A Systematic Treatise on Weekly Game Caps in Fantasy Basketball
Why weekly game caps will improve your fantasy basketball league.
In this report I will be looking into the idea of capping the number of games per week in Fantasy Basketball. I will first go into the numbers I use throughout the paper, followed by the reasons that game caps are the smart move. I will also propose an ideal capped game amount.
Looking at games played per week by each team, we can get the average of games per week. Note that outlier weeks such as first week of play, weeks before and after the all-star game, and last two weeks of the NBA season were removed. By getting the number of games played per week by a team, we multiply it by 13 to get the average number of games played by a fantasy team each week.
Average: The average number of games played per team per week (calculation)
Upper and Lower Bound Average: The lowest and highest average weeks of the regular season (calculation)
Upper and Lower Bound: An estimated amount of games played if a fantasy team happens to have players on teams playing a high or low amount of games that week (extrapolation)
With those numbers in mind, I see two primary reasons for instituting a cap on the number of games played per week. First, it reduces the amount of randomness in wins and losses. Second, it adds strategic incentives that did not previously exist. Let's start with randomness
Reduction of Randomness
There are two ways that randomness leads to less skill and more luck in fantasy basketball: game differentials and injuries.
Game differentials
This aspect of randomness is the most whack out of the two, mainly because your team can (injuries being equal) lose a week solely due to less games. However, instituting a cap would (with 100% certainty) eliminate this risk given that the cap is below the lower bound of the estimates. Given that the lower bound was 36.4, I think this should be the starting point for the cap.
Injuries
Injuries are a natural part of fantasy basketball, and it would be very difficult to remove their impact outright. A cap of 10–15 games would most likely do just this, but that cap introduces other problems that would make it less than ideal. Let’s now look at how different cap levels would impact numbers of injuries.
Assuming 42 weekly games (based on our averages in the first section), the first chart below compares the number of games that a fantasy team could miss before they are below the proposed cap.
The second chart outlines a confidence interval of games missed per week due to injuries. Note that these are NOT games missed total — just games missed per week. Since 2, 3, and 4 are the only number of games a team can play per week, I use those as the lower and upper bound for these estimates. (I am aware that it is sometimes 1 or 5, but there are only one or two instances of this).
So, what are we looking at? Let’s break it down a little. What we can see is that given a cap of 40, you are not even able to cover a single injury. While it is better than nothing — you are still losing about between 1 and 2 games to injury. Alternatively, with a cap of 36, you can maintain 6 games worth of injuries before it would impact your games played that week. This would remove the impact of randomness of between 1–3 injured players.
Reduction of Randomness Conclusion
Based on the analysis above, a cap of 36 would eliminate all randomness caused from game differentials. As for Injuries, a cap of 36 would allow a player to maintain an average of two injured players with no impact to their number of games. Therefore, based on the analysis for impact of randomness, 36 seems to be the ideal number.
But we are not done — lets now look at Strategic Incentives
New Strategic Incentives
This section of the report will be slightly less quantitative than the first. I will now try to look at how the incentives would shift by adding a cap. The incentives that I believe would be introduced by a cap would be: strategic starts and strategic acquisitions.
Strategic Starts
In an uncapped model, maintaining a strategy is nearly nonexistent. Every week you play all your players with NO REGARD for the strengths of your opponent. The only time that this ever comes into play is in the off chance you have > 10 players having games on a given day. In my experience, this happens only a handful of times throughout the season. However, when it does happen — I always look at the box score to determine the ideal player to play. The other time this scenario occurs is when you are neck and neck with an opponent and you are looking at your players for the final day of play. If you and the opponent are VERY close on FT% but you are wrecking him on blocks — the smart decision is to not play Deandre Jordan. Personally, I think this type of strategy is very fun when it does happen. Now try this on for size — with a game cap, this happens every week.
With a game cap of 35 you have on average 7 games per week that you need to decide on who to play. While in an uncapped format, this scenario only happens at the end of the week, in a capped format you need to be strategizing against your opponent before the week even starts. A quick example: Let’s say that I am playing Bob tomorrow — and his team is very strong in assists but poor in blocks, whereas mine is the opposite. I would consider sitting my big men for weaker guards since I don’t need as many blocks this week to win. All throughout the week I will be monitoring my blocks and boards to decide when and when not to play my big men.
That being said, what is the ideal cap to promote the greatest amount of strategy? We already know that a high cap of 42 would provide 0–1 decisions per week, and a cap of 35 leads to 7. But by going too low you would actually lower the strategy employed throughout the week. Imagine you only had 10 games a week, this would lead to nearly no strategy because you would just play your 3 best players each week. It is important with the cap to retain the value of your weaker players. Based on what we have looked at so far, I think between 32–37 is the ideal cap size for managing strategic starts.
The amount of daily strategy that goes into your starts through the introduction of a games cap is staggering. In an uncapped model you do not even need know who you are playing to win, there is literally 0 strategy in this department. But with a capped model you must make highly calculated starts, based on your opponent, to maximize your category points each DAY.
Strategic Acquisitions
Another interesting incentive that comes to light with a cap is that of strategic acquisitions. By having 5–9 free games per week, you are able to acquire injured players that normally you could never afford to hold. If you are low on boards and blocks — and it looks like Porzingis isn’t set to return for 3 months, you could potentially sit on him until he returns with no impact to your team. However, this scenario would not always hold — if Porzingis is taking up 3–4 games per week you have less free games for other injuries or strategic decision making. In an uncapped format, the only people who can sit on an injured star are teams that are steamrolling the league— aka the rich get richer.
Additionally, some interesting dynamics could arise as far as waiver farms. If there is a player with a high number of rebounds — but NO other stats, this player would normally never get picked up. However, combined with the strategic starts this player could be a beneficial addition to your team if you need more rebounds for a week. You pick up shitty board guy for a week — and drop him after for someone else. I think a capped format could increase the amount strategic farms on a weekly basis.
Strategic Incentives Conclusion
I think if there is one reason to play with a cap it’s for the added strategy. The strategy that goes into which player to play based on your opponent adds an entire new level of complexity. This same aspect would spill into acquisition strategy by incentivizing people to pick up very niche players depending on their opponent. (I would also like to add this is how actual basketball works).
Conclusion
Adding a game cap would eliminate the randomness caused through game differentials and reduce the impact of injuries. This is a glaring positive for anyone who wants less luck and more skill.
The strategy that would come out of a game cap is also quick staggering. People who are active in your league will have a massive advantage due to their ability to play or acquire their players based on the opponent’s categories that week.
As for the proper number, a cap between 32–38 would provide the benefits of strategy and reduction of risk. If its your first year I suggest starting with 36 and going from there.