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Auction Values Preview

The NBA regular season is less than a week away, which means fantasy drafts are buzzing. No matter your league’s size or format, the Rotoworld Draft Guide has you covered!

Picking 12th in a snake draft, and wondering who to take with back-to-back picks? Check out our Top-200 lists for 8-cat, 9-cat and Dynasty. Need help identifying high-upside players in a points league? We have customizable rankings for that, too. Dynasty league advice? Check. Projected stats and fantasy values? Yes and yes.

The deeper you dig the more you’ll find, including columns discussing the fantasy impact of the summer’s biggest trades and signings, comprehensive injury reports, ADP analysis, busts and sleepers, position tiers, and how to abuse the default rankings on ESPN and Yahoo. If you’re planning for an auction draft, you’ll be happy to find projected $ values for the top-175 players. Here’s a sample of that recent column, which includes a full Excel sheet for those interested in exploring and/or tweaking the numbers:

“[Continued from Draft Guide] The next step is to understand how much a player should be worth, roughly, given your league’s size and settings. With that goal in mind, I’ve created ‘theoretical auction values’ for the top-175 players, as determined by my projected stats and fantasy values.

These auction prices are based on 8-cat values, weighted by projected games played. To change individual players’ projected fantasy values, the league size, or the salary cap, just download the Excel file this is based upon! Before we get to individual prices, however, let’s step back and look at the big picture.

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Here’s another way to visualize those prices:

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These charts are self-explanatory, showing the average cost of a pick in each round (the assumption is that there are 12 picks per round, but this too can be manipulated in the Excel file above). There is an obvious premium for elite players, whereas most auction owners can fill out their bench with a handful of guys in the $1-$5 range.

My projected fantasy values suggest that owners tend to overpay for elite options -- the dollar amount paid per positive z-score (for simplicity’s sake) is roughly $4.25 in the first round, but it falls steadily as the draft progresses. This is somewhat misleading, however, since the limited number of elite players creates a classic market-pressure situation, wherein demand outstrips supply. Moreover, these elite players tend to contribute to categories which are harder to find late in drafts -- high-volume points and percentages, blocks and assists.

Let’s move on to the next chart.

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There’s a lot of data contained in this one chart, so look it over a few times… [continued in Guide]”

For the rest of this Auction Values column, commentary on the charts above, auction $ prices for the top-175 players, and a customizable Excel spreadsheet...you guessed it, head to the Draft Guide! We put a TON of work into it and don’t stop until the regular season tips off.

Here’s a concluding look at my projected auction values, displaying the top-20+ players in 8-cat leagues, weighted by games played. To reiterate, you can easily tweak ALL of this data to suit your team’s needs right here.

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The hoops crew at Rotoworld wishes everyone the best of luck on draft day (with the understanding that luck is a poor substitute for the Guide)!