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.
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 – give this article a read if you’re looking to dig into this idea further.
Taking all of this into account, any time we see a player receive a change in playing time over a stretch longer than a game or two, we should be taking 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 the league leaders at each position.
The Good
Alex Len
Hakeem and Ralph, Tim and David and…Alex and Tyson? More out of necessity than choice, the Suns find themselves sporting the latest edition of the NBA’s “Twin Towers” in Alex Len and Tyson Chandler. With head coach Jeff Hornacek finding himself out of options at power forward, he opted to insert the 7’1″ Len into the starting lineup alongside Chandler – who also stands 7’1″ – four games ago and the results have been promising.
Len is seeing heavy minutes – up roughly 13 per game compared to his season average – and has actually produced at a far more efficient clip with Chandler on the floor alongside him. On a per minute basis, Len is averaging 0.19 DK points more with Chandler than he had been without him – per NBAWowy.com.
I know, a whopping 0.19 points – great. But based upon the roughly 22 minutes per game that the two are sharing the floor together, you’re getting over four additional DK points per game just due to his added efficiency. Factor in the extra production we’ve been receiving due to his increased court time – he’s averaging over 13.5 additional DK points per game over this stretch; this despite his recent dud – and Len has been returning superb value.
Because he doesn’t share the court at all times with Chandler – and because Chandler is prone to injury – let’s examine how sustainable Len’s production is with additional playing time, with or without Chandler.
To do so, I’ll be utilizing our Trends tool – if you haven’t yet, check out this video tutorial on creating profitable trends from co-founder Jonathan Bales to gain a better grasp on how you can maximize the utility of this tool – to examine the performance of Len when we’ve projected him for increased minutes. Due to the fact that this additional consistent playing time has occurred so recently, we don’t have a huge sample size to work with. Understanding that this sample size is on the smallish size is important, but we will proceed onwards nonetheless.
On five occasions this season we’ve projected Len to play a minimum of 27 minutes – to say the production has been good would be an understatement. Len has a Plus/Minus of +11.89 and is averaging 30.75 DK points per game.
To increase our sample size a bit – and assist with confirming our findings – let’s look at the ten games this season that Len has actually played 27 minutes or more, regardless of the minutes projection heading into the game.
Len has capitalized on this increased playing time when given the opportunity, averaging a robust 33.09 DK points per contest.
His price has increased, but not unreasonably considering his production. This Suns’ lineup is a mess, so monitor who’s available on a nightly basis and stay up to date on our minutes’ projections for Len – found here at our Player Models page, along with every other player on a given night’s slate – before rolling him out in your lineup moving forward. When the stars align and the minutes are assured, he has proven to be a productive player worth rostering at his modest price tag.
The Bad
Brook Lopez
The month of January has not been all that kind to Lopez. While a look at the stats above don’t jump off of the page as red flags – sure his minutes and production are down, but not remarkably so – they are merely masking developing problems in Brooklyn.
Jarrett Jack was lost for the season 15 games ago. And while Lopez has been able to produce a few big nights during this stretch, his nightly viability has been called into question. Once a dependable source of production at the center position, Lopez has become a highly volatile player to roster, in large part due to the Nets inability to remain competitive in games – they’ve lost by double-digits in eight of these fourteen contests.
With Jack
At his price, it’s difficult to stomach a Consistency Rating of only 42%, but his four games of 49-plus DK points obviously imply that there is still considerable upside to rostering him. So how can we be certain the minutes – and production – will be there with such a volatile player? With Lopez, it’s really been quite simple over these past fourteen games. We’ve projected him for at least 34 minutes per game – his average this season – seven out of the fourteen games; the splits are below.
A lot of factors go into our minute calculations that are likely contributing to these swings in production –injuries, projected rotation, the game’s spread, etc – that could also likely be monitored to help determine when an off-night is coming.
It’s not that Lopez has been inefficient without Jack on the court – his usage rate and DK points per minute have actually increased – it’s simply that this Nets team was too thin to sustain the loss. The ceiling still exists for him, but at his price tag, I’d have to be very confident that the Nets aren’t about to be blown out before considering him in cash games in the near future.
The Minutes Leaders
With Brook Lopez‘s recent reduction in minutes, DeAndre Jordan slides into the top three at the center position. Jordan has taken advantage of Blake Griffin‘s absence from the lineup, proving to be one of the more consistent contributors at the position.
DeMarcus Cousins has averaged a ridiculous 38.14 minutes over the past five games, with some help from a few overtime sessions. His price is reflective of the crazy production, but on most night’s it’s been worth it.
