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Read below for the fantasy basketball Forecaster
In weekly transaction leagues, the schedule is one of the most important factors in determining how to fill out your fantasy basketball lineups. All fantasy teams have a hierarchy of player calibers, with a set of "best players" surrounded by a cast of lesser but still productive players from which to draw your weekly starting lineup.
All things being equal, a manager would start their best players every week and fill out the rest of their lineup based on things such as matchups. However, all things aren't equal.
The schedule changes the bottom line, because teams can play a different number of games, against a different caliber of opponents, with different breakdowns of home vs. road, back-to-backs, rest nights, etc. All of these things matter, and as I've seen this season, they often matter more than a player's caliber.
For example, would you rather get two games of a great player at 35 minutes per night against tough competition, or four games of a lesser player at 30 minutes per night against high-paced, weak competition? When looking at it quantitatively, it's surprising (to me) how often the correct answer is actually the lesser player -- yes, based on schedules, sometimes even star players should sit for a week.
Thus, below, we have the Forecaster, which provides a scheduling and matchup tool to help you make better-informed lineup decisions for the upcoming week.
We also take your weekly prep to another level with my weekly projection rankings. Here, you'll find my top-150 weekly rankings, based on ESPN standard points-league scoring, so you can compare players to determine which players to start, sit, stream or drop for the week ahead. I also provide several typical starters whom you might want to sit, and several bench/free agents whom you might want to stream.
Without further ado, let's check out the Forecaster.
The week ahead
As of this writing, there are no known cancellations of games for the next week due to COVID-19. The hope is that there will be no COVID-19 cancellations this season. This Forecaster operates on the currently scheduled games, but it's still worth it to check the latest information on schedules on Monday before the leagues lock for the week just in case.
Last week was pretty stable, with the majority of teams having three games and only a handful with four. This week...not so much. We've got the rare week with one team (San Antonio Spurs) playing five games and three teams playing only twice. In addition, exactly 13 teams have four games and 13 have three. This unique schedule results in some players having a whopping three full games more than players on other teams, which means that some really good players are likely to sit and several streamers from the free agent wire will be starting. But, more on that in the Weekly Rankings article that you really need to check out this week.
All six teams with Forecaster scores over 7 play four games this week. The oddities are that a) there are no teams that scored an 8, and b) the Spurs weren't on this list despite playing five games. The latter is because, despite the volume, the Spurs have a difficult schedule against tough defenses or slow paced teams with two different back-to-backs scheduled. The Milwaukee Bucks earned the only 10 this week, while each of the Brooklyn Nets, Denver Nuggets, Los Angeles Lakers, Memphis Grizzlies and Philadelphia 76ers play four times each.
At the other end of the spectrum, the Toronto Raptors turned their two games into the only 1 of the week, while the Phoenix Suns and Atlanta Hawks both turned their two games into scores of 2. The Orlando Magic managed to score only a 2 with four games, while the Oklahoma City Thunder turned their four games into a 3. The Houston Rockets, Boston Celtics and Miami Heat had three games each, and scored a 2, 3 and 3 respectively.
As always, we recommend you checking out those weekly projection rankings to see our take on which players from may be worth starting or sitting due to the combination of the schedule and injuries.