Blocks are scarce, and the players who get them cost you threes

Eleven players. That is how many of the 150 in a nine-category pool averaged 1.5 blocks or more per game last season. Steals clear the same line with eighteen. Lower the bar to one per game and the gap widens: 32 players block that much, and 85 steal that much.

Blocks have the thinnest supply in the pool. Only 17 players sit a full standard deviation above the mean in blocks, the fewest of any of the nine categories (steals has 29, threes 26, points 25). The players who supply blocks also tend to be weaker in threes, assists and free throws. This column is about what that costs and what to do before the draft.

Format: nine-category head-to-head (you win a week by taking five of nine) and roto. Pool: the same 150 as in the nine-cat top 50, taken from 467 NBA players with a 2025-26 season row (a player traded during the season counts both of his teams), keeping the 247 with at least 30 games and 20 minutes a night, then the top 150 by nine-cat value. Every figure below is a last-season per-game average at that player's own minutes. Nothing here is a projection of 2026-27.

Where the blocks live

The pool averaged 0.65 blocks a game, with a standard deviation of 0.46 (a typical spread around that average). Victor Wembanyama averaged 3.1, which sits 5.3 standard deviations above the mean and is the largest single-category figure in the pool. The next best, Alex Sarr, averaged 2.0.

All eleven players at 1.5 or better are below, with their nine-category rank in the pool of 150:

Player	Nine-cat rank	Blocks	Minutes	Games
Victor Wembanyama	2	3.1	29.2	64
Alex Sarr	43	2.0	27.2	48
Chet Holmgren	15	1.9	28.9	69
Jay Huff	90	1.9	21.0	82
Donovan Clingan	27	1.7	27.2	77
Evan Mobley	45	1.7	31.9	65
Rudy Gobert	79	1.6	31.3	76
Myles Turner	91	1.6	26.9	71
Scottie Barnes	12	1.5	33.5	80
Matas Buzelis	74	1.5	29.2	77
Ryan Kalkbrenner	126	1.5	21.4	69

Six of the eleven rank inside the top 50. Five do not. Blocks alone do not carry a player up the list, and the five outside are a reminder of why: Rudy Gobert (79th) averaged 0.0 threes and had the worst free throw impact of the eleven, a z-score of -3.40. Free throw impact is how far a player's free throw shooting moves a team's percentage, weighted by how often he shoots them. Ryan Kalkbrenner (126th) and Jay Huff (90th) played 21.4 and 21.0 minutes a night, barely above the pool's 20-minute floor.

Games matter too. These eleven played between 48 and 82 games. Sarr played 48, the fewest of the group, and Wembanyama 64. A block rate is only worth what the player's availability lets you collect.

What the blockers cost you

Across all 150 players, blocks move against three other categories. The correlation (a number from -1 to 1 showing how closely two columns move together) between a player's block score and his score in each other category is:

• Threes made: -0.32
• Assists: -0.30
• Free throw impact: -0.28
• Rebounds: +0.46
• Field goal impact: +0.31

Read those as tendencies, not rules. A correlation of -0.32 is real but modest, and one player can distort it. Wembanyama is the obvious candidate, so I removed him and re-ran it on the other 149: blocks against threes is -0.36, against assists -0.31, against free throw impact -0.33. The pattern does not depend on him.

The eleven as a group show the same shape. They averaged 1.18 threes a game against 1.70 for the pool. On average they scored -0.54 in threes, -0.67 in assists and -0.76 in free throw impact, and +1.00 in rebounds and +0.60 in field goal impact. These are z-scores, which measure how many standard deviations a player sits from the pool average. Eleven players is a small group, so treat those group averages as a description of who they are, not as a law.

The exceptions are the useful part. Three of the eleven made more threes per game than the pool average: Wembanyama (1.9), Matas Buzelis (2.2) and Myles Turner (2.1). Only one, Scottie Barnes, passed more than the pool average of 3.77 assists, at 5.9. If you want blocks without a hole in threes, that short list is where they come from.

The minutes assumption

A block is a per-minute rate multiplied by a guess about minutes. Take a made-up center who blocks 0.055 shots a minute:

• 24 minutes: 1.32 blocks
• 28 minutes: 1.54 blocks
• 32 minutes: 1.76 blocks

That player clears the 1.5 line at about 27 minutes. A swing of four minutes in either direction moves him by 0.22 blocks a night, which is nearly half of the pool's 0.46 standard deviation in blocks. The real eleven ranged from 21.0 to 33.5 minutes, and two of them played under 22. If a backup center's role changes in camp, his block number changes with it, and the rank in the table above is only as stable as his minutes.

What I would do with it

This section is my reading of the numbers, not something the data proves.

If you are going to win blocks, take one of the eight players in the pool who are two or more standard deviations above the mean (Wembanyama, Sarr, Chet Holmgren, Jay Huff, Donovan Clingan, Evan Mobley, Gobert and Turner) and spend the rest of the draft on guards and wings who make threes and pass. The block group is short exactly there, and those are the categories you will have to buy elsewhere.

If you are not, do not pay for a 1.0 to 1.4 blocker to feel involved. Thirty-two players block one a game, and across the pool blockers tend to cost you threes and assists. Steals come from 85 players at that level, so that supply is deeper and later picks can cover it.

Either way, decide before the draft board opens. The hardest thing to do in round nine is repair a category that the first eight rounds quietly gave away.