Industry Pickup: Early Insights from the First Two Weeks

This year, I’m part of Industry Pickup, a group of NBA fantasy leagues with industry professionals, founded last year by BDub, Alex Rikleen, and Josh Lloyd. This season, we have three leagues: one for Roto, one for H2H Snake, and the league I’m in—H2H Auction. All leagues have games caps in place.

Below are some of my observations and key takeaways from the first two weeks:

Punts

Different punting strategies are in play, and they’re showing promising results early on. Adam King, for example, has a punt guard stats build, which led to a narrow 4-5 loss in Week 2 and a 5-4 win in Week 1. Steals seem to be a swing category in his build, and Adam has made some targeted waiver pickups (like Javonte Green, Kris Dunn, and Derrick Jones Jr.) that reflect that focus. Jacob from NBA Trash Talk has taken the opposite approach with a punt big-man build, won his first two weeks and in the process, picked up players like Jordan Hawkins and Buddy Hield who fit his build seamlessly.

Key takeaway: Punts are effective, but success depends on doubling down on your strengths and constantly monitoring swing categories for waiver pickups that support your build.

Diamond Hands

Managers are showing patience with players who have started slow, whether due to injuries or early underperformance. In a league with this level of experience, managers aren’t making quick-trigger drops. Players like Dyson Daniels (when injured), Collin Sexton, Scoot Henderson, and Mike Conley (all due to perceived underperformance) have remained rostered here, even though they’ve been dropped in many Yahoo and Fantrax leagues.

This highlights the importance of patience, especially early in the season, when players’ performances can fluctuate.

Close Matchups

As expected in a highly competitive league, matchups have been incredibly tight. Of the 12 matchups in the first two weeks, seven ended in 5-4 wins. The lesson here: In competitive leagues, understanding your opponent’s strengths, your own, and swing categories is crucial. Strategic waiver wire pickups and streaming can help, but with games caps, it’s also about knowing when a streamer is worth one of your limited game slots.

League Standings here:

Hope you enjoyed this piece on Industry Pickup and I hope you were able to take away some learnings for your leagues!