X
Lost password?

Don't have an account?
Gain Access Now

X

Receive free daily analysis

NFL
NBA
NHL
NASCAR
CFB
MLB
MMA
PGA
ESPORTS
BETTING

Already have an account? Log In

X

Forgot Password


POPULAR FANTASY TOOLS

Expert Advice
Articles & Tools
Import Your Leagues
Daily Stats & Leaders
All Pitcher Matchups
Compare Any Players
Compare Any Players
Rookies & Call-Ups
24x7 News and Alerts

The Fastest Path to the Top 50: Fantasy Basketball Statistical Analysis

Domantas Sabonis - Fantasy Basketball Rankings, DFS Picks, NBA Injury News

Thunder Dan Palyo searches for the most important stats in Fantasy Basketball. Analysis of the 2024-2025 NBA season and other research on what the best players in fantasy hoops have in common.

The NBA season is not even halfway over, but the lull in the schedule created by the NBA Cup gave me time to start thinking about what types of data I could research in this coming offseason to become a more informed analyst and a better overall fantasy basketball manager.

And then I started thinking, "Why do I need to wait until the offseason? What if I forget about this and get caught up in other projects?" When it comes to covering fantasy sports, I research and write about baseball, football, and basketball - though I have always maintained that basketball is my favorite of the three and the one that I would like to spend more time digging deeper into.

One thing that I love about fantasy baseball is the number of different statistics that we have to research, graph, plot, and dissect. Sabermetrics and advanced statistics have created endless opportunities to examine the performance of baseball players to try to predict the likelihood of their improvement, decline, or continued success. So, I set out on a little project to try to do something similar with some advanced NBA statistics, and in this piece, I'll share what I was able to find.

Featured Promo: Get any Props Premium Pass for 50% off using code SUMMER. Win more with our two new Props Optimizer tools -- one for PrizePicks Props, and one for Sportsbook Betting Props. Find optimal prop bets and get our recommended picks daily! Go Premium, Win More!

 

Can Advanced Stats Help Predict Top-50 Performance?

After having some conversations with other fantasy basketball analysts, including my good friend Dan Besbris, I decided to go on the hunt for some statistics that usually aren't considered when we are building our rankings or making our selections in drafts.

And I chose to use the top 50 as the group of players to analyze. Why? Because those are the difference-makers, the league-winners, the players who can propel us to fantasy basketball championships.

In a 10 or 12-team league, you are only going to get the opportunity to draft four or five of these players from the previous season. One path to a winning season is finding other players who are being drafted outside the top 50 who have the potential to finish there and, of course, to avoid any landmines (aka players who could drop in the rankings the following season). It's about finding value - plain and simple.

Injuries happen, and I'm not interested in trying to predict them. Yes, we can avoid players who we may perceive to be injury-prone, but what I'm attempting to do in this experiment is locate the types of players, based on their statistical profiles, who are going to hit more often than not when they are healthy.

So, which stats did I focus on? I'll get to that in a minute, but the stats that I wanted to avoid were the main stats that we often look at when evaluating players for fantasy purposes. In 9-category leagues, we hone in on counting stats (points, rebounds, assists), defensive stats (blocks and steals), shooting percentages (both field goal percentage and free throw percentage), three-pointers made, and turnovers.

One advanced statistic that is now commonly cited (especially for my DFS peeps) is usage rate (how often a team's possession is used by a player). We love high usage rates because you can't score points or hand out assists without having the ball in your hands during a possession. Low-usage players can still be very productive but likely have to do so through efficiency and/or defense.

 

Stats and Methodology

So besides usage, what other advanced statistics are readily available for us to analyze? The NBA tracks a lot of stuff, and if you've never explored their stats page, you should!

I ended up with four advanced statistics that I thought COULD be important and that I wanted to investigate further.

Assist to Turnover Ratio (AST/TO)

It's a simple statistic and not a complicated formula to calculate - ha! However, with one stat, we can measure how much a player contributes in two categories. It's an efficiency metric. High-assist players are also usually high-turnover players, but players who can deliver value in assists without racking up turnovers are surely better, right? And assists are the rarest of the counting stats.

Effective Field Goal Percentage (EFG%)

In the modern NBA, not all shots are created equal and we continue to see the number of three-point shots taken each year go up. So comparing a player who shoots 45% from the field with the majority of those shots being taken behind the arc to a player who shoots 55% from the field on mainly two-point shots might not be all that useful.

EFG% adjusts for three-point shooting in an attempt to capture the added value of making three-pointers. An efficient three-point assassin like Garrison Mathews has the same EFG% (64%) as a big man like Goga Bitadze, who makes his living on shots around the rim.

True Shooting Percentage (TS%)

Another shooting efficiency metric is true shooting percentage factors in free throws, whereas EFG% does not. In essence, how efficiently does a player score points every time the ball leaves their hand heading towards the basket? Since we value field goal percentage and free throw percentage in 9-cat, I figured it was worth investigating further.

Player Impact Estimate (PIE)

This one is the most complicated and nuanced as PIE attempts to measure a player's overall positive contribution to his team during the game. The NBA created PIE, which also incorporates defensive statistics, unlike John Hollinger's PER (player efficiency rating). Any metric that includes some defense interests me, as blocks and steals are much more scarce statistics than points, rebounds, and threes.

This data was tabulated nearly a week ago, so most of the players listed here have played a game or two since then, but their rankings and metrics are not likely to have changed much since then.

To capture the top 50, I used a composite ranking made up of each player's Yahoo! ranking and Basketball Monster 9-cat ranking. To account for the players not matching up perfectly, I extended our sample group to the top 55.

 

Advanced Stats: The Top-50

(click to enlarge)

I added some color coding to the chart to help the best performers in each category stand out.

The only regular NBA starter with a better AST/TO than Chris Paul and Tyrese Haliburton is Tyus Jones (4.9), who is 75th on Yahoo. Jimmy Butler sports an impressive 3.7 mark while not being a point guard.

A couple of Knicks (Jalen Brunson and Josh Hart) and Derrick White are the only others in this group over 3.0. Other notable NBA regulars over 3.0 are Fred VanVleet (3.9), Mike Conley (3.6), and Payton Pritchard (3.1), and the league average is around 1.7.

Those who are strong in EFG% are mainly the same guys who stand out in TS%, too. The big men dominate here, with Jarrett Allen and Walker Kessler shining, followed by Nikola Vucevic and Domantas Sabonis. Josh Hart and Pritchard have impressive marks for non-bigs.

Other rotational players not listed here who are excelling this season would be Daniel Gafford (71.6, rank of 116 on Yahoo) and Jalen Duren (70.2, ranked 162).

We have some inefficient shooters in this group who are below the league average in EFG% (51.8) - LaMelo Ball, James Harden, Trae Young, Dyson Daniels, Tyrese Maxey, Alperen Sengun, Brandon Miller, DeMar DeRozan, and Jamal Murray.

The average TS% is 54.7, so the excellent free throw shooting on significant volume from Harden, Ball, and DeRozan move them ahead of the mean, while the others are still below.

And finally, we have some very interesting PIE results. Of all four of the statistics, each player's PIE rating was the most highly correlated with their composite ranking (-.57 correlational coefficient). The other three statistics showed little to no correlation within the sample group.

In layman's terms, as we go up the chart, we are more likely to get higher PIE ratings near the top, and the color gradient helps illustrate that here, as well as the darkest green is concentrated in the top 15 or so of the rankings. Sengun and Giannis are the only two players above 17 who are outside the top 10. We may have found something here.

 

Results

What I did first was compare the averages from our sample group (top 50) with the rest of the league to see how much better our top group was than the rest of the league in each statistical category.

The least impressive statistic for the top 50 group was EFG%, as the average was only 9% higher than the league average. We already discussed the fact that nine guys in the top 50 group were below league average in that metric, so that tracks.

TS% was a bit better at 10.6%, but there's still not enough distance between the top 50 and the rest of the pack, and we still have six players under the league average.

The top 50 group was nearly 20% better in AST/TO than the league average. However, the number of players who are below the mean jumps to 17! This is problematic and likely due to the nature of how concentrated assists are among a relatively small group of players.

A lot of our most efficient passers are in the top group, but not all of them, and we have Wemby all the way up at No. 2 overall, averaging as many turnovers as assists.

But look at PIE! Our average PIE rating for the top 50 was 55% higher than the league average - that's substantially more concentrated among our top 50 players!

The NBA average is around nine, so we have only two players in our top 50 group (OG Anunoby and Daniels) who fall below the league average. Those two are good examples of inefficient offense players who derive a lot of their value from defensive stats. Heck, if you cut Daniels' league-leading 3.1 steals per game in half, he'd drop out of the top 50 altogether.

Let's look into PIE a little more. Here's another way to display the leaders (PIE of 14 or higher) - with every player who is averaging at least 15 minutes per game displayed and their current Yahoo rank.

(click to enlarge)

I went ahead and highlighted those players from outside our top 50 group with two different colors. The yellow group consists of players who we probably wouldn't expect to make this list based on their role or reputation.

We have all big men here, with Mark Williams leading the way. Moritz Wagner is done for the year and is easily the most one-dimensional player in the group, but he certainly had a big role on an injury-ravaged Magic team for the first few months of the season.

Robert Williams III (aka the Time Lord) simply hasn't played enough in Portland to be worthy of rostering, but this metric certainly underscores how impactful we know he can be as a scorer, passer, and defender. Jonas Valanciunas is stuck in a timeshare and coming off the bench, but he is still close to cracking the top 100 in just 20 minutes a night.

Goga has pretty much maxed out by getting to the top 60 and has benefitted from all the injuries in Orlando. Santi Aldama is having a fine year but is now hurt and is going to constantly be battling for minutes in Memphis when all the other big men on that squad are healthy.

The red group consists of players who we expect to rank higher based on their traditional stats. Ja Morant averages 21 points and nearly eight assists but is only playing 27 minutes a game and continues to deal with inefficient shooting and high turnovers.

Paolo Banchero was having a massive breakout before getting hurt, but is being held back by 64% shooting at the free throw line on nearly 12 attempts - that's almost Giannis-level bad - and a lack of defensive stats.

Ivica Zubac is having a career year, but his elite offensive numbers, FG%, and rebounding can only offset so much of the negative (no threes, 51% from the line, nearly two turnovers). He is impactful on the court, but if he can't crack the top 75 in his best season as a pro, then he's not likely to ever be a top fantasy player.

What I like about this list of top PIE performers is that it's made up of a lot of different types of players. It's not exclusively scorers or high-usage players. It's not dominated by just guards or big men, either.

As someone with a huge DFS background, I think this list makes perfect sense because these are the top fantasy points per minute leaders that we look for in our DFS contests. These days, I value efficiency more than ever, and PIE represents a different type of efficiency - the ability to accumulate stats on a per-minute basis.

If we can locate those high PIE players who simply need more minutes (the Time Lords and Jo-Vals), then perhaps that's one way to find value both within the season and from season to season.

 

Conclusion

The most fun part of doing research like this is if you're willing to keep an open mind, you're almost always going to learn something - even if it's not what you expected.

I am not sure that any of these four stats are predictive of top-50 performance, but a larger study that examined more players across more seasons (instead of just one partial season) would likely lead to the best results. But here are some takeaways for me anyway.

  • Of the four stats analyzed, PIE was by far the most overrepresented in the top 50 group.
  • AST/TO is a great stat for efficiency, but only a handful of players are well above league average as elite production is consolidated among those top-tier pass-first players.
  • TS% is probably more valuable than EFG%, considering that it is a factor in free throw shooting, but plenty of volume scorers can still crack the top 50 without being efficient.
  • Usage rate is still a great indicator of potential top 50 finishers (85% higher in the top 50 than the league average); however, PIE can help identify elite fantasy production among low-usage players. Examples: Josh Hart (14% usage, 12.4 PIE), Walker Kessler (12.6% usage, 12.6 PIE), and Jarrett Allen (14.7 usage, 14.2 PIE).

I hope you learned something here and perhaps begin to investigate some advanced NBA statistics on your own. I think I am probably just scratching the surface and this whole project makes me want to keep going with some different angles, testing out some other hypotheses.



Download Our Free News & Alerts Mobile App

Like what you see? Download our updated fantasy basketball mobile app for iPhone and Android with 24x7 player news, injury alerts, lineup notifications & DFS articles. All free!

NBA DFS News and Injury Alerts




POPULAR FANTASY TOOLS

Expert Advice
Articles & Tools
Import Your Leagues
Daily Stats & Leaders
All Pitcher Matchups
Compare Any Players
Compare Any Players
Rookies & Call-Ups
24x7 News and Alerts

REAL-TIME FANTASY NEWS

Ricky Pearsall

Heads to PUP List
Brandon Aiyuk

Placed on PUP List
Luther Burden III

Signs Rookie Deal
Washington Nationals

Eli Willits Expected to Sign Contract on Saturday
Grayson Rodriguez

Being Shut Down Again - Will We See Him Again This Year?
Ezequiel Tovar

Activated and Back in Lineup on Friday
Max Fried

"Hopeful" to Pitch Next Week - Looks Like He'll Avoid IL Stint
Steven Kwan

Receives Injection in Wrist, Considered Day-to-Day
CJ Abrams

Back to Start Second Half
Alec Bohm

Back From Rib Injury on Friday
Trey Hendrickson

Holdout to Spill into Regular Season?
Jalen McMillan

Bucs Offensive Coordinator Not Forgetting About Jalen McMillan
Levi Onwuzurike

to Miss at Least Four Games
Nick Emmanwori

Seahawks, Nick Emmanwori Reach Agreement on Rookie Deal
Max Holloway

Set For Main Event
Brandon Lowe

Back From 10-Day Injured List
Dustin Poirier

Set For His Final UFC Fight
Roman Kopylov

Set For Co-Main Event
Paulo Costa

Returns At UFC 318
Luis L. Ortiz

to Remain on Leave for Another Month - Will he Pitch Again?
Daniel Rodriguez

Looks For Third Win In A Row
Kevin Holland

Set For His Fourth Fight This Year
Dan Ige

Looks To Win Back-To-Back Fights
MMA

Patricio Freire Set For His Second UFC Fight
Daniel Zellhuber

Set To Open Up UFC 318 Main Card
Michael Johnson

Looks For Third Consecutive Win
Elijah Arroyo

Signs Rookie Deal
Jaydon Blue

Described as "Borderline Lazy"
T.J. Sanders

Bills Sign T.J. Sanders to Rookie Deal
Christian Wilkins

Raiders Put Christian Wilkins on PUP List
Jabari Small

Lions Add Jabari Small to Backfield
Quinshon Judkins

Remains Unsigned, Won't Report With Rest of Rookies
Mason Taylor

Agrees to Rookie Contract with Jets
Hendon Hooker

Leading Lions QB2 Battle Entering Training Camp
Ozzy Trapilo

Agrees to Rookie Contract with Bears
Tate Ratledge

Agrees to Rookie Contract with Lions
Jack Bech

Signs Rookie Contract with Raiders
Yegor Chinakhov

Requests Trade
Dakota Joshua

Maple Leafs Acquire Dakota Joshua
Lukas Dostal

Signs Five-Year Extension with Ducks
Shemar Stewart

Not Practicing With College Team
Uchenna Nwosu

Seahawks Place Uchenna Nwosu on PUP List
Taylor Decker

Alim McNeill, Taylor Decker Placed on PUP List
Eugenio Suárez

Eugenio Suarez Expected Back Friday
Damian Lillard

Returning to Portland
Paul Skenes

Pirates Could Preserve Paul Skenes in Second Half
Brooks Barnhizer

Grabs 19 Points, Nine Boards in Summer League Win
Jeremiah Fears

Scores 22 Points in Summer League Loss to Thunder
Isaiah Collier

Collects 17 Points In Summer League Win
Caleb Houstan

Joins Hawks
AJ Johnson

Erupts for 25 Points in Summer League Loss
Washington Wizards

Leaky Black Logs Double-Double in Loss to Jazz
Connor Norby

Undergoes Surgery, Expected to Miss 6-8 Weeks
Trey Alexander

Tallies 25 Points in Losing Effort
Johni Broome

Records Second Consecutive Double-Double
Jahmir Young

Has Historic Summer League Outing
Rob Dillingham

Plays Big Role in Wednesday's Win
Tyrese Proctor

Erupts for 35 Points Against Kings
Cody Williams

Leads Jazz to Victory Against Wizards
LeBron James

Mavs Not Interested in "Gutting its Roster" For LeBron James
Josh Hart

Undergoes a Procedure on Right Finger
Jake Burger

Goes on 10-Day Injured List With Quad Strain
Sal Frelick

Dealing With Grade 1 Hamstring Strain, TBD for Start of Second Half
Chris Sale

Plays Catch
Los Angeles Clippers

Bradley Beal Heading to Los Angeles to Join Clippers After Contract Buyout
Rayan Rupert

Scores 24 Points in Summer League Win
Derik Queen

Collects Third Consecutive Double-Double in Summer League Loss
GG Jackson II

Records 13 Points in Summer League Action on Tuesday
Johni Broome

Logs Double-Double Against Wizards
DaRon Holmes II

Records Double-Double in Summer League Loss to Raptors
Kyle Schwarber

Named All-Star Game MVP
Harris English

Takes Stellar 2025 Performance to The Open Championship
Aldrich Potgieter

Seeks Better Result in Northern Ireland
Cameron Young

Likely to Hang Around at The Open Championship
Cameron Smith

Just Trying to Make the Cut at Royal Portrush
Jordan Spieth

Is Jordan Spieth Still a Natural for Links Style Golf?
Patrick Reed

a Viable Option at The Open Championship
PGA

Sungjae Im Wants to Rebound from Last Experience at Royal Portrush
Xander Schauffele

Looks to Defend His Claret Jug at Royal Portrush
Tony Finau

Trying to Turn Tide at Royal Portrush
Daniel Brown

Seeks a Rebound at The Open Championship
Rory McIlroy

Will be the Most Watched Player This Week at Royal Portrush
Daniel Berger

Trending Poorly as The Open Championship Looms
Clayton Kershaw

Retires Both Batters In ASG Appearance
Eugenio Suárez

Eugenio Suarez Hit In Pinky In All-Star Game, X-Rays Negative
MLB

NL All-Stars Win On Tie-Breaker Home Run Swing-Off
Robert MacIntyre

Hoping to Bounce Back at Open Championship
Shane Lowry

Hopes to Repeat at Royal Portrush
Brian Harman

Hopes to Rekindle Some Magic at the 153rd Open
UTA

Michael Carcone Returns to Utah on One-Year Contract
Bowen Byram

Signs Two-Year Deal with Sabres
Morgan Barron

Jets Re-Sign Morgan Barron for Two Years
PGA

Chris Gotterup Punches Ticket to Royal Portrush With Win at Scottish Open
Bryson DeChambeau

Hopes to Reverse Links Golf Struggle at the 153rd Open
Keegan Bradley

Needs to Find The Weekend at Royal Portrush for Ryder Cup Hopes
Oneil Cruz

Ties Home Run Derby Distance Record
Cal Raleigh

Wins 2025 Home Run Derby
Justin Thomas

Finishes Tied For 22nd at Genesis Scottish Open
Scottie Scheffler

Finishes Tied For Eighth at Genesis Scottish Open
Jon Rahm

Finishes in Second at LIV Andalucia
Tallison Teixeira

Suffers First-Round TKO
Derrick Lewis

Scores First-Round TKO
Stephen Thompson

Loses Controversial Split Decision
Gabriel Bonfim

Wins Controversial Split Decision
Calvin Kattar

Gets Outclassed At UFC Nashville
Steve Garcia

Extends His Win Streak
Nate Landwehr

Gets Knocked Out
Morgan Charrière

Morgan Charriere Scores Third-Round Knockout
Austen Lane

Suffers Submission Loss
Vitor Petrino

Scores First-Round Submission In Heavyweight Debut
Tuco Tokkos

Earns His First UFC Win
Chase Elliott

Charges to A Finish of Third At Sonoma
Chase Briscoe

Finishes Second With his First Career Road-Course Top-Five at Sonoma
Christopher Bell

Rollercoaster Day Ends With Top-5 Finish at Sonoma
William Byron

Maintains the Regular-Season Points Lead
Kyle Busch

Earns A Hard-Fought Top-10 Finish At Sonoma
Alex Ovechkin

Not Thinking About Retirement
PIT

Penguins Acquire Arturs Silovs
NHL

Nikolai Kovalenko Returns to Russia
Tyler Reddick

Evades Near Upset to Remain Alive in In-Season Challenge
Ty Gibbs

One of Three Tylers to Make In-Season Challenge Semifinals
Kyle Larson

Curiously Mediocre at Sonoma Before Late-Race Crash
NASCAR

John H. Nemechek Edges Out Teammate to Make In-Season Challenge Semifinal
Alex Bowman

Ty Dillon Bumps Alex Bowman to Advance to In-Season Challenge Semifinal
Shane Van Gisbergen

Can Anyone Beat Shane van Gisbergen at Sonoma?
Tyler Reddick

Better at Sonoma Than Record Shows
Chase Elliott

a Prime DFS Option at Sonoma
Michael McDowell

Struggling a Bit at Sonoma
NASCAR

Christopher Bell Has Never Finished Better Than Ninth at Sonoma
Ryan Blaney

Has Top-10 Upside at Sonoma
NASCAR

Sunday at Sonoma Will Likely Be a Long Race for Bubba Wallace
Kyle Larson

Is A Likely Top-Five Contender for Sonoma
Ryan Preece

Points Position Could Affect Race at Sonoma
Todd Gilliland

Struggling to Find Speed at Sonoma
Ty Gibbs

May be an Underrated Favorite to Compete for the Win at Sonoma
RANKINGS
C
1B
2B
3B
SS
OF
SP
RP

RANKINGS

QB
RB
WR
TE
K
DEF