At FantasyLabs, we believe that we have the best tools and data available. We also realize that those tools and data are only as beneficial as our ability o communicate their functionality and worth to you.
With this in mind, our “Trend of the Day” series features articles that walk subscribers through an important trend each weekday, created by our Trends tool. Also, shortly after you create a trend, you will be able to see it under the “My Trends” column in our Player Model tools.
As the NBA regular season winds down, we find ourselves with a number of players thrust into more valuable roles. Whether we have a young player stepping up his production and receiving additional playing time or a scrub on a team just looking to run out the season, there’s potential value to be found.
NBA Trend of the Day: Late-Season Minutes Increases
As we’re looking for a way to quantify these late season role changes, we’ll turn to a few of our Minutes and Time filters to get a better idea of how these changes impact production and who may be a match for the trend tonight.
Step 1: Time Filters > Month > “March” and “April”
Step 2: Stat Filters > Minutes > “0.3 to 20”
Step 3: Projections > Proj Minutes > “25 to 38.9”
Now for those who have managed to resist the urge to peek at the Plus/Minus in the right-hand corner of the image above, let’s check out the results.
This trend has really solid Plus/Minus and Consistency, which is in line with my expectations, considering that these players are generally quite cheap based upon their previous roles.
But let’s take a further look into the trend. In this example, I’m curious as to whether the timing of the minutes increase plays a factor. Does a minutes increase early in the season generate results comparable to a late-season minutes increase? To get an answer, let’s re-open the Month filter.
As we can see, April and March not only have very high counts — keep in mind that the regular season ends roughly half way through April — but they also have by far the best results.
Anytime that I have a trend that proves my hypothesis correct, I try to make a point to dig just a little deeper. Because the trend proves my initial thought process correct, I know that my preconceived notion of how the trend results should look will automatically lead to my being more apt to accept them. Regardless, it’s always nice to see your thought process confirmed.
With that, let’s see which players are a match for our trend tonight.
Good luck tonight!
