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.
You're in a weekly transaction league, and you need to decide by Monday evening who your starting lineup will be for the week. Should you consider sitting usual impact starters Bradley Beal or Devonte' Graham? Or perhaps starting someone like Marcus Smart or Markelle Fultz who might generally be on your bench, perhaps even your waiver wire?
As pointed out in the Forecaster this week, there are only nine teams with four games, 18 with three games and three with only two. The Potentially Sittable list contains every Wizards, Grizzlies and Hornets player due to their sparse schedule. Beal is the highest-rated player on the potentially sittable list, and his outlook is further dampened by his day-to-day injury status.
Karl-Anthony Towns is the player to most closely watch going into next week. He continues to be listed as day-to-day, even though he hasn't played in a game since Dec. 18. Even with an injury damper, he still measured out with the sixth-highest projections next week ... if he plays. If there has been no update before Monday's roster lock, though, it would be hard to trust him enough to put him back in a weekly lineup.
Check out the list of guys who stood out in one direction or the other below, and for more detail see the complete rankings.
Methodology
The "potentially startable" list is generally composed 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 composed 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 might see 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 but if I feel they're close enough to be of interest.
