Dr. André Snellings is a senior writer for men's and women's fantasy basketball and sports betting at ESPN. André has a Ph.D. in biomedical engineering from Michigan. He joined ESPN in 2017 after a 16-year career as a neural engineer, during which time he was also a writer and analyst for Rotowire.
Read below for weekly rankings and start/sit recommendations
You're in a weekly transaction league and you need to decide by Monday evening what your starting lineup will be for the week. Should you consider sitting a usual impact starter like LeBron James or Kyle Lowry? Perhaps it would be better to start someone like Dewayne Dedmon or Fred VanVleet, who might generally be on your bench or perhaps even your league's waiver wire?
This week, the relatively pedestrian holiday schedule bunched teams up near the middle of the Forecaster scale with few outliers in either direction. That, in combination with the "hot player" adjustment to the weekly projector, made the "potentially sittable" list smaller than usual, because there weren't very many players with dramatically fewer games or much worse rankings than the norm. In addition to the teams with terrible schedules, this week's sittables are dominated by players dealing with injury issues that may or may not force them to miss time during the upcoming period.
James is the biggest name from this group, and we'll discuss his situation in more detail below. The other main group includes players who are projected well lower than their ranking but who generally wouldn't have met the sittable threshold. Lowry is a good example of this, and we'll talk about how he ended up in this "gray area" below.
Without further ado, let's see what those projections and the resulting start/sit lists look like for this week.
Potentially startable players
The Hawks are one of the few teams with four games this week, so this list is littered with Atlanta's finest. Dedmon leads the list, as he's played pretty well of late, and his main competition for minutes, Alex Len, is battling injury issues. The Timberwolves are also well-represented on this list, with four games and a relatively easy schedule. The Timberwolves are deep at forward since their big trade, but each man has been productive enough that the big schedule makes them all potentially startable.
Lowry has been battling injuries, which means that VanVleet has been getting extra run. He's played well since getting through his own injury issues, and if he plays and Lowry sits next week, VanVleet could be in for a big one, given Toronto's favorable schedule.
Potentially sittable players
James injured his groin in prime time, during the Christmas matchup with the Golden State Warriors. The MRI came back negative, but the Lakers are expected to be cautious with their aging superstar. It is unclear whether he will have to miss games during the upcoming week, but the risk of that happening certainly lowers him in the rankings.
Enes Kanter is the highest-rated Knicks player and can also be found in the top 30 overall in the rest-of-season projections. He leads a bevy of Knicks on this list, as they have only two games and thus are all potentially sittable.
Lowry has been battling various injuries for the past couple of weeks -- including a back injury that has forced him out of the last few games. The injuries affect him twofold, as they have lowered his recent averages while also putting his availability in the upcoming period into risk. He slid in the rankings, though not all the way to definite sittable range. Still, the slide was far enough that he's worth putting some thought into before making your final decision for this week.
As per the projections, Lonzo Ball would fit into the potentially sittable category. However, with Rajon Rondo now out for the next month and James possibly sitting out this week as well, Ball could well have nightly triple-double upside this week. That will likely keep him in any lineup in leagues where he's on my roster.
Weekly projections/rankings for Dec. 31-Jan. 6
Methodology
The "potentially startable" list is generally comprised of players ranked below 80th in the season-long points rankings who ended up among the top 100 projected players for this week utilizing the Forecaster. Conversely, the "potentially sittable" list is generally comprised of players ranked in the top 100 of the season-long points rankings who ended up outside of the top 120 projected players for this week utilizing the Forecaster (or who are in the 120 range but projected much lower for the week).
There is also some correction for injury, so a player with injury question marks may have his value lowered enough to end up on the sittable list even if he's not officially out. Similarly, an understudy would get a boost in value if he is expected to play, and that could land him in the startable category. Finally, I have the license to add players to either list, even if they don't fit the exact criteria, if I feel that it is close enough to be of interest.
