INTRODUCTION

Good afternoon weekend warriors and welcome to my first NBA piece of the season. I am going to make this short and extremely direct today as I explain the article without any visual noise. As the season goes on this data becomes a lot more reliable and accurate. For now, I will do my best to exclude any outliers or samples that I feel do not accurately reflect the true performance of a player in the first 10-15 days of the season.

Minutes matter. You will hear coaches preach this over and over again. You’ll also hear us tell you that not all minutes are created equal. The purpose of this piece is to identify not only who is getting minutes, but who’s minutes are productive, and how that productivity translates to value based on their price.

I’ll be breaking down some of the top plays at each position by using fantasy points per minute (FPPM) and fantasy points per dollar (FPPD). By determining which players are strong value plays for their price and production, we can use them to create safe floors while still affording the FPPM monsters that we want to pay up for. Keep in mind that when we speak about value it is not always about paying down, often times as you will see a player can hold good value for their price and still be expensive.

FANTASY POINTS PER MINUTE

FPPM is a rate that is calculated by dividing a players average minutes per game by their average points per game. The higher the number, the more productive they are with their minutes. Obviously, all the best players with the highest usage rates will have the larger number here. It is important because we want these guys, but we can’t afford all of them. If we could, it would be the all star game every night.

FANTASY POINTS PER DOLLAR

FPPD is a rate that is calculated by diving a players points per game by their salary and then multiplying it by 1000. This is important to us because it will highlight the best value on the slate relative to a players price. We all know that when a PG sits, and his backup is getting major minutes they become a lock at their price. This is because their price per dollar is understated given their opportunity. We are not always afforded that luxury and need to break down the other guys to see what spots stand out each night. I love a good deal, and you should to.

TONIGHTS CHART FOR FANDUEL

HOW TO USE THE TABLE

The idea of the table is not to just pull a name off of it and say he’s going to perform. It’s to look at and see Javale McGee costs 4700 and the numbers have him as a good value play, but will he play those minutes again he did in the first game? In the opener the Lakers needed McGee to body up against Nurkic but will that be the case tonight against Houston? Personally I do not think so, he projects as a 20-20 player this evening but I don’t see it. However based on the data I will want to be highly exposed to Lamarcus Aldridge tonight because it shows me I’m getting an absolute stud at a discount based on him being a top FPPD play. Maybe I’ll pair him with the best value play on the board with Josh Hart.

IMPORTANT TO NOTE

The NBA is the one sport where we can get late news of a player sitting and it completely changes the slate and ups the value of someone who was previously not even considered for the player pool. Stay alert approaching lock on any day you play and make sure to check the breaking news and coaches notes pages each day.