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[Editors's note: Since this column was published on December 17, the NBA announced a number of postponed games due to COVID-19. Brooklyn's home games Sunday against the Denver Nuggets and Tuesday against the Washington Wizards were postponed. The Cavaliers and Hawks had their Sunday game postponed, and the Pelicans' game Sunday against the 76ers and the Magic's game Monday against the Raptors also were postponed. The Forecaster chart below is up to date to account for all postponements. As always, stay tuned to ESPN for updates on postponements, player statuses, and more.]
As mentioned in the note above, this is an unusual scheduling week due to the holidays and the rise of COVID-19 cases, so there is a lot of volatility in the rankings with the potential for more every day. Here are some of the notables who have been most impacted by scheduling changes since this column was originally posted on Friday, Dec. 17.
• Russell Westbrook was the biggest winner. He'd entered the protocol on Thursday and was expected to miss the week at the time the rankings were calculated, but he returned to the court on Friday and has jumped from 294th (e.g. not projected to play) all the way up to 14th.
• LaMelo Ball also made a big leap, from 120th up to 70th as his health situation has gotten clearer and he's returned to game action.
• Meanwhile, many of the players on the teams that lost a game would now appear on the Potentially Sittable list, including: Cole Anthony (dropped from 52nd to 109th ), Franz Wagner (dropped from 54th to 111th), OG Anunoby (63rd to 121st), Montrezl Harrell (49th to 134th), Spencer Dinwiddie (91st to 143rd), Scottie Barnes (59th to 145th), Ricky Rubio (should've already been on list, but if not he's there now) and Kyle Kuzma (83rd to 165th).
• Star players that have either gotten injured or entered the protocol since Friday's rankings: Kevin Durant (was 4th in weekly rankings as of Friday), Anthony Davis (18th), De'Aaron Fox (41st), Trae Young (10th), Pascal Siakam (23rd) and Andrew Wiggins (53rd).
Check out the overall rankings to get a more in depth look at how we think things might go next week, but we do make it easy to get the high points at a glance with the Startable and Sittable lists below.