Evaluate My Fantasy Basketball Team

Reading one cell of the grid

Every cell holds two figures for one category: your starters' combined z-score and the same total for an average starting lineup in your league. A z-score expresses how far a player's projected output sits from the typical player in the pool, counted in units of that pool's spread, so a lineup at +5 in threes carries five such units of long-range shooting beyond the typical mark. Volume matters in the two shooting columns: field-goal and free-throw percentage count each player in proportion to the shots he takes, so one high-usage scorer moves them more than three bench bigs. Turnovers are flipped so that a bigger number is always the better one. The comparison figure comes from adding up every starting slot across the whole league and splitting that total evenly between the teams. Because starters come from the top of the pool, it is positive in nearly every column, so your lineup can show a plus sign and still be behind. Read the gap between your number and the comparison number rather than the sign of your own. The colour follows the rank: green when your total would sit in the top quarter of the league, red when it would sit in the bottom quarter, and plain in between.

Where the estimated rank comes from

The page cannot log in to your league, so the rank compares you with a model league instead. The projected starters are split into one lineup per team, handed out down the value list forwards and then backwards as a snake draft would, and your total in each category is ranked against those model lineups. That is why the result reads "about 4th of 12" and never a flat 4th. Real leagues are lumpier than the model: one manager hoards centers, another builds around guards and gives up on rebounds, and a third drafted three injured stars. Use the rank to see which way a column leans, and the gap to the average to see how far.

Seating players who qualify at two spots

Most basketball players carry more than one position, and the standard roster mixes single-position slots with a guard slot, a forward slot and utility slots that take anyone, so setting a lineup is a small puzzle. The page solves it the way an experienced manager would: the most valuable player is placed first, into the narrowest slot he fits (a point guard slot before the guard slot, the guard slot before utility), then the next player, and so on down the roster. That keeps the utility slots open for whoever has nowhere else to go. Under a rule that starts two centers, a third center slides to forward if he is eligible there and to utility if he is not, and a fourth can land on the bench with a better line than a starting guard. That is the same squeeze a real roster feels on a night when three of your bigs play. The roster panel lists every slot your rule carries, the open ones included, plus the injured-list slots at the bottom.

Deciding what to concede

A roster that ranks near the bottom in free-throw percentage and turnovers is not automatically a weak one. It may be a frontcourt build that should stop chasing the columns it cannot win. Punting is the defining strategy of category basketball, and the familiar builds take their names from what they give up: free throws with bigs who struggle at the line, assists with a lineup of scoring wings and forwards, field-goal percentage with volume guards. The concede card names at most two columns, and only ones where you sit in the bottom half of the league and below the average lineup; when nothing meets both tests it says so. The Punt button in the picker lets you act on it. A punted column stays in the grid, greyed out, but drops out of the lineup total and out of the gap search, and the roster is seated again on what is left, so every card after it reflects the build you have chosen. Punting suits head-to-head play, where a majority of columns wins the week. In a rotisserie league every column feeds the season standings, so a punt there should be a deliberate trade-off rather than a reflex.

Weekly volume and back-to-backs

Lineups are set daily, and from one fantasy week to the next a club's slate runs anywhere from two games to five, so the calendar shapes your weekly output almost as much as talent does. The games card counts how often each of your starters plays in the current week, groups them by four or more games, three, and two or fewer, totals the games and compares that total with what an average lineup gets. Being three or four games short of the average puts you behind before the week has begun. The names listed under two or fewer are your candidates to bench for a short-term pickup with a fuller slate, as far as your league's weekly add limit allows. The back-to-back line names starters whose club plays on consecutive nights, since that is when a veteran on a rest plan is most likely to sit and when you will want a replacement ready. Before the season opens the card names opening night instead. The schedule planner shows the whole week club by club, and the streamers page ranks pickups for the quiet nights.

Injured players and the slots they hold

Hosts give each roster injured-list slots so that a player ruled out does not cost you a bench spot. The number depends on the roster rule: three on the two-center shape, one on the shape with three utility slots. The card lists everyone on your roster whose status keeps him out, repeats how many injured-list slots your rule allows, and flags the expensive case, an injured player the page has placed in a starting slot because his projection says he belongs there. That projection is a season line and does not know he is out tonight, so the grid counts him while your real lineup cannot. Move him to the injured list, start someone who plays, and the games card is the number that changes. Game-time decisions are not listed, only players the injury feed has ruled out.

The gap list and the add it suggests

The gap list starts from your three weakest columns by rank. Under each one sit up to three players from outside your roster who would help that column most, drawn only from players whose roster share in the draft market is below fifty percent, and only those above the pool average in that category. A forward rostered in a third of leagues who sits well above average in blocks is the kind of add that can lift a last-place column toward the middle at no cost. His club's games this week and the positions he qualifies at are shown beside him, so you can judge which of your own players he would replace. Whether he is actually free in your league, and whether you have an add left this week, only your league can tell you, which is why the list calls these players free-agent-shaped. If the market publishes no roster share, the list uses players who miss every starting lineup in the model league instead, and a note under it explains the switch.

What this page will not claim

This is a redraft check running on full-season projections. It makes no promise that a named player is free in your league, that anyone will suit up on a particular night, or that the model rank is your real place in the standings. A player with no projection cannot be valued; he is taken off the roster with a note instead of being scored as a zero. Choose the points format and the grid collapses into one lineup total, judged against the average lineup in the same way, and best-game formats, where only each starter's top game of the week counts, are not modelled at all. If you are still assembling a team, the category board and the printable cheat sheet sort the whole pool by the categories you choose here.