As 2026 approaches, the new year offers a fresh start, and that may be exactly what Fantasy Basketball managers are looking for based on how their team looks in 2025. It’s been about two months of High Score on Yahoo Fantasy, and last week we saw our highest score of the season. And the player who posted the score may not surprise any of you.
Nikola Jokić is the best basketball player in the world and it is only fitting that he is the one who enters 2026 with the highest output of all players in High Score. The Nuggets big man had 108 (!) fantasy points in a Christmas Day classic, a 142-138 victory over the Minnesota Timberwolves in overtime. Jokić finished with an insane triple-double of 56 points, racking up 16 rebounds, 15 assists and 2 blocks. The previous high score belonged to Cade Cunningham, who had 101 fantasy points in November.
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We’ll be hard pressed to find anyone who can top Jokić’s career Christmas performance, but the season is still young. Let’s look at the rest of the perfect High Score lineup for the final week of 2025.
The six best overall performances by position from Week 10.
(Taylor Wilhelm)
More information on the best performers
Cade Cunningham, guard: The Pistons star was dethroned from his place as the best total score of the season, but continues to be a must-have on this team. He entered Sunday behind Jokić and Luka Dončić in fantasy points per game in High Score (59.2). Detroit has a full roster, so there will be ground games for Cunningham. But when the Pistons are facing a weak defense or are in a close game, that’s where Cunningham really shines.
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Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, guard: We haven’t seen SGA often in this article. Gilgeous-Alexander has one of the best floors in fantasy basketball, but for High Score, his ceiling is limited by his lack of peripheral stats. The steals are consistent, but Shai is not an active rebounder and is usually in attack mode rather than distributor mode. Last Tuesday, SGA came close to its first triple-double of the season against the Grizz with 31 points, 10 rebounds and 8 assists at 5 values.
Nikola Jokić, frontcourt: We’ll be brief because we’ve already talked about it (and we’ve seen that Jokić is pretty much every perfect lineup in 2025). It’s quite remarkable how much Jokić has separated himself from other fantasy assets this season; he averages more than 70 fantasy points per game, more than 20 more fantasy points per game than the 12th-ranked player (Donovan Mitchell; 50.6 FPPG). It’s safe to say we’re going to see Joker on many fantasy basketball rosters this April.
Kawhi Leonard, frontcourt: Santa must have been nice to Kawhi to trigger such an explosion. This had been building for a while and Leonard had a very impressive end to the year through 2025, averaging 29.5 points, 7.6 rebounds, 3.8 assists and 2.2 steals per game in December. Kawhi has 40-plus points in two of his last three games, scoring a season-high 55 in the Clippers’ win over the Pistons on Sunday night. What’s even better is that after missing most of November, Leonard appears healthy, a good sign for Fantasy managers.
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Scottie Barnes, frontcourt: Barnes was tearing up rebounds like Charles Barkley on Sunday night. The Raptors forward helped Toronto secure the victory after scoring on a backhander to force overtime. He would finish with a triple-double with 23 points, 10 assists and a career-high 25 rebounds.plus 4 actions. He’s definitely an anomaly stat-wise with Barnes, who isn’t often going to grab 20+ boards. But he is one of the few players capable of these types of games because of his category coverage.
Jamal Murray, utility: Four of the six players on this week’s perfect High Score roster were tied to the Nuggets in some way. Murray was also excellent on Christmas with 60 fantasy points, but his highest score of the week came last Tuesday when he faced Cooper Flagg and Dallas. Murray had 31 points, 7 rebounds and 14 assists, one shy of his career high. The Nuggets sport by far the best offense in the NBA, averaging 125.8 points per game, with Murray being a big reason why.
