The importance of minutes played in relation to fantasy production has been debated and discussed plenty over the past few years. While an uptick in minutes is certainly a good thing for a player’s chances at producing additional fantasy stats, the extent of the impact that is felt by a change in minutes varies greatly from player to player.
Certain players have a strong correlation between an increase in minutes and fantasy points, while others may see a minimal increase in fantasy production when given a few extra minutes per game. Looking even deeper, an increase in minutes can be more meaningful from player to player based more on the team that they play for than the player themselves.
Our own Bryan Mears discussed the concept of why a team’s possessions per game are actually more meaningful than just minutes played in this article a while back. For example, a four-minute increase per game could be extremely meaningful for a player on a team that plays at a fast pace and has a greater amount of possessions each game, while that same four minutes may not produce a noticeable impact on the fantasy production of a player on a slower-paced team.
Taking all of this into account, any time we see a player receive a change in playing time over a stretch longer than a few games, we still need to take note. Each week in the space below I’ll take a look at a few players that have had a noticeable change in playing time – whether positive or negative – throughout the past week or two. I’ll attempt to flesh out the reason(s) behind the change, determine if this change has been correlating into an increase or decrease in fantasy production and how long we can expect this change in playing time to continue.
In addition to this, I’ll go through the leaders in minutes by position, based upon DraftKings player position eligibility, and examine what these huge minute totals mean for some of these league leaders.
The Good
Robert Covington
Dealing with a minute restriction after returning from injury earlier this season, Covington has taken advantage of his recent increase in playing time in a big way. Despite a down game Wednesday night, he is still averaging 42.45 DK points over his previous five contests.
With the state of the 76ers combined with his seemingly full recovery from injury, there are no immediate concerns that Covington will see his playing time dip in the near future. Nerlens Noel’s return to the lineup means another mouth to feed, but also should allow Covington to spend more time at shooting guard, where he’s seen success.
When we’ve projected Covington for 30-plus minutes per game over the previous two seasons, he’s returned great value.
Compare these numbers to his performance when we project him for 20-30 minutes per game and it becomes quite clear that Covington benefits greatly from his increased time on the court.
His ability to compile peripheral stats – he’s fresh off of posting 21 steals in three games – is likely at the heart of Covington’s increased production when his playing time spikes. When he’s on the court he’s active and involved, whether at the offensive or defensive end of the floor. His price has increased to a point where he’s no longer a “must play,” but he’s certainly in play as long he continues to see minute projections in the mid-30’s.
The Bad
Kent Bazemore
A nice surprise earlier this season, we’ve seen Bazemore relegated to a bench role since returning from injury a few games ago. With Thabo Sefolosha now starting and playing great basketball at the moment, it unfortunately appears as though this reduction in minutes is here to stay for some time.
Due to his early season performances, Bazemore’s price slowly climbed over the beginning of the season. His price unfortunately peaked right before his injury and has only come down $100 from that time, making his implied point total difficult to achieve at this point. And if the previous year and a half is at all indicative of his future performance with his new minute allotment, these reduced minutes will make it difficult to deploy him in the immediate future.
When he has had a projected minute total between 20-28 minutes, he has averaged 18.68 DK points per game – at his current price, this just won’t cut it. If Bazemore should find himself back in the starting lineup – or simply receiving additional playing time again – he becomes a far more attractive play, as we see below.
With the Hawks playing at the 12th slowest pace in the league, it will be difficult for Bazemore to find enough opportunities in his limited minutes to warrant a spot in your lineups until his price decreases or he begins to see the court more.
The Minutes Leaders
James Harden has picked right up where he left off last season when he lead the league in minutes played. His consistent playing time helps to provide some peace of mind when paying up for him, as the Rockets tend to keep his minutes steady regardless of the flow of the game – he has only one game under 36 minutes all season. He’s recently expressed concern regarding his heavy workload; however a meaningful reduction in playing time would seem unlikely at this point.
Despite averaging an additional 5.2 minutes per game this season, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope has only managed to add an additional 1.03 DK points to his average output from last season. While his low price and heavy minutes keep him on the radar, his low usage rate really puts a cap on his nightly ceiling.
Andre Drummond’s ability to stay relatively free of foul trouble this season has allowed him to stay on the court more and it’s translated into elite production thus far. Averaging almost a full four minutes per game more than last season, Drummond has upped his average DK nightly point output by over ten full points from last season. With teams now electing to exploit his horrendous free throw shooting and foul him at will, we’ll need to monitor how this will affect his minutes late in games when he had been racking up rebounds. If Detroit begins to remove Drummond from these late game situations, his production could see a slight dip.dfs strategy
