information arrives. This one is a late-September snapshot, taken before any of the season's results exist to move valuations in either direction.

What happens next

Nothing in the exercise binds anyone. Real leagues draft to their own settings and on their own schedules, and their opening picks will not match this one. No club, league or player has any stake in the result, and no decision about an upcoming season rests on it. Further mock drafts in the same format will follow, and the top of this board is where the next set will start.