While most fantasy buffs skip this part of their study, schedule analysis is very important when it comes to fantasy. When you work the schedule to your advantage, you can outwit your opponents and steal a win here and there.
In some cases, fantasy leagues limit starts to 82 games per position, so if that’s the type of setup you’re in, then this won’t be relevant to you. However, if you don’t have that cap, then you can take advantage of teams that play three, four and five times per week.
Here’s a breakdown of why the schedule is important for fantasy basketball.
Teams Offering Higher Value Based On Schedule
The more games a player plays, the more chances they have to put up decent fantasy numbers. That’s why it makes sense to target them in fantasy basketball drafts and leagues. For example: Atlanta and Chicago are the only two teams to play four games in the first week of the season with the Hawks in particular offering the most value based on their schedule as they play four games in each of the first three weeks of the season.
That makes it that much smarter to target Atlanta’s core players in order to get off to the best possible start this fantasy basketball season. They’ll play more and accumulate more numbers for you (rebounds, points, threes, etc.).
Four-Game Weeks
14: Golden State
13: Boston, Orlando
12: Denver, Miami, New York, Portland, Sacramento, Toronto, Washington
11: Charlotte, Cleveland, Dallas, Houston, LA Clippers, LA Lakers, Memphis, Milwaukee, Minnesota, Phoenix
10: Atlanta, Chicago, Detroit, Indiana, Oklahoma City, San Antonio, Utah
9: Brooklyn, New Orleans
When you take a look at the schedule above, you see that there are a handful of teams that have more four-game weeks than anyone else. That means that on certain weeks, those players will have a little bit more value for you to work with. Golden, Boston and Orlando play the most four-game weeks, so you’ll get a little more usage out of those players this season.
Five-Game Weeks
Week 23: Brooklyn, Chicago
Week 21: Toronto
Week 11: Jazz
Week 10: Phoenix
Week 3: Minnesota
The key takeaways from this list is the Toronto Raptors, Brooklyn Nets and Chicago Bulls. They each have a week with five games (in seven days) and the reason why they’re more important to note is because Week 21 and Week 23 is in the playoffs. If you’re facing someone in a head-to-head league that has a bunch of Raptors, you could get smoked when you consider that their players could play two or three more games than some of your key starters. Toronto also has a very strong four-game schedule, so you may want to value their players a little bit higher as we head into fantasy drafts.
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Measuring The Divisions
One other aspect to pay attention to when it comes to the schedule is the strength of teams within particular divisions since division rivals meet more the most over the course of the year. For example, the Raptors might not be the best team in the NBA but they are the best team in a relatively weak Atlantic division. That makes their players worth targeting since they will play more games against Boston, Brooklyn, Philadelphia and New York than any other teams.
The contrast to that would be the Southwest Division, which features Houston, Memphis, San Antonio, Dallas and New Orleans. A stacked division like that means tougher matchups that could lead to more wear-and-tear throughout the season. Beyond that, the Southwest Division features plenty of quality defensive teams with shrewd coaches to boot.
That means if your roster is focused on players from there, you’re going to have to accept that they’re playing tougher competition throughout the season than many other teams. We factory the schedule in fantasy football quite a bit – especially the opponent – but it’s not something that people account for in fantasy basketball.
