Fantasy hoops: Start or sit rankings

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Read below for weekly rankings and start/sit recommendations

These rankings are based on the assumption that all teams play their games as over the next week. Please stay plugged in to potential schedule changes due to COVID-19 up until rosters lock on Monday, and adjust your lineups accordingly. With that said ...

... so, 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 a usual impact starter like Shai Gilgeous-Alexander or DeMar DeRozan? Or perhaps starting someone like Kelly Oubre Jr., who might generally be on your bench, perhaps even your waiver wire?

Gilgeous-Alexander and the other Thunder are a victim of schedule volume this week, as the only team with only two scheduled games.

DeRozan represents the growing number of players dealing with the COVID-19 protocol, and the uncertainties about when they might be able to return to the court. That uncertainty translates to lower projections, but of course you should check for updates ahead of Monday because if news drops that he'll be back for the entire week his value increases.

Oubre has a nice volume of games this week, but he deserves a spot in many line-ups in large part to the opposite side of the COVID-19 coin. With so many Hornets in the protocol, the lane has been open for someone to step forward and put up numbers. That someone has been Oubre, who has averaged 27.5 PPG, 5.0 RPG, 5.0 3PG, 2.3 APG and 2.0 SPG in 38.5 MPG over his past four games. Keep an eye out for players in these situations, who are able to really ramp up given more opportunity.

Check out the overall rankings to get a more in-depth look at how we think things might go next week, but we do make it easy to get the high points at a glance with the Startable and Sittable lists below.

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, but if I feel that it is close enough to be of interest.