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 what your starting lineup will be for the week. Should you consider sitting usual impact starters Khris Middleton or Devonte' Graham? Or perhaps starting someone like Ish Smith or Joe Harris who might generally be on your bench, perhaps even your waiver wire?
As pointed out in the Forecaster this week, there are an eye-popping 20 teams with four games, eight with three games and two with only two. The "potentially sittable" list contains almost every Hornets and Bucks player due to their sparse schedules. Giannis Antetokounmpo is the one exception because he averages so many points that he still ranks near the top 50 for the week despite playing only two games.
Karl-Anthony Towns is still the player to most closely watch going into next week. He continues to be listed as day-to-day, but reportedly the issue now is illness because his knee is reportedly better.
Another to watch is Kawhi Leonard, who fell from fifth to 30th in the rankings because the Clippers have a back-to-back and four games overall next week. With load management, it is unlikely that he plays in all four of those games.
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.
