Speed kills, kids. Unless you’re playing fantasy basketball. Then you want plenty of it.
Playing the pace game in fantasy hoops will help us gain extra possessions and stats for our box scores. Whether you’re playing head-to-head, roto, or points, those extra opportunities pile up over the course of a week and can give us an added edge in our matchups.
This weekly piece will look at interesting Pace trends and preview the teams with the best pace schedules in the upcoming NBA week.
Week 1 Pace Trends
There’s not too much to glean when each team has one game under their belt. Hey, look! Steph Curry is still great. Surprise! The Thunder are abysmal. What we will do with such a small sample is bookmark the data we have to help identify trends moving forward.
For example, After two games, the Milwaukee Bucks are 14th in Pace. They were second last year. Does that matter? Did they just slow the game down against the Heat on Monday because they were getting burned out of the building? We will know more next week when they play teams that traditionally like to play basketball like they’re walking through mud. More on that below.
Speaking of the Thunder, they caught my eye this week. After finishing seventh in Pace last season, they were down to 26th after their first game. Could just be blowout noise, but we want their young kids running and putting up fantasy production, even in bad losses.
After just a couple of days, there are six of last season’s top-10 in Pace that kept up that habit in the very early going this year: Warriors (1st), Lakers (2nd), Rockets (3rd), Timberwolves (4th), Wizards (7th), and Kings (9th). I’ll be watching these teams to see if they remain and which others find themselves more consistently in the top ten.
More data in the week to come will help us shape this story more completely moving forward.
Positive Pace: Week 2
Below are some teams with the best Pace opportunities in the week ahead. Use this as a guide for players on the waiver wire or filling your bench from teams in good game environments. I will typically trend towards teams with four to five games per week on the positive side and three games on the negative. Each opponents’ Pace rank is in parentheses.
Los Angeles Lakers: @SAS (26th), @OKC (26th), CLE (12th), HOU (3rd)
I’m going to give OKC the benefit of the doubt for this opening week. They were seventh in Pace last season, but only 24th in defensive rating. That could be a lethal combination for the Lakers next week.
The Spurs surprised a lot of teams finishing 17th in Pace last season after Coach Popovich pushed his teams down into the bottom 10 for so many years. With a youth movement taking over, it’s a good bet that continues.
Both Cleveland and Houston feature guards that are going to try and run you out of the gym and now they enter the Lakers’ home for a late-week fantasy treat.
Indiana Pacers: MIL (14th), @TOR (5th), @BRO (19th), TOR (5th)
I love seeing Toronto in fifth after they finished 15th in 2020-21. With Kyle Lowry out of town, Dragic and Van Vleet will look to push this team to its limit, with OG Anunoby and rookie Scottie Barnes flying all over the wings.
The Bucks were top-ten last year so I imagine we see more of that with more competitive games coming.
Negative Pace: Week 2
These are teams, all things being equal, you might want to avoid in the upcoming week. They only play three games and will have their possessions limited by lower-paced teams.
New York Knicks: PHI (22nd), @CHI (24th), @NOP (22nd)
After one game the Knicks find themselves in 17th. This is a massive leap from the 30th they produced last year. But we can’t forget what we should call the Walker-Fournier effect. The Walker-Fournier effect that any team that ranked last in Pace and adds Kemba Walker or Evan Fournier must be completely avoided by fantasy managers. I hope for my Mitchell Robinson stocks that this trend continues upward. But I’m not encouraged going into next week.
I’m hoping these ranks for the 76ers, Bulls, and Pelicans are anomalies. That would be the ultimate injustice served to basketball fans if players like Zach LaVine and Zion Williamson were relegated to slow-paced teams.
Philadelphia 76ers: @NYK (17th), DET (24th), ATL (14th)
Both Detroit and Atlanta were in the bottom-10 in Pace last season and seem to want to play a grinding style of ball. Although I have hope that changes with Killian Hayes healthy and Cade Cunningham ready to rock. This Pistons squad will be a fun one to watch. Not good, mind you. But fun.
What To Watch For Next Week
By next weekend we will have a week and a half worth of Pace data to help us make more informed decisions. Right now, we are spit-balling, and hoping we find the one that sticks.
Also next week I will add interesting player trends from teams that are high in pace and those that are lagging behind.
