Opening night in fantasy terms, from Paul George's 72 points to Wembanyama's 1-of-13

The season opened on Tuesday with three games: Detroit came back from 22 points down to beat Boston 121-113, Philadelphia beat the champion Knicks 106-100 on their banner night at Madison Square Garden, and Oklahoma City beat San Antonio 116-104 in the first meeting since last season's Western Conference finals. We scored every player's line under ESPN's default points scoring and compared it with what our projections expected of him, then read how far our projections moved on Wednesday morning, once the brain had read the three box scores. The ranks below are our points board under ESPN's scoring on the morning of October 20 against the morning of October 21, so the only thing that changed between them is one game.

The short version is that one night moved very little, and that is the right result. Paul George's 38 points were the biggest fantasy line of the night and lifted him 18 places, which is about as far as one game can move a regular. Wembanyama's 1-of-13 night and Tatum's 6-of-23 barely moved either of them. The players whose projections moved most were men whose minutes were different from what we expected, and we covered those separately, because several of them were foul trouble rather than a change of role.

The night's biggest lines

George set a Celtics record for points in a debut, which ESPN and NBC Sports Boston both reported, and he did it on 12-of-21 shooting with seven threes and five steals in 31 minutes. Our projection rose by about two fantasy points a game and he climbed from 73rd to 55th, which is closer to where the analysts' consensus had him on points (70th) but still well short of what his line suggested. The reason he was down at 73rd is his games: we project him at 59, and a player projected to miss a fifth of the season costs a roster spot on the nights he sits. One healthy night does not change that.

Philadelphia's new shape looked like the projection

The 76ers debuted LeBron James and Jaylen Brown, and the three-man split of the offense came out close to what our projections expected. Maxey led everyone with 28 points and filled the defensive categories with three steals and three blocks, which is why he rose to 9th on our points board and 5th on our nine-category board. Brown's 19, 8 and 6 and James' 14, 9 and 7 were within a few fantasy points of their projections. Embiid shot 4 of 15 but still reached 42 ESPN points through 11 rebounds, six assists and five stocks, which is the kind of line that makes him valuable on points boards even on a poor shooting night.

The poor shooting nights mean almost nothing

Wembanyama made one of his 13 shots, and Tatum made six of 23 and missed all seven of his threes. Both are projected almost exactly where they were, because one game is a small sample next to a full preseason projection, and because both still did something useful: Wembanyama had 13 rebounds, six blocks and 10 made free throws, and Tatum had 11 assists. We wrote about Wembanyama's night in more detail, including what it does to a nine-category roster.

What to do after one night

Nothing on your roster should change because of one game. The only moves worth considering are the deep-league adds whose minutes looked bigger than expected, such as Drummond, who had a double-double off the bench while Karl-Anthony Towns was in foul trouble. We listed those players and how far to trust each one in the opening night waiver wire.

Every player in this story is on the fantasy basketball rankings and the 2026-27 projections, and the NBA depth charts show where each one stands in his team’s rotation tonight.