Click here for weekly rankings and start/sit recommendations
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.
In the Forecaster and this article, we have to treat the schedule as though it's fixed so we can evaluate. Clearly, at this time, the schedule is very fluid with games being regularly postponed due to COVID-19 absences. This Forecaster operates on the currently scheduled games, but it's an absolute necessity to check the latest information on schedules on Monday before the leagues lock for the week. We'll update the Forecaster to account for postponements as they happen.
We are at the end of 2021, finishing a calendar year that will go down as one of the most unique in NBA history. The 2020-21 season was just starting good entering 2021, fresh off a December start two months after the end of the Bubble. Meanwhile, the 2021-22 season is in the midst of a daily COVID-19 onslaught that has already generated an NBA-record number of players used in a single season, and we're not even halfway through.
The first full week of action in 2022 is scheduled to be packed with games. The Grizzlies are scheduled to play five games, 18 more teams have four, and the remaining 11 squads have three games on the ledger. Interestingly, three of the teams to score at least an 8 on the Forecaster only have three games, with the Charlotte Hornets and Los Angeles Lakers both weighing in with 8s and the Philadelphia 76ers with a 9. The Utah Jazz had the only perfect 10 of the week with four games, the Memphis Grizzlies turned their five games into a 9, and the Milwaukee Bucks and Minnesota Timberwolves notched a 9 and an 8, respectively, with four games each.
At the other end of the spectrum, all four teams to score 3 or less had four games. That might be the first time I've seen that happen since I've been doing this. But, each of the four teams have pedestrian offenses and difficult opponents in their relatively busy schedules. The Orlando Magic had the low score of the week with a 1, the New Orleans Pelicans a 2, and each of the Detroit Pistons and Toronto Raptors turned their four games into 3s on the Forecaster.
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, based on what we know currently of the combination of the schedule and injuries. Please check back on Monday, to see what team schedules may have changed ahead of Monday's roster lock.