Welcome to the eighth installment of Weekly Yinteresting Thoughts (WYT). In these posts, I’ll be sharing some of my random thoughts, opinions, and questions about the NBA landscape as it pertains to fantasy basketball. Feel free to drop your comments and questions below! Let’s get started.
Befitting the name of this column, this week I had a jarring revelation that we’re almost at the halfway point of the fantasy basketball season! Most leagues run their regular season for 20 weeks and then commence playoffs. I’ll do a little halfway recap once we hit Week 10 or so, but it’s been a wild ride so far, eh?
This week we’ll talk about usage, and not about the fact that the Pelicans are somehow sitting at the top spot in the West. The Lakers are the third worst team in the West and currently don’t have their own pick. Guess who does?
Usage is a straightforward, often misunderstood term. Usage rate is a metric that calculates a percentage of team plays that a certain player is involved in when he’s on the court. The play needs to end in a field goal attempt, free-throw attempt, or a turnover. This measures more than just how many times a player chucks up a shot or how long they hold the ball, although there’s certainly some correlation there. Usage, like minutes played, is a key currency in fantasy basketball and can be a good measurement of how involved players are on the court. An average player will have around 20%. Even if the usage % is low, as is the case for Mikal Bridges with a shocking 16.4%, it doesn’t necessarily mean they’re not fantasy relevant.
Here are the current top 30 guys in terms of usage %.
Actually, Tyler Dorsey is number 1 on this list but I’ve filtered him out because it was in a 9 minute sample (about 42% usage). What surprises you here?
There are a lot of superstars on this list. Giannis Antetokounmpo commands an incredible near 40% usage rate which suggests that he’s involved in nearly everything the Bucks do offensively on the court. The top ten doesn’t contain many surprises beyond the one player that’s missing from it. Nikola Jokic is sitting at 26.5%, good for 47th on this list. His last two seasons? 31.5% and 28.9%, respectively. A possible explanation may be that with the return of a fully healthy Denver squad, he’s deferring a bit more and letting other guys get back into rhythm. Fret not; Jokic may not be a guaranteed 1st place finish this season as he was last year, but he’s sitting comfortably in the first round and won’t be going anywhere.
Things are looking very rosy for Paolo Banchero, the only rookie player in the top 30. The green light that Orlando has given him is very promising for his future outlook as a fantasy stud for years to come. There are some wrinkles to iron out at the moment, but Orlando’s tremendous confidence in him shouldn’t be in doubt, especially after they grabbed him with their first pick after months of speculation that they wanted Jabari Smith Jr.
These are all guys who do things with the rock. These are the guys who makeup the foundation of their teams’ offensive schemes. You’ll also notice Keldon Johnson sitting here at 23; he’s seen better days as a shooter, posting 35% FG to go along with 61% FT over the last month (good for a decrepit rank 305 in 9-cat) but I guess it’s nice to see that he won’t be benched no matter how badly he’s shooting? Better to have the green light than red, I suppose.
Do you use usage as a decison factor when you’re drafting or trading for players? Do you think it’s a useless stat? Let me know in the comments below. I’ll see y’all next week.
