Late-Round Perspectives: Zain Dhanani

JJ (0:00)

Zain Dhanani is an analyst at Fantasy Life, he's the host of the Cut Up Show, and he's the creator of Receiver Score. He's previously done work with the Milwaukee Bucks and ESPN. He's a dad, a sports nerd, and he's one of the best at aggregating news in the fantasy football space. These are his late-round perspectives.

Was it this week that you were in Charlotte, or last week?

Zain Dhanani (0:30)

Yeah, so I had a work trip. So I don't just do fantasy, I do a bunch of other stuff on the side. And I had a work trip in Charlotte. And it was funny because I was like, wait a second, this lines up with the date that I'm basically supposed to be on with JJ. And I figured I would potentially reach out, and I just had literally zero time while I was out there. It was all doing business stuff.

But next time I come in town, definitely gonna hit you up.

JJ (0:55)

Yeah, man. Yeah, I always feel like people, they'll hit me up and they're like, oh, I was in Charlotte this past weekend or something like that. And I'm like, oh, well, like, and they just mentioned that they're in the airport because everyone just flies through Charlotte Douglas all the time. That's just what, because it's a hub. And so folks are in Charlotte constantly. But it sounds like you had business, you actually had business here. You got to get to hang out in Charlotte for a bit.

Zain Dhanani (1:17)

Got to hang out. And you know what? It was funny because I was sitting there and I just flew in. And that's when I got the news that Jonathan Brooks was put on IR or whatever he was doing. And I was like, is it me? Did I make this happen?

Or was this just happenstance? Because I had been pretty big on Chuba this season. So it was kind of interesting to be there. And then now Chuba is looking like a hot commodity, especially this week.

JJ (1:42)

Yeah, I keep bringing up the Chuba Jonathan Brooks thing because it was such an interesting dynamic that I think a lot of season long players that don't play best ball weren't totally aware of what was going on in the summer, in the way that early on in the summer, you could have gotten Jonathan Brooks as a 12th rounder, and a lot of best ball drafts in the 13th round, or even in a lot of best ball drafts. And Chuba was a sixth rounder and stuff. And then literally it flipped. It just completely flipped. And meanwhile, in season long drafts, it was always like they were just close in a lot of these drafts. I mean, obviously in higher stakes leagues, I saw Jonathan Brooks go a lot higher than where Chuba went. My rankings had them more very, very tight together as opposed to seeing that really large gap. But it's just really interesting because I remember talking to Rich Ryan, my Becoming a Best Ball Bro co-host about it, and being like, hey, I was drafting a lot of Jonathan Brooks earlier in the off season, and now I'm drafting a lot of Chuba Hubbard. And it's simply because of cost. Simply because this is what we gotta do.

Zain Dhanani (2:46)

It has to be an opportunity cost equation. And then I always like in the situation to like, we always like the mystery box. And it's like, hey, Jonathan Brooks is the mystery box. The guy that is playing behind the guy that nobody's very interested in as a talent. Nobody thinks that Chuba Hubbard is a top 15 running back in the NFL in terms of talent. And so it's like, and the same thing happened last year with Vermondre and Trevion Henderson, where it was like, yeah, Vermondre is just fine, but Trevion could be anything, right? So that's what was playing out in my head most of the off season. And I bought in at the beginning and then I was like, well, this could also not work out and I should just go with Chuba Hubbard. So yeah, it ended up working out for like my high stakes stuff. And then for best ball to, you know, I didn't really write up the Jonathan Brooks train.

JJ (3:35)

Yeah, I looked at my my best ball exposure. I know that like no one cares about your fantasy league type stuff, but I was looking at my best ball exposure. I think I'm at 10 percent Brooks because of what because the early season stuff and then eight and a half to nine percent Chuba. So I like looked at this. I'm like, this really doesn't impact me versus the market that dramatically. But hopefully, you know, I think that I had I had good CLV on both guys because I was just drafting the one when they were lower and the other one whenever they were or at least value, maybe not CLV, but at least value in general. But anyway, this is your first time on Perspective. So I want to get to know you a little bit. I think listeners should, you know, understand your background as well. You have a pretty interesting one. I mean, I came to know you a bit this summer with you doing so much work with news items and tweeting stuff out. I mean, I don't think anyone was sighted more on the late round show this summer than you were by myself and David Kitchen. So I just want to know how you got into all of this. You have a really interesting background having done work for the Bucks and stuff like that. How did this all start and how did you start doing more in the fantasy space?