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.
It may seem odd to say this on a random day in January, but it really feels like the NBA season is picking up steam. I just got done writing an article with Stephania Bell about the return of Klay Thompson, and we're back to writing our NBA Best Bets articles twice per week. The fantasy football championship ended for most leagues last week, so for many it's finally fantasy basketball's time to shine. All in all, I am hyped for hoops, so let's dig into this week's schedule.
This is a relatively light week for scheduled games, with only 11 teams playing four times, 18 scheduled for three and one team, the Los Angeles Lakers, only playing twice. This fairly uniform schedule has this week's Forecaster more compressed, with the ratings dominated more than usual by strength of schedule as opposed to pure games. The Utah Jazz and Milwaukee Bucks have the highest two scores of the week at 10 and 9, respectively, with only three games each. The Memphis Grizzlies and Phoenix Suns also turned three games into high scores of 8. The Brooklyn Nets, Golden State Warriors and Philadelphia 76ers are the only teams with four games to notch high scores in this week's Forecaster, each with 8s.
On the other side of the coin, the Detroit Pistons are the only team to score a 1 in this week's Forecaster, and they did so with four games. The Oklahoma City Thunder turned their three games into a 3. The Lakers were the only team with two games this week, but both matchups are friendly and they still managed a 4 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.