Sometimes it takes an expert’s eye to see something before everyone else does, such as Tyler Herro finishing No. 13 on the Player Rater, or Ivica Zubac putting up 16.8 PPG and 12.6 RPG, like each of them did last season.

How many people saw this coming?

If you did, you had a major leg up on the competition in your fantasy basketball leagues — that’s for sure!

With that in mind, we gathered our fantasy basketball experts — André Snellings, Eric Moody, Eric Karabell, Jim McCormick and Steve Alexander — and tasked them with detailing their boldest fantasy predictions for 2025-26.

Brandon Miller will finish in the top 40 on the Player Rater

Currently going 85th on average in ESPN live drafts, Miller’s coaching staff already trusts him to find his own shot, and his ability to create offense for others is only growing. With the potential to loft an absurd number of 3-pointers per game and his knack for amassing defensive numbers, he could follow the Trey Murphy III path to becoming a special 3-and-D fantasy wing as early as this season. Few players his size are this skilled at both slashing and shooting, making Miller an outlier at his position. — McCormick

Joel Embiid and Kawhi Leonard will both finish top 50 in fantasy points this season, and at least one of them will finish in the top 20

Embiid and Leonard are both ultra-elite fantasy hoops performers on a per-game basis that have a history of missing significant quantities of time. Last season, they missed a combined 108 of the possible 164 games. But I look for this season to be bounce-backs for both. Both are entering the season relatively healthy and all it would take is 60-65 games at their typical levels to reach these milestones. — Snellings

Four Celtics will finish among the top 10 in made 3-pointers this season, even with Tatum out

No team has attempted and made more 3-pointers than last season’s Boston Celtics, and that will hardly change just because star Jayson Tatum is out for most, if not the entirety, of the season. Four Celtics — Payton Pritchard, Derrick White, Anfernee Simons and Sam Hauser — will finish among the top 10 in 3s made this season, while a fifth (leading scorer Jaylen Brown) will come close. — Karabell

Matas Buzelis will be a top-25 fantasy player

I foresee the Bulls starting him and giving him around 30 minutes per game, and his stat set is built for fantasy, hopefully providing blocks, steals, 3-pointers, rebounds and blocks. He’s being ignored until later in drafts after last season’s less-than-stellar numbers, but he has as much upside as almost any player in this year’s drafts. I’m trying to get him everywhere. — Alexander

LaMelo Ball plays more than 70 games

Ball has elite fantasy upside when he’s on the floor. Everyone knows that. He averaged 25.2 PPG, 7.4 APG, 4.9 RPG and 3.8 3-pointers last season, showing his all-around impact. The issue has always been health, with just 105 games played over the past three seasons. I think this is the season Ball plays more than 70 games. He is only 24, is fully recovered from ankle and wrist surgeries, and Charlotte’s added depth should help manage his workload. If he stays on the court, he has top-15 fantasy potential. — Moody

SANTA CLARA, Calif. — San Francisco 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan insinuated he wanted Sunday’s game against the Atlanta Falcons to be a big night for running back Christian McCaffrey.

On Saturday, Shanahan challenged his team to get 40 carries against the Falcons, a number that would signify the Niners controlled the line of scrimmage and handed the ball to McCaffrey early and often.

Tight end George Kittle, making his return from a right hamstring injury that caused him to miss five games, was less subtle.

“Every Saturday night, our tight end coach [Brian] Fleury wants all the tight ends to get up in front of the room and set a goal,” Kittle said. “Anywhere from dominate the edges, tight end touchdown, whatever goals. And my goal this week was CMC [to be] NFC Player of the Week. And if I actually called that, that might be the best guess of all time.”

After the 49ers had put the finishing touches on a 20-10 win to improve to 5-2, Kittle’s goal looked exceedingly realistic. McCaffrey, who has remained the focal point of the Niners’ offense despite the unit’s injury woes, had his finest performance in a season full of them.

By the time McCaffrey was through, he had posted a season-high 129 rushing yards on 24 carries with 2 rushing touchdowns. He also led the Niners in receiving with seven catches for 72 yards, including a 17-yard grab on third-and-13 before his game-sealing 4-yard touchdown run.

His 201 scrimmage yards were the most by McCaffrey as a Niner and accounted for 62% of the team’s yards from scrimmage, the highest percentage for any player in a game this season. And though the 49ers finished one shy of Shanahan’s goal of 40 carries, they accumulated a season-high 174 rushing yards on 39 attempts, an average of 4.5 yards per carry, also a season high.

McCaffrey continued to etch his name in the franchise and league record books for all-purpose production.

• This was McCaffrey’s sixth game this season with 50-plus rushing yards and 50-plus receiving yards, the most by any player in NFL history through a team’s first seven games.

• It was McCaffrey’s ninth career game with 100-plus rushing yards and 50-plus receiving yards, tied with Jim Brown and Priest Holmes for the third most in NFL history.

• McCaffrey joined Roger Craig (1988) as the only 49ers with seven straight games of 100-plus scrimmage yards to open a season.

Through Sunday night’s games, McCaffrey leads the NFL in scrimmage yards (981), and his six total touchdowns is tied for fourth most. Despite the run game struggling mightily through the first six games, McCaffrey is on pace to have over 1,000 yards each rushing and receiving, and, at his current rate, he would surpass the NFL record of 1,097 receiving yards by a running back in a season with room to spare.

“He’s huge,” Shanahan said. “He’s the most consistent player I’ve been around. He just allows you to stay on track. He gets every yard in the run game and more and what he does in the pass game … it’s rare that you’re going to throw a ball to him and not get a completion.”

After another do-it-all performance, McCaffrey quickly credited his teammates. It was no coincidence that the 49ers’ run game took off upon Kittle’s return. McCaffrey had 20 rushes for 126 yards and 2 touchdowns when Kittle was on the field, compared with four rushes for 3 yards when he was not.

Although Kittle’s streak of 114 games with a reception ended, his presence was felt not only as a blocker in the run game but in the attention he drew from defenders. On the third-and-13 completion to help seal the win, 49ers quarterback Mac Jones said he saw multiple Falcons cover Kittle, leaving McCaffrey one-on-one for the easy first down.

“It’s a different ballgame when he’s in there,” McCaffrey said. “Even when he doesn’t have a big statistical game, the attention that he draws opens so much up … When you’ve got guys like that on the field, just their presence alone strikes a lot of fear in coordinators and so you have to keep eyes on them.”

Kittle’s return wasn’t the only emotional pick-me-up for the 49ers. After losing star linebacker Fred Warner (right ankle surgery) for the season, the Niners spent the week answering questions about how the defense would fare without Warner (and star defensive end Nick Bosa, who suffered a torn right ACL in Week 3).

Niners linebacker Dee Winters arrived at the game wearing Warner’s No. 54 jersey, multiple players warmed up wearing a shirt with Warner’s face on it, and Warner received a loud ovation pregame when he made his way onto the field with the help of a scooter. During the game, Warner was shown holding his young son in a suite and it drew cheers so loud that Kittle joked the Niners’ offense almost had to go to a silent count on that play.

Perhaps nobody was more inspired by Warner’s absence than his replacement, second-year linebacker Tatum Bethune. Bethune said he cried before the game, not just because Warner was out, but for the chance to prove to doubters that the 49ers’ defense can still slow down opponents.

For the second week in a row, Bethune finished with 10 tackles, leading a Niners defense that held Atlanta to 292 yards on 4.9 yards per play, including a season-low 62 rushing yards.

“I saw all of it and as a defense we didn’t talk about it, but I felt a certain way about it,” Bethune said. “I was emotional before the game. … It’s unfortunate that Fred got hurt, but it’s also an opportunity for me to be able to expand and get better while I can before he gets back.”

Pakistan won the toss and elected to bat first against South Africa in the second Test of the two-match series, part of the ICC Test Championship 2025-27, at Rawalpindi Cricket Stadium on Monday.

The hosts lead the series 1-0 after a 93-run victory in the Lahore Test, highlighted by Noman Ali’s 10-wicket haul.

Pakistan made one change to their lineup, bringing in 38-year-old Asif Afridi, who replaces pacer Hasan Ali and makes his Test debut. South Africa, meanwhile, included Marco Jansen and Keshav Maharaj in their playing XI.

Following the red-ball series, both teams will compete in One Day International (ODI) and T20 International (T20I) series.

The three-match T20I series will begin on October 28 and conclude on November 1, with the first match in Rawalpindi and the remaining two at Gaddafi Stadium.

The tour will wrap up with a three-match ODI series, scheduled from November 4 to 8, with all games to be held at Iqbal Stadium, Faisalabad.

Playing XIs:

Pakistan: Imam-ul-Haq, Abdullah Shafique, Shan Masood (c), Babar Azam, Saud Shakeel, Mohammad Rizwan (wk), Salman Agha, Shaheen Afridi, Noman Ali, Sajid Khan, and Asif Afridi.

South Africa: Aiden Markram (c), Ryan Rickelton (wk), Tristan Stubbs, Tony de Zorzi, Dewald Brevis, Kyle Verreynne, Senuran Muthusamy, Marco Jansen, Simon Harmer, Keshav Maharaj, and Kagiso Rabada.