Round-By-Round, Who Were the Best Fantasy Basketball Players in 2016-17?

A few days ago, ESPN published an interesting piece on this year's perfect fantasy basketball draft. For an 8-category, 10-team league and 13-round draft, it took into account each player's average draft position (ADP) and player rating in ESPN leagues. Over-performance of ADP was the determining factor in what made up the ideal player for each round.

But what they didn't do was take into account actual ADP. It was about out-performing it. For example, Giannis Antetokounmpo, with an ADP of 13, wasn't actually a first round pick -- at least, on average. Nonetheless, he was the ideal first-round selection. This means that a player might not have been drafted at all in standard leagues.

Here, our process differs. We're going to use actual ADP (courtesy of Basketball Monster) to see in what round players were drafted. Then, based on Basketball Monster's player value -- a standard score statistic where a score of 0.0 is average, 2.0 or above is very good and -2.0 or below is very bad -- we can find the best overall player for each round of standard ESPN leagues.

We are using per-game values in order to set aside injuries and focus on player performance alone. So, we're assuming a healthy season for every player in order to most accurately field the best roster of players.

In addition to ADP, we'll be making note of that value and its ranking among all players. We'll also see how each player has performed in each of the eight categories, based on the same standard score value. Their elite categories will include the values for those statistical areas.

And now that you know the process, let's reminisce about what could've been in a perfect draft in a perfect fantasy basketball world.