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 usual starters like Devin Booker or Ricky Rubio?
Or perhaps starting someone like Alex Len or Larry Nance Jr., who might generally be on your bench, perhaps even your waiver wire?
Let's take a look at next week's schedules and some player news to help quantitatively answer these questions for these players and many others.
I'm doing some new things in the Forecaster this season. I still have the Forecaster chart below, which you can utilize for your own planning, but I'll also generate a larger number of names to potentially start or sit, based upon the Forecaster and my player projections.
After the usual Forecaster chart and explanation, there are two lists: "potentially startable" and "potentially sittable.
The "potentially startable" list is comprised of players ranked below 80th in my rest-of-season points rankings and who ended up among the top-100 projected players for this week utilizing the Forecaster.
Conversely, the "potentially sittable" list is comprised of players ranked in the top 100 of my rest-of-season points rankings and who ended up outside of the top-120 projected players for this week utilizing the Forecaster.
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 who is expected to see more action this week might get a boost in value that could land him in the startable category.
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 1-10 for that team's weekly schedule.
The week ahead
There are two teams playing five games this week, the absolute maximum possible. In addition, 12 teams play four games and 16 teams play three games, with none playing only two games this week. Per the Forecaster, five teams had a rating of 8 or higher that indicates a very favorable schedule, while five teams had ratings of 3 or lower to indicate a very unfavorable schedule.
The Philadelphia 76ers were the only team to score a perfect 10 on this week's Forecaster, with five games and a favorable schedule. The Portland Trail Blazers also have five games, but their more difficult schedule landed them with an 8 on the Forecaster. The Nuggets, Spurs and Raptors all scored an 8 with four games. On the other side of the coin, the Mavericks and Suns scored a 1, the Grizzlies and Pistons 2, and the Magic a 3 on the Forecaster with three games each.
The injury adjustment caused players like Booker (hamstring), Kevin Love (foot) and Dwight Howard (back) to slide down the Forecaster projections into the potentially sittable category. On the flip side, the injury adjustment wasn't enough to move James Harden to the sittable list, but it was enough to raise Eric Gordon and Larry Nance Jr. into the potentially startable list, as the likely beneficiaries of added playing time for those injuries.
Keep in mind, these injury adjustments were made on players for whom it is not official that they will actually miss time next week. I'm working with the best information currently available, but of course, keep an eye out for injury updates by Monday as more certain information will lead to more informed decisions.