Who gains without Sanders

We start from each teammate's recent minutes, shots and fantasy points since last season, then hand out the minutes the missing players have been playing: mostly to whoever came in when each of them left a game, and to whoever played more when each one sat on his own, with a small nudge toward the same position. Minutes a player already lost while someone was out are not counted twice. Shots move with how often each teammate finished plays when none of the missing players were on the floor. When the exact group has sat together 4 or more times, those games count too.

We checked it on 1,183 games in 2025-26 where a team had two or more rotation players out, using only games played before each one. Our minutes were off by 5.2 a player on average in games from February on, against 6.06 using season averages and 9.41 adding up each missing player's own "who gains" numbers. Fantasy points: off by 8.12, against 8.59 and 12.48. Our biggest predicted minutes gainer was one of the night's two biggest gainers 52% of the time (adding up single-player numbers: 37%).

Likely means 6 or more minutes over his usual: 79% of those players really did play at least 2 more. Lean (3.5 to 6 more): 65%. Worth watching (2 to 3.5 more): 52%. Blowouts, foul trouble and coaches' whims make any one night noisy.