Fantasy matchups are won and lost on the categories that you’re competing in, but those don’t tell the whole story. For the most part, each of those stats is merely the final flourish on a play; the conclusion to something a lot more intricate that gets reduced down to one number. Fantasy managers should be looking beyond the box score to see what underlying numbers are driving the production in fantasy categories, which leads us right to usage.

For starters, what is usage rate? In simple yet confusing terms, usage is an estimation of the percentage of possessions that a player uses while he’s on the floor. So usage is how much usage someone gets! Get it? Good! Moving on.

In all seriousness, there are three main factors that go into usage: FG attempts, FT attempts and turnovers. We’re going to skip over some of the spicy math but just know that usage rate is trying to measure how big a slice of the pie goes to one player’s shot attempts, free throw attempts and turnovers — plays that end a possession. That means usage is not a measure of how much someone has the ball in their hands, but rather how frequently a player is the guy to put the period on a possession. Now, often players who have the ball in their hands a ton are the same guys who finish a ton of possessions, so you will generally see some big overlap between usage rate and touches, but it’s important to remember exactly what usage is measuring before we use it to evaluate players.

You also don’t necessarily need a huge usage rate to deliver in fantasy. Isaiah Hartenstein was great last season with a usage of 12.0%, putting him 509th out of 572 players. Alex Caruso finished 398th at 14.7%. There’s more than one way to accrue fantasy value, but a high usage rate is rightfully viewed as an easy path to statistical production. An increase in usage rate does not always necessarily result in improved fantasy production for a player. Some players will struggle adjusting to a new role with more responsibility on the court, while others might flourish in larger roles.

As for our purposes, we want to see which centers are in line for a nice bump in usage rate. The factors vary but in the end they don’t matter for what we’re looking at here — as long as the guys under the microscope get some extra usage, they qualify.

Check out our entry on the guards here!

Check out our entry on the forwards here!

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