I am new to categories format. Im in an 8 cat head to head. His shooting percentage is awful so far, hurting that category, but his assist numbers are good. If assists are his only true contribution is he a drop? What is the strategy for someone that leads a category while hurting others? Thanks!

I got him a lot earlier than I would have liked but watching these other rookies perform is giving me hope. Everyone is playing as good as expected pretty much except for DP who’s just in a tough situation imo. Personally I think AJ should be good for 17-6-3-1.5 stocks - 47%FG- 80% FT and 1.3 3P. I feel his knack for scoring the ball will help the wizards since he’ll probably instantly be the best wing threat on the team. Maybe I’m being too optimistic but I think he’ll do well. How about you?

The injuries keep on piling up unfortunately.

https://x.com/underdognba/status/2114891723189231842?s=46

what’s your confidence level that Lamelo picks it up for fantasy? Even without blowouts and foul trouble seems like they are managing his minutes.

Okc can’t catch a break ( no
Pun intended)…

https://x.com/underdognba/status/2114886368291905852?s=46&t=2GsIVEj2QkVb4lWKyTlxMQ

3Qs and already 25 FGs attempt, it's Doncic level on FG volumn. All he needs to do is stay on the court, then he will boost massive pts, 3pt, ft with good stocks and bad fg(very bad) and bad TO.

I don’t understand how this reaches production without anyone flagging it.

https://imgur.com/a/9bY0uQd

Or maybe they’re just releasing code into production. Crazy.

How is this guy shooting so badly? 25% on 8 shots? Do we expect him to be this bad or is there some positive on the horizon?

I know he fell off some last year but still shot 44%

Are we getting a top 50 season or is that out of the question? What range do you expect him to finish?

Thoughts on hartensteins usage after the two major injuries will he have more impact on the game or will it stay the same.

What about the other OKC players? Ajay Caruso Mcain

I think
Ajay will do well
McCain will start doing better
Caruso’s old so not much to know if he gets more minutes but maybe more touches
Will they be better than brazile, Naji, Grayson Allen??

What you guys think about okc so far and how it would impact fantasy.

(Points league or Cat)

Hope j dub a speedy recovery ❤️‍🩹

The first week of the NBA season is the most important for securing fantasy titles. By the time the sun sets on day 7 the waiver wire will be barren of potential trophy fish. Doubtless no few dinks, guppies, and leather boots will have been swept up as well. But that's a professional hazard when trawling for potential league winners.

Week one's importance only heightens my disappointment when I open this sub for discussion about the first few games of the season and find discussions that are, broadly speaking, unhelpful; largely insipid bickering about what is or isn't an over-reaction. This is my contribution to that bickering.

I'm interested in three questions:

1. Given that ADP is a strong predictor of performance, how many games must a player play before it is more useful to know their actual production than their pre-season ranking?

2. How much do we learn (relative to ADP) from each of a player's first N games?

3. Given a player's ADP, the number of games played, and their stats during those games what should we expect them to average over the remainder of the season?

Data

We're looking at ADP based on Fantasypros' average for the 2022, 2024, 2025, and 2026 seasons. 2023 was omitted because I couldn't source rankings for that year (I've since acquired it but haven't updated). I included the top 250 players (by projection) for each year.

We're comparing ADP against season-long averages calculated according to Yahoo's default points setting. I know most people play in category leagues, and this won't exactly translate, but those approaches are highly correlated. Additionally, I pulled game-by-game stats for the first 5 games of the season from BBall Ref. When comparing the first N games against a season long average, the latter is adjusted by removing the first N games.

I omitted any player who played fewer than 20 games in a season. Otherwise, I made no attempt to exclude players who suffered injuries or (perhaps more importantly) benefited from injuries to their teammates. As we're looking at over- and under-performance this is an important source of (non-linear) variance. But it's really hard to control for, so I didn't.

ADP and Actual Performance

Below is a plot of ADP and season long averages. Two things are important: firstly, draft position are a reasonably strong predictor of fantasy production (r² = .7); second, the relationship is non-linear. Accordingly, we'll be using ln(ADP) going forward.

GRAPH OF ADP AGAINST FANTASY POINTS/GAME

ADP versus First N Games

After how many games is it more useful to know a player's actual fantasy production than they're pre-season ranking. This question is straightforward, and knowing the answer would be extremely useful.

The table below lists the r² of each players average fantasy points over their first N games (up to 5) against their points/game over the remaining season.

TABLE 1

The relationship between a players season-long production and a single game is, unsurprisingly, noisy. However, after just two or three games it becomes appreciably strong and by their fifth game there is a stronger correlation than there is with pre-season rankings. That correlation should continue to strengthen until reaching an upper bound in the middle of the season.

Very Simple Projections

Distant as we are from the middle of the season there is no reason to discard the useful information contained in ADP. The chart below shows the r² of a series of multi-variate regressions that include both ADP and early season production.

TABLE 2

Adding even a single game modestly improves the performance of the model (p<0.001). An output of this approach is a series of simple formulae which, given a player's ADP and current production, outputs their expected fantasy points per game over the rest of the season.

The table below shows those projections, specifically the top 10 over- and under-performers relative to pre-season projections.

TABLE 3

As you can see, even an exceptional pair of games (Paul George) to begin the season only moderately increases the expected value of a player's remaining season.

Is it normal for leagues to have a season limit on adds? This is the first time I’m playing in a league like this and it’s 50 adds limit for the entire season.

Personally not a fan because staying active in add/dropping and streaming is what makes fantasy fun for me

The 1st game last week, he played like Vintage AD. 34 & 12. The next two games were underwhelming to say the least. Watched Saturday's game closely, and he just looked to be playing lazy. Wasn't even looking to attack when Josh effing Giddey was guarding him!

I would think that in a contract year, he would be playing his ass off and balling out. The last 2 games though are alarming and nobody seems to notice.

What do you think about Gobert’s shot-blocking ability? I know it’s only been three games, but I’ve watched all of them, and honestly, it doesn’t look like he’s just been unlucky. He seems to lack the willingness to actually go for blocks. I wouldn’t be surprised if he averaged only around one block per game for the entire season. If that happens, what kind of fantasy value does he even have?

Second leg of a B2B - haven’t been up to date with Ant but does he normally sit out B2Bs?

Is he finally starting to see real minutes or is this just a fluke until Nurkic returns? So far he’s looked very controlled, can play within the offense, and is efficient.

Should he be rostered if he’s available in your league and is it time to buy into his stock

Relative novice to fantasy NBA here - I recognise Wemby and Jokic are the clear 1/2 in fantasy and there’s probably no wrong choice - but to me it seems like Jokic has the ability to carry a fantasy team harder than Wemby can. I’m just curious why some of the more seasoned managers here chose Wemby over Jokic? What did you prefer with going Wemby?

I picked him up late into the draft and am not expecting much but wondering what everyone’s else’s thoughts are? Last year he was off and on the waivers all throughout the season and this year I finally scooped him up.

I’ve noticed that Yahoo Fantasy has a record book feature this year, but something is confusing me and I can’t find any answers. There are records for turnovers, but it’s split as “best” and “worst” and I can’t figure out what “best” could mean. If anyone knows what this is, can you please help me out?

Trying to gouge Ajay’s value now after Jdub’s injury in 13-cat. Especially in comparison to late round guards like Josh Hart that are especially important in leagues with many categories. For example having rebounds separated into offensive and defensive.