Fantasy Basketball Theory

This graph shows the expected player value vs rankings. Players significantly above average will be ranked higher than those who are below average. The problem is most popular rankings are heavily weighted on Points scored and tend to ignore many of the other categories.


















Since most Fantasy NBA leagues use an 8 category scoring system, player value must be determined by looking at how each player performs in each category vs the average player. Taking that into account, traditional rankings now have a wide margin of error.



















This graph below shows how those rankings show some players to be significantly over valued on others significantly under valued. This information can be used to optimize your draft and optimize your team to balance out each of the 8 scoring categories.


















This overvaluing comes from people overweighting Points scored in the rankings. When looking at the leverage plot below it shows the best player in the league will score 2 times as many points as the average player. While the best blocker in the league will produce 5 times as many blocks as the average.
This means you will need to draft many high scorers to be competitive in Points but you could draft 2 of the top 10 blockers and dominate that category week in and week out

.