Minutes to Win It - Monitoring NBA Rotations 3-23-15

With Daily Fantasy Basketball contests, it truly takes minutes to win it. Minutes are the most important and predictable stat in the NBA and the more accurately you can project minutes, the more accurately you can project fantasy points. Recently, there was some impressive research done by a Reddit user that explored the correlation between a plethora of stats and fantasy point production (Link: http://www.reddit.com/r/dfsports/comments/2w88dp/which_stats_are_actually_predictive_of_future/). Minutes were far and away the most correlative to fantasy points. This should be obvious as the best players play more and the more you play, the more chance you have to accumulate stats.

Based on this, we'll look at players with a major change in minutes recently, starting with the Top 10 in the NBA in minutes over the last two weeks:

Now let's look at a few players even closer:

Marcus Morris - F PHO

Season Average: 24.5 MPG

Fantasy Points Per Minute: 0.84

Last 2 Weeks: 36.3 MPG

Difference: +11.8

Percent Increase: 48%

Morris has proven time and time again that he can produce some really impressive lines when given the extra minutes. He's a rare breed that can excel as both a volume shooter and a peripheral producer in fantasy. He has a very respectable -.84 fantasy points per minute total for a small forward and he offers both better passing and rebounding than your run of the mill wing player. As you can see in the graph below, he's been all over the place in terms of per category production when he plays 35 or more minutes, but his fantasy totals almost always fall in the 1 FPPM range when the minutes get that high. He has 5 games over 17 points, 3 games over 10 rebounds and 4 games over 4 assists in the 8 games he's played at least 35 minutes this season. Not to mention, at least 35 Fanduel points in each one. He's an elite play any time he's expected to get that kind of run.

Giannis Antetokounmpo - SF MIL

Season Average: 31.2 MPG

Fantasy Points Per Minute: 0.96

Last 2 Weeks: 37.9 MPG

Difference: +6.7

Percent Increase: 21%

Antetokounmpo is yet another Buck in the midst of a breakout season under coach Jason Kidd. He's posting career-highs in nearly every category, and it's as much due to increased minutes as it is his development. Last season he averaged just 24.6 minutes per night, with 5.4 shots, making 41% of those. This season, however, in addition to the minutes spike, he's taking nearly twice as many shot attempts, 9.6, and making an impressive 49% clip. With minutes come confidence and with confidence comes taking and making more shots. Antetokoumpo's production has improved even more with the recent minutes spike, as he's seen a 21% increase in minutes and a 12% increase in fantasy production along with it. This guy is only going to get better, and there's a chance we see even more improvement this season if he keeps playing nearly 40 minutes per game. Take a look at how incredibly good he's been when playing at least 37 minutes in the graph below.

Gorgui Dieng - C MIN

Season Average: 29.9 MPG

Fantasy Points Per Minute: 0.93

Last 2 Weeks: 38.1 MPG

Difference: +8.2

Percent Increase: 23%

Dieng has been all over the map this year in terms of production due to injuries to other players, minutes and general inconsistency. However, he's racked up over 38 minutes per game over the past two weeks with both Nikola Pekovic and Kevin Garnett banged up and newly acquired Justin Hamilton now added to that list. His fantasy points per minute can be a little deceiving, because they are rock solid, however, when we look at the graph below we can see this is a player who really struggles with consistency in extended minutes because he's not a high usage player and peripherals tend to drop more with fatigue for him. He's double-doubled in 8 of 13 games he's played at least 37 minutes in, but his totals are much more inconsistent than the two guys listed above. We've seen him produce explosive lines as he did against the Knicks and Thunder recently, but then also he has disappeared in games like the one against Toronto where he played 38 minutes, but produced just 20 fantasy points.