How to use SportCrow for fantasy basketball

SportCrow projects every NBA player for every game day: minutes first, then points, rebounds, assists and the rest. Those projections answer the questions you have before lock: who to start, who might sit, and how much each player is worth tonight. Almost everything below is free and needs no account.

Projections

Projections show tonight’s slate: every player with a game, his median fantasy score, opponent and projected stat line.

• Minutes come first. A player’s line follows from how long we expect him to play, so a starter returning from injury or a bench player moving into the rotation shows up there.
• Chance to play is already in the median. A questionable star’s median sits below his healthy one.
• Scoring: switch between Points league (ESPN’s default points scoring), DraftKings and FanDuel at the top.

Filter by position or team, or search for a name.

Start or sit

Pick two players on Start/Sit. The answer is at the top.

• The call. “Start Tyrese Maxey” and how often he wins. We play the night out thousands of times; 53% means Maxey outscores Brunson in 53 of every 100.
• Close call. Under 55% the card says so, and the pick is only a slight lean.
• The tiebreaker. On a close call the card names, for free, the player with the higher ceiling (or the safer floor when their ceilings match). The numbers behind it are part of Pro.
• After the games. Once both have played, the card shows who outscored whom and whether our call was right.

Both players need a game that night for a call. Further down are their projected stat lines and recent form.

Injuries

The injury report lists every player with a designation (Out, Doubtful, Questionable, Probable) for the coming games, with his chance to play and tonight’s projection.

Chance to play is our estimate from the designation: a probable player almost always plays, a questionable one about two times in three, a doubtful one rarely. Each team has its own page, linked from the report.

How accurate we are

Accuracy scores every projection we published. Projections freeze at tip-off, and once the box score is in we compare them with what happened, in points-league points, with game days grouped by week.

• Typical miss: the average distance between our median and the real score.
• Closer than season average: how often we beat the simple guess “he scores his average”.
• Head-to-head calls: for two startable players, how often the one we ranked higher scored more. This is the number behind every start/sit call.

Ask the Crow

Ask the Crow answers in plain words: “Should I start Jalen Brunson or Tyrese Maxey tonight?”, “Is Luka Doncic playing?”. Answers come from the same projections, with the numbers shown. A free account gets 3 questions a day.

What Pro adds

• Floor, ceiling, boom and bust for every player, on start/sit pages and projections.
• Both outcome curves side by side on every start/sit page.
• The Projection Builder: start from our projections and change what you believe. Sit a player and his minutes go to his teammates, give a bench player a bigger role, call a game fast or slow, then save, compare and publish your builds.
• 100 Crow questions a day and the projections as a CSV download.

Pro is $14.99 a month or $119.04 a year. The first day is free, with no card needed.

The numbers, in one place

• Median: the middle outcome of his simulated games, chance to play included.
• Floor: a bad but realistic night. Only 1 game in 10 comes in lower.
• Ceiling: a great but realistic night. Only 1 game in 10 comes in higher.
• Boom: how often he has a big night: 40+ points-league points.
• Bust: how often he lets you down: under 15.

If you’re behind and need a big night, start the higher ceiling. If you’re protecting a lead, start the safer floor.

When things update

• Projections refresh every 20 minutes and freeze for each game at tip-off.
• Injury designations are checked every 20 minutes.
• The next game day takes over at 6 AM ET.