You know how a grocery store shelf is organized, where you have the big name brands that everyone knows sitting in the prime space, right at eye level, typically with a higher price tag than everything else? And then you have either brands you’ve never heard of or the store’s own brand, sitting on a lower level, with a cheaper price but less marketing power? That kind of thing is all over the place, and especially applicable to fantasy basketball.

For some customers, brand loyalty can never be shaken. You have the one brand you have always loved and are willing to pay a premium for, regardless of what else is out there. For others, the savings are tempting enough to sway things. Maybe you try that box of cookies with the weird packaging — they’re cookies, right? How different can they be? Plus, you’re saving money. We’re going to spend some time to look for the fantasy equivalents of those cheaper, still-pretty-tasty cookies.

In a fantasy draft, you see the expensive guys fly off the draft board early and often. And with good reason! You know how you build up brand loyalty? By either finding a customer too afraid to try something new (the guy in your draft who tries to build the same team every year) or proving yourself to be better than the competition, price be damned. As such, the brand name versions below are uniformly better than the alternatives. We’re not here to find out which players are so ridiculously overvalued that a clear improvement is available four rounds later or vice versa, we’re trying to find discount, off-brand versions of stat lines to get you in the ballpark at a much better price.

Now, since fantasy basketball is strictly a numbers game, it’s hard to find players who can go toe-to-toe with the guys getting selected way before them. We have a couple intriguing direct box score comparisons that we’ll hit at the end, but first we’ll start out with some per-minute comparisons (of the 36-minute variety) to show you which players are separated by opportunity more than anything else. Remember, the brand name options are better — full stop — but that doesn’t mean you can’t get a version of their stat line a little later on.

Per-Minute Production

I can only be so clear — in these head-to-head (sometimes head-to-head-to-head) matchups, one player will obviously be the more attractive pick. A lot of times, playing time will be a major factor as to why one is so much more valuable than the other. Using per-36 minute stats is a crude tool, but it’s illustrative in the sense that we can find guys who can give you a respectable facsimile of a higher-priced player at a more palatable acquisition cost — doubly so if a player is due for an increased role.

Matchup 1

The trade-offs with this pair are pretty straightforward. Some steals for some blocks, rebounds for assists, but most importantly, efficiency at the stripe for a better mark from the field. Looking at the raw per-36 numbers, you can convince yourself that either player is a solid choice in the same neighborhood depending on what kind of roster you’re building. The kicker is volume. If I told you that Player A attempted 8.1 free throws per-36 compared to Player B’s 5.5, suddenly that line looks a whole lot better, with the kind of FT% impact that can put you over the top in the category or allow you to add some lower-volume negative players later in the draft. This first matchup underscores the importance of volume when you’re looking at your draft board, because not every number is as meaningful as it seems — in either direction.

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