One of the great advantages of fantasy basketball over football is sample size. Eighty-two games versus 16. Six months versus four. Twenty-six weeks versus 16. Two hundred possessions versus 25.
There's plenty of time to revert to the mean. Whether a player is flourishing (Gorgui Dieng) or floundering (Kristaps Porzingis), they have about 78 games or so to get back to normal.
But what if a player is coming to grips with a new normal?
The NBA posted a particularly dramatic offseason this summer with 10 coaching changes and high-octane free agency ... fueled by an ungodly amount of newly created cap space.
Players were placed within new zip codes ... systems ... rotations. Many of the factors that drive fantasy production are driven by chemistry. Sometimes, just a single new element can throw off a player's entire fantasy outlook.
One should never, ever overreact to the opening week of the NBA season. But it is more illustrative of a player's fantasy value than a month of preseason activity.
And right now, there are a few players you may need to be just a little concerned about.
Karl-Anthony Towns, C, Minnesota Timberwolves
2015-16 Player Rater Rank: 7 (13.69 points) 2016-17 Player Rater Rank: 48 (5.03 points)
Tom Thibodeau is one of the NBA's finest coaches. A hyper-intense, defense-first maven. A culture transformer. A leader who stresses the little things that don't end up in a box score.
And therein lies the problem.
Because things that don't end up in box scores don't help us.
Thibodeau is a noted fantasy-value serial killer. But in a way, the notation is unwarranted. If you're a selfish offensive player more concerned with getting yours? Thibodeau can chew your numbers up.
But if you defend your position and rebound well, you won't have too much to worry about. Just ask Jimmy Butler.
Towns is an across-the-board producer. He generates numbers in nooks and crannies (4.3 assists per game, 1.0 3-pointers) that lie beyond the parameters of a post player.
But his rebounds per game are decidedly down -- from 10.5 to 6.7. And while we're dealing with an astonishingly small sample size, there is one large variable that concerns me.
An active, high-minute, fully operational, recently well-paid Gorgui Dieng is a very large variable.
Long one of fantasy's most underrated players (due to Sam Mitchell's inexplicable penchant for giving lesser talents his minutes), Dieng is going predictably nuts under Thibodeau. Because Dieng is Thibodeau's kind of guy.
He rebounds. He blocks shots. He protects the rim with aplomb.
Towns is 48th on the player rater. Dieng is 12th. Towns is collecting under seven rebounds a game. Dieng is hoarding 11.
It's only three games. Yes, Dieng could be celebrating his new four-year, $64 million extension. But if he continues to harness 34.0 minutes per game, he could erase just enough of Towns' rebounds and blocks to drive Towns down into a late-first-round valuation.
Klay Thompson, SG, Golden State Warriors
2015-16 Player Rater Rank: 18 (11.29 points) 2016-17 Player Rater Rank: 128 (1.46 points)
There was a lot of preseason palaver concerning Kevin Durant's siphoning of Stephen Curry's production. And while Curry hasn't been quite his league-leading 2015-16 self to date (20th overall), it seems as if he will adjust.
Curry produces in many areas. He has several statistical categories he can draw upon for fantasy value.
Klay Thompson is another story. Thompson's top-20 2015-16 campaign relied on his elite standing in two areas: points and 3-pointers.
(Thompson also shot 87 percent at the free throw line. But he averaged only 2.8 free throw attempts a game. I would argue that Thompson's .425 3-point percentage -- across 8.1 attempts a game -- made his .470 field goal percentage borderline elite.)
I never quite understood why there wasn't more concern surrounding Durant's effect on Thompson. Thompson's a catch-and-shoot player. Maybe the NBA's best catch-and-shoot player. He doesn't require a high usage rate to deliver value.
Thompson just needs to catch and shoot 3-point attempts ... and make them.
But if Thompson isn't making his 3-point shots? If he's, say, 3-for-28 from deep over his first four games? That's a serious fantasy problem. Because shooting about 42 percent from deep is the fulcrum that leverages Thompson into the top 20.
The volume isn't that far off. Thompson's 16.5 field goal attempts per game is right up there with his 2015-16 average (17.3 FGA). His 7.0 3-point attempts are within striking distance of last season's 8.1 (a 14 percent drop-off).
So what gives?
Thompson is a rhythm guy. A system guy. A player that relies on pace and spacing. By the way, that's a condition for most elite shooting guard production, since so much elite SG play is 3-point-driven.
Thompson can be streaky. He can let emotion interfere with his play. Shot makers thrive on flow. Confidence. (Which really means little more than, "Yeah, he's a shooting guard.")
But when you go from option two on offense to a distant, remote third option? Behind two top-five players? And you have a shooter's mentality? And you're the emotional opposite of your combustible power forward (who doesn't need to make shots to create elite value)?
It may portend a permanent shift in overall production.
Thompson's the clear victim of KD-to-CA. But Thompson isn't going to shoot 11 percent from behind the arc for an entire season. It's just a bad opening week.
But I do believe those of you that drove Thompson's average draft position up to 24.9 are going to walk away slightly disappointed.
Trailing behind Curry and Durant, Thompson may be more of a fourth-round kind of guy. That's not bad. But changes in rotation can hurt when you're elite in one to two categories.
Kristaps Porzingis, PF, New York Knicks
2015-16 Player Rater Rank: 47 (6.90 points) 2016-17 Player Rater Rank: 87 (3.23 points)
Of just about any NBA player in fantasy, it would have been easiest to predict an early season dip for Porzingis.
New coach. New system. Several new veteran teammates. New point guard. Heightened expectations. (And Porzingis punches the clock in the NBA's toughest place to play given heightened expectations.)
Porzingis' nadir arrived last night against the high-pace, Mike D'Antoni-driven Rockets. He didn't convert a single field goal attempt. He scored three points and sat most of the fourth quarter.
The Knicks need to get Porzingis the ball. More explicitly? Derrick Rose needs to get Porzingis the ball. Plain, clear and simple.
Porzingis can still block shots (1.8 per game). His 3-point production has increased in both volume and efficiency (1.5 3-pointers on .375 shooting).
But Rose is averaging only 2.5 assists per game. I don't know how many of those dimes went to Porzingis, but from watching last night's game? It hasn't been much.
I was excited to see how Joakim Noah meshed up front with Porzingis. And Noah has delivered in the assist column to date (5.5 per game).
Rose badly needs to find some rhythm with Porzingis in the post.
Porzingis was advertised as entering the season with more of a commitment to low-post play. And while his percentage of 3-point attempts has risen (from .274 to .348), his attempts from 3 to 9 feet have dropped (from .184 to .152).
In what is supposed to be a sophomore leap year, Porzingis' usage rate is regressing, from 22.9 to 18.4 (when it's projected to rise to 25.6).
It's waaaaay early. The new-look Knicks aren't clicking as of yet. Jeff Hornacek is a fine coach. Porzingis is still an All-Star in the making ... with top-20 fantasy upside.
But you have to wonder if the Rose experiment at PG isn't going to shave a round off Porzingis' season-long value.
Andre Drummond, C Detroit Pistons
2015-16 Player Rater Rank: 114 (3.19 points) 2016-17 Player Rater Rank: 119 (1.93 points)
DeAndre Jordan, C, Los Angeles Clippers
2015-16 Player Rater Rank: 56 (6.00 points) 2016-17 Player Rater Rank: 204 (-1.21 points)
I'm not concerned with Drummond. I didn't draft Drummond.
Meanwhile, Drummond is leading the league in rebounding (13.6 REB). Jordan (11.3 REB) isn't too far behind.
Both players are averaging double-digits in points (12.6 for Drummond, 10.0 for Jordan). Both players are struggling just a little from the field versus their historical output (.429 for Drummond, .571 for Jordan).
Drummond is 119th on the player rater. Jordan is 204th.
Jordan is dealing with an early-season finger injury. He will start blocking more shots. Jordan's elite shot-blocking averages mean he will eventually swat his way into fantasy's top 60.
Drummond will make a few more shots per game. But because he hasn't displayed a propensity for elite shot-blocking production, Drummond's ceiling is probably in the 80s at best.
And Drummond's ADP was 26.6. Jordan's ADP was 31.8.
If you drafted either of them in the third round? You made a sucker bet. Because their values won't go anywhere near where you predicted as long as they continue to be two of the worst free throw shooters of all time!
This has nothing to do with player movement, a new coach or a new system. It has to do with everyone in Fantasyland starting two below-rock-bottom free throw percentages and ignoring them in favor of volume-based stats.
Jordan's floor rises because he's insulated by his shot-blocking. But Drummond's value doesn't have that kind of protection.
Don't say I didn't warn you.