Keepers 2026

 

Pre-Draft Trades: 2026

Trade ID #172

• MEMM receive Ja Morant
• ABCX receive Josh Giddey, 2026 SOUR RD3 (RD3.9)

New owner MEMM wasted zero time detonating the UFOS leftovers, flipping Giddey and a third for the ultimate chaos engine in Ja Morant. MonStars get a hometown star and an identity, while ABCX adds yet another young playmaker to his rebuild stack.

Trade ID #173

• BUFF receive: Lauri Markkanen
• FUNK receive: 2026 BUFF RD1 (RD1.2)

BUFF turns future capital into present-day firepower with Markkanen, while FUNK doubles down on the youth pipeline. Classic win-win: Buffy grabs points now, Funk collects the kind of pick that keeps rebuilds humming. Note: As a condition of the trade, FUNK is keeper-ing Lauri Markannen, and the trade will execute after BUFF selects 2026 RD1.2 pick in the upcoming draft.

Trade ID #174

• SCRM receive: Austin Reaves
• SPDE receive: 2026 SCRM RD1 (RD1.16)

Defending champ SCRM keeps surrounding Shai with smart role players, bringing in Reaves as the perfect connector. SPDE, ever the asset broker, pockets a first-rounder for a glue guy. Quiet move, loud fit.

Trade ID #175

• FUNK receive: 2026 CHMK RD1 (RD1.3), 2028 CHMK RD3
• CHMK receive: Myles Turner, 2027 FUNK RD1 (top-4 protected)

CHMK upgrades his front line next to Mobley with Turner, while FUNK converts another vet into prime draft stock. It’s the dynasty economy at work: contending team gets its rim protector, rebuilding team reloads the war chest. Note: As a condition of the trade, FUNK is keeper-ing Myles Turner, and the trade will execute after CHMK selects 2026 RD1.3 pick in the upcoming draft. (Note 2: 2027 FUNK pick protected for picks #1-4. If picks are #1-4, then the pick moves to 2028 or 2029 at CHMK's sole discretion.)

Trade ID #176

• SCRM receive: Anthony Edwards, Bam Adebayo, CHMK 2026 RD3
• CHMK receive: Giannis Antetokounmpo, Dyson Daniels, SCRM 2026 RD2

The offseason’s thunderclap. SCRM trades Giannis for a younger two-headed monster in Ant + Bam, reshaping SCRM into a long-term contender overnight. CHMK cashes back in on win-now MVP gravity. One deal, two entirely new trajectories.

Trade ID #177

• FJUB receive: Trey Murphy III
• FUNK receive: 2026 FJUB RD1 (RD1.5), 2027 FJUB RD3

FJUB leans future, FUNK hoards futures. Trey Murphy heads to a team that needs shooting now, and FUNK adds yet another high pick to a vault that’s starting to look like a hedge-fund balance sheet.

Trade ID #178

• MEMM receive: Devin Vassell
• FUNK receive: Jabari Smith Jr.

MEMM swaps theoretical upside for proven two-way chops, adding Vassell to balance Ja’s volatility. FUNK bets on a Jabari bounce-back, exactly the kind of slow-burn gamble that built his reputation. Both teams stay on brand.

Rules: Postseason 3.0

We introduced the Postseason 2.0 rules in 2019, along with a slew of other changes, including FAAB. As we head into the 2026 season, we are about to revamp again, to Postseason 3.0 rules. These rules go into affect for our upcoming season.

There will also be a new draft system, to be implemented for 2027, as outlined here: Draft and Draft Lottery 2027.

P L A Y O F F S 3.0

• The new revamped postseason will be a twelve-team playoffs for Power Rankings #1-12
• The top four regular season teams, #1-4, will receive a bye in the first round
• The bottom four teams, #13-16, will not participate in a postseason whatsoever
• The new playoffs will be extended by a week—so now at four weeks total
• Toilet Bowl is eliminated

The goal here is simple: get more teams playing for something meaningful. Bottom dwellers now have a shot at sneaking into the playoffs, while the top and middle squads chase a real prize in the form of a first-round bye. From there, everyone gets thrown into a super-tournament featuring the top twelve teams.

After plenty of back-and-forth, we landed on this streamlined fix: expand the playoffs. Yes, it comes at the cost of losing the Toilet Bowl, but overall this setup checks every box for what we want SlamNation to be. And to keep things steady, we’re committing to this format for the next five years--aside from small tweaks--so we’re not yanking the foundation out from under anyone.

(1) Playoff Bracket Reseeding

As before, we are reseeding every bracket in the playoffs—which ESPN now allow us to do as an option. This means the top seed will always face the lowest seed in each matchup.

(2) Lock Transactions for Eliminated Teams

In addition, we are locking transactions for eliminated teams in the playoffs—also now an ESPN option. Those teams that didn’t make the playoffs have their rosters locked upon conclusion of the regular season.

[ Update Mar 2026: The new SCRM Rule says that teams in the playoffs, once eliminated, can still pick up players that following Monday--meaning the add was submitted on Sunday night. After that their transactions are locked and any future transactions will be immediately reversed. ]

(3) Trade Deadline

As before, the trade deadline for all teams will be the conclusion of the regular season.

(4) Regular Season Length

We’re going from eighteen regular season matchups to seventeen, to accommodate the extra week of playoffs. That means our fantasy regular season ends right after—or around—the NBA All Star break. We end our entire SlamNation season by about three weeks earlier than the NBA regular season to not have to deal with end of the year lineup shenanigans.

(5) Weekly Games Caps Number

This will remain at 21 for the soft cap, and will undergo no changes. [ Weekly Games Cap Explainer ]

(6) Elimination of Conferences

We eliminated divisions in 2019 and now we are also eliminating conferences. With the most important standings being the overall standings, it’ll be easier to see on the ESPN page what exact rank we are as we go along.

Note: I’ll still use the Russell and Chamberlain Conference names for flavor in blogs and articles, but as in recent years, they’re purely cosmetic. TeamIDs reflect the old setup: #1–8 were Russell, #9–16 were Chamberlain.

(7) Tie-Breakers

These are the tie-breakers we'll be using for determining Power Rankings. [ Reference 2010 ]

1. Overall Record
2. Head-to-Head Record among tied teams. If more than two are tied, use head-to-head winning percentage across all tied teams.
3. Total Categories Won for the season. If head-to-head is the same, the team with the most categories won (using our scoring system over the full season) gets the edge. Think of it as a season-long H2H matchup.
4. Coin flip if still tied. Details (e.g., multiple-team scenarios) will be determined at the time.

(8) Regular Season Crown 👑

With the elimination of Toilet Bowl and Toilet Bowl winner, we shall be introducing a new award: The regular season wins crown!

(9) Inattentive Owners

We’ll be keeping a closer eye on inattentive ownership and reserve the right to step in--whether that means a warning to tighten up or, in extreme cases, a replacement. At the bare minimum, we expect engaged owners who set their lineups.

The benchmark: if your Games Played falls below 90% of the league average, or if you rack up lineup violations for roughly a quarter of the season, you’ll be flagged. [ Sample of Owners Rating 2025 | Games Played Sheet ]

That said, most of you have been around forever and this usually isn’t an issue. Life happens, of course, and we’ll give plenty of leeway—any decisions here will play out over at least two seasons unless someone is so neglectful that we need to act immediately. Broadly speaking: just keep up with your squads!

Rules: Draft and Draft Lottery 2027

We’re shaking up the way our annual six-round draft works. The Toilet Bowl? Gone. RD1 draft slots? Gone. The SWMP Rule? Also gone. The new focus is on randomizing Round 1 picks and tying them directly to the real NBA lottery odds. (Details on how those odds will be distributed are below.)

As for Rounds 2 through 6, we’re flipping the script. Instead of snaking through the Power Rankings from #1–16, we’ll now go #16 down to #1 in straight order every round. No more snake. This tweak should give the weaker teams a much-needed boost while keeping things competitive throughout.

That's it and very simple. We are instituting this for the 2027 season. Also, in case you wanted to take a look, here are the 2024 and 2025 two-year cumulative records

RD1: Lottery

(1) We’ll use the combined records from the two most recent regular seasons. The team with the worst cumulative record gets the highest chance at the #1 pick.

(2) Each SlamNation team will be assigned odds based on the NBA Draft Lottery structure.

(3) The NBA’s #13 and #14 lottery slots (a combined 1.5% chance) will be split among SlamNation’s top four Power Ranked teams. If those balls happen to hit, we’ll run a quick secondary lottery between those four to determine the winner. That works out to a 0.375% chance for each top-four team.

The total chance of NBA #13 and #14 winning the lottery is 1.5%, and we’ll split that equally. Essentially each of the top four SlamNation teams has a 0.375% chance at winning the lottery.

(3) Whatever the NBA lottery spits out, we mirror. Simple as that.

RD2-6: Power Rankings

Reverse power rankings from the most recent regular season, and no snake each round. Just #16-1, #16-1, and so on.

Draft Order 2026

Our seventh--and possibly last?--year of using draft slots. Note: No SWMP Rule impact this year, as the two Toilet Bowl finalists were the #11 and #12 seeds.

If you have questions about how this was calculated, these links should help: Draft Slots in RD1. Remember, RD2-6 are slotted in Power Ranking order #1-16, with snaking from RD3 and on. [ New Post-Season 2.0 | Power Ranking 2025 ] *Note these draft slots and picks don't account for trades.