You're in a weekly transaction league, and you need to decide by Monday evening what your starting lineup will be for the week.
Should you consider sitting usual impact starters like Aaron Gordon? Or perhaps starting someone like Joe Harris 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.
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
After the crazy schedules of last week spanned from teams playing one game to others playing five games, this week is more traditional with a lean toward a lot of action. All 30 teams play either three or four games this week, with 10 playing three and 20 playing four. This resulted in a closer bunching of teams than usual, with only a few very high or very low scores.
The Philadelphia 76ers scored a perfect 10 on the Forecaster for this week, while the Oklahoma City Thunder scored an 8. Both play four games, a combined five of those eight games are at home, and they have only one back-to-back total between them this week.
The 76ers, of course, are working new star wing Jimmy Butler into the mix, and also have moved JJ Redick back into the starting lineup in place of Markelle Fultz, so they are a team to watch. The Thunder have continued to roll, even without Russell Westbrook, and his playing status will have big impacts on players like Dennis Schroder this week.
At the other end of the spectrum, the Mavericks scored a 1 with three games this week. The Chicago Bulls and Indiana Pacers both scored a 2 on the Forecaster with their three games, while the Sacramento Kings scored only a 2 despite having four games scheduled.
The Kings' schedule is brutal, with games against the Golden State Warriors, the Thunder and two against the Jazz, including a road/home back-to-back with the Dubs and Jazz.
Potentially startable players
Potentially sittable players
I populated the potentially startable and potentially sittable lists using the following general guidelines, per the result of my Forecaster and season projection calculations. Assuming league sizes of 10 teams with 10 starters per team, players ranked below 80 would generally be questionable to start. Similarly, even for 12-team leagues with 10 starters, players ranked below 120 would generally not be expected to start.
Thus, the potentially startable list is comprised of players ranked below 80th in my 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 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.