Does it make sense to sit fantasy basketball players against top ranked defenses?

This article will explore the importance of matchups in fantasy basketball. We all know that fantasy football is a game that relies heavily on defensive matchups, so we wanted to see if defensive matchups were a factor in fantasy basketball as well. In particular, we wanted to focus our analysis on the impact of superior interior defense on the low post offense. To do this, we examined the average performance of post players against the best inside defenses in the league.

A quick league survey indicates that only Boston, LA, Denver and San Antonio have the kind of interior defense one might want to steer clear of. Boston has the combination of Garnett, Sheed and Kendrick Perkins, which is probably the best the league has to offer. All three are about 7 feet tall and Garnett is the former defensive player of the year. The Lakers are also an above average size team. Between Gasol, Byum, Odem and Artest, the Lakers have one of the best interior defenses in the Western Conference.

Denver is the only Western Conference team that could challenge for that title with Nene, Birdman and Kenyon Martin combining as Megatron for the Nuggets to block shots in the upper decks. Finally, any discussion about interior defense cannot leave out the San Antionio Spurs, who always bring it defensively. Duncan and McDysess are two old-school defensive OGs who, coupled with excellent help-side defense from their teammates, can really shut down the opposition’s post-game.

Let’s dig into some numbers. Table 1 shows the point average and rebound differential of post players for NBA teams that faced the top four defensive teams used in our data set. All told, post players can expect a drop in scoring (-3.07ppg) and rebounding (-0.71rpg) when facing the best defenses in the league. While these results aren’t huge deviations from the season average of later players, the take-home message is that you shouldn’t expect the monster play that will boost your season average when facing an elite defense.

Some more interesting things emerge from this analysis. First, the impact of superior post defense has a more profound effect on scoring than rebounding. Additionally, the analysis indicates that while we have qualitatively identified 4 superior defensive teams, it appears that Boston and Denver appear to be a level above the defenses of San Antonio and LA. In fact, if you remove SA and LA, then the average point and bounce differentials become -6 ppg and close to -1 rpg.

So the question remains, should you bench players based on defensive math improvements? We will follow the same recommendation that we did for soccer. Never bench your star players, but use defensive matchups as a metric for deciding whether or not to play mid-level players or inconsistent players.

So there you have it, defensive matchups play a role in fantasy basketball, at least from the perspective of post players. While the spreads aren’t drastic, they do support the fact that your mid-tier players are less likely to outperform against a superior defense. Luckily for you, the NBA has largely become a game of guards and there are only a handful of defensemen with enough staff to create matchup problems in the low post.