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Read below for the fantasy basketball forecaster
In weekly transaction leagues, the NBA 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 ability.
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 ones 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
This is a relatively sparse week, with only nine teams playing four games, 18 playing three and three teams playing only twice. This pulls the scale towards the middle, as three of the teams with three games have really high Forecaster scores (8 or higher) while three other teams that play thrice are among the really low scores (3 or lower). However, all three of the teams that only play twice are also among the lowest scores as well.
The Mavericks, Kings, Raptors and Jazz turn their four games into perfect 10s on the Forecaster. Game volume and matchup caliber seem to be the primary drivers for those high scores. The Rockets turned their four games into a score of 9 for similar reasons. Each of the Clippers, Bucks and Thunder play only three times but scored 8s on the Forecaster. Each of the three are playing well and have great matchups against beatable defenses this week.
On the other side of the coin, the Magic turned in the low score of the week with a 1 in only two games. The Pacers and Timberwolves also have only two games, and scored 3s. The Knicks turned their three games into a 2 on the Forecaster, while each of the Suns and Heat turned their three games into scores of 3.
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.
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Forecaster matchup ratings are based upon a scale from 1 (poor matchup) to 10 (excellent matchup). These are calculated using a formula that evaluates the team's season-to-date and past-10-games statistics, opponents' numbers in those categories and performance in home/road games depending on where the game is to be played. The column to the left lists the team's total number of games scheduled, as well as home games, and lists the overall rating from 1 to 10 for that team's weekly schedule.