NBA Comeback Candidates for 2026-27 Season

Every NBA season misplaces a few players.

Not because they suddenly forgot how to hoop, but because the calendar did what it always does: injuries, trades, bad timing, bad shooting luck. A knee goes. A role shrinks. A slump hardens into “regression.” By August, the narrative has drifted miles away from the actual talent.

Heading into 2026-27, this group has something most comeback candidates don’t: structure. Health. Money. Minutes. Defined roles. The league hasn’t passed them by. It just pressed pause.

Now it’s about to hit play again.

Domantas Sabonis, Kings

The triple-double machine that didn’t break, just stopped for repairs

Between 2023-24 and 2024-25, only one player in the NBA stacked more triple-doubles than Domantas Sabonis.

Nikola Jokić.

Sabonis logged 36 of them across those two seasons, a nightly drumbeat of points, rebounds and playmaking that doesn’t simply vanish because of a torn meniscus. His left knee shut down most of 2025-26 and forced season-ending surgery, but the timeline points to a full go for training camp. He’ll be 30, right in the sweet spot for a big with his game: strength, touch, vision, feel.

Sacramento has changed around him. The Kings are retooling, shuffling pieces, rethinking the pecking order. What hasn’t changed is who should have the ball when the offense needs a grown-up. Sabonis walks back into the building as the clear No. 1 playmaker, the hub everything else spins around.

Fantasy outlook: In points leagues, this is a top-15 anchor when healthy. Rebounds and assists are the currency that matters most, and Sabonis prints both in bulk. Category formats are trickier. He’ll drag you to the top of the standings in rebounds, assists and field-goal percentage, but he’s a near-zero in blocks and a drain in turnovers, so he’s best on builds that punt defensive stats and don’t flinch at giveaways.

High Score is where he turns into a cheat code. A “routine” Sabonis night — 20 points, 12 boards, eight assists — hovers around 50 fantasy points thanks to doubled assists and no penalty for turnovers. Almost no frontcourt player can live in that neighborhood week after week.

Coby White, Hornets

From sixth man questions to franchise answers

Teams don’t hand out three-year, $74 million contracts to guards they see as long-term bench pieces. Not in this league. Not in this economy.

Charlotte made its intentions plain. LaMelo Ball is in Minnesota now. The Hornets’ backcourt belongs to Coby White, and the franchise has been open about building around him.

There’s a track record when he gets the ball and the green light. In Chicago in 2024-25, White averaged 20.4 points and 4.5 assists in 33.1 minutes over 74 games. That’s not a hot month. That’s a season. His 21-game stint in Charlotte after the deadline came off the bench in a rotating cast, a team still figuring out who it wanted to be. Now the noise is gone. The role is clear. The contract is signed. The push for the Hornets’ first playoff berth since 2015-16 runs straight through him.

Fantasy outlook: Points leagues are his natural habitat. Usage wins there, and he’s about to see as much of it as he’s ever had. Category managers need to be more intentional. You’re getting points, threes and assists, but the field-goal percentage has been a drag his entire career and he doesn’t pile up steals, so he fits best on rosters already insulated in percentages.

High Score is kinder than his category profile suggests. When assists are doubled and efficiency doesn’t matter, a 28-point, six-assist night jumps into the mid-40s. That’s the kind of line he can post whenever Charlotte lets him hunt. He’s a strong guard slot with a real ceiling on nights when the Hornets simply hand him the keys and get out of the way.

Derrick White, Celtics

The glue guy whose numbers scream louder than his jumper

Strip away the one ugly number and Derrick White just put together one of the most complete seasons of his career.

He averaged a career-best 16.5 points. He posted career highs in steals (1.1), blocks (1.3) and assists (5.4). With Jayson Tatum missing most of the year, Boston leaned on him to do a little bit of everything, and he delivered.

The problem? The 3-point line. White shot 32.7 percent from deep, a sharp fall from 38.4 percent the year before. That kind of drop usually lives in the realm of variance, not decline. The same cold spell carried into the playoffs, dragging his scoring down and, with it, his public stock.

There’s a window here. Boston swapped Jaylen Brown for Paul George, but George is entering his age-37 season and has topped 70 games just once since 2019-20. White, by contrast, has played at least 73 games every season since 2021-22. Availability is its own skill, and he has it.

Fantasy outlook: In category leagues, a guard who gives you more than a steal and a block per game is gold. Those are two of the scarcest columns in the game, and White shores them up from one roster spot.

He might be even more valuable in High Score. Steals and blocks are worth three points each there, so his defensive baseline alone makes him a viable draft target. When the offense spikes — say 20 points, five assists, two steals, two blocks — you’re clearing 45 points. His durability is a bigger edge in points and roto formats, but the real appeal is his multi-category footprint. He helps everywhere that’s hard to fill.

Walker Kessler, Lakers

The shot-blocker the Lakers are betting the frontcourt on

For five games last season, Walker Kessler looked like he’d hit the accelerator.

He averaged 14.4 points, 10.8 rebounds, 1.8 blocks and 1.4 steals before his year ended. Small sample, big signal. The Lakers saw enough. They traded for him, then handed him a four-year, $130 million deal in July, a clear statement that they see their future rim protector already in the building.

The concern is obvious. Shoulder surgery cut his season short, and availability has flickered since his rookie year. But the skill set is portable anywhere: high-level rim protection, elite finishing, and rebounding volume that very few centers can match. He’s 25, stepping into the best spacing and playmaking environment of his career.

Fantasy outlook: In category leagues, Kessler is a specialist you build around, not a balanced contributor you plug and play. He can almost single-handedly carry you in blocks, rebounds and field-goal percentage. The catch is at the free-throw line, where he has real downside. That makes him a classic punt-FT% cornerstone, not a universal solution.

High Score is where his profile pops. With blocks and steals worth 3x, a straightforward 16-point, 13-rebound, three-block line pushes toward 40 fantasy points, even if he doesn’t record a single assist. With three frontcourt slots to fill, that’s exactly the kind of profile the format rewards: high-impact defensive events, efficient finishing, and no tax on his weaker categories.

Christian Braun, Nuggets

The quiet starter Denver already paid like a core piece

Denver didn’t hesitate with Christian Braun. In October 2025, the Nuggets committed five years and $125 million to a 24-year-old who had just averaged 15.4 points, 5.2 rebounds and 1.1 steals as a starter on a contender.

Then last season came apart. He played only 44 games. His 3-point percentage cratered to 30.1, miles below what he’d previously shown. It looked less like a new normal and more like a year that never found its rhythm.

Trade rumors have swirled, but the most likely outcome is the simplest one: Braun stays in Denver, in a role he’s already proven he can handle. DeMar DeRozan will soak up possessions, but Braun has never needed massive usage to matter. He cuts, defends, rebounds, hits open shots when he’s right. His value lives in the gaps.

Fantasy outlook: He’s the most format-neutral name on this list. Category leagues squeeze the most juice out of him: points, threes, steals and a solid field-goal percentage across four columns, with the 3-point rate the obvious bounce-back candidate. In points leagues, he settles in as a stable late-round starter, not a headliner but rarely a liability.

High Score is where the shine fades a bit. His ceiling games usually land in the low 30s because he doesn’t pile up assists or blocks, and that format is ruthless toward players whose value comes from doing several things well instead of one or two things spectacularly. There, he’s a bench piece. Everywhere else, he’s a target.

Every season, reputations drift. This time, though, the context is tilting back in their favor — health for Sabonis and Kessler, runway for Coby White, opportunity and durability for Derrick White, a reset year for Braun.

The numbers are already on the résumé. Now we find out who turns that into a full-blown return and who stays stuck as “the guy you forgot was this good.”