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The Bruski 150 Evaluation Process

In a truly grueling and inane exercise, we look at the Bruski 150 to find out how we did in a few different lights but ultimately come up with some easy head-to-head analysis of the B150 ranks vs. Rotoworld's ranks. We also attempt to add some deeper meaning and value to the analysis by weighting ranking wins and losses by the impact they have, which has both qualitative and quantitative evaluations. In each of these ranking analysis I welcome anybody to offer a counterpoint, but the key for making this fair and worthwhile is to be brutally honest with the assessments (which also keeps me well on the side of fair so I can just let this fly and know it's legit).

What we’re looking to determine is which rank was the smarter rank, accounting for the totality of the situation.

The first and broadest analysis is a rank-by-rank assessment which determines an overall record between the two sites. After all, each of the ranks matter in some context so zooming out to see what the aggregate win-loss records are is a good way to show an overall strength of ranks. It also keeps a few good or bad ranks from swinging the analysis.

Then we look at the ranks while accounting for how important a given prediction was. First we do this by assigning an impact rating. Then when looking at the ranks in relation to ADP, we’re looking for how likely or unlikely was a site’s followers to get the good (or bad) pick, which we end displaying on the graphic below by color (it's just easier to read that way). Therefore, we call that the color rating.

We multiply the impact rating with the color rating to create a spectrum of outcomes that are a dart throw at emulating year-long profit and loss scenarios, which are the essence of preseason rankings.

So in summary:

• Head-to-Head win/loss totals for the aggregate picture
• Impact Ratings give a more quantitative weighting for predictions and Color Ratings allow for ADP, rank differences and common sense to create a qualitative rating for predictions.
• To create this Impact Score we have a simple scoring system that multiplies these two ratings together and then aggregates the data set

Diving Deeper Into the Evaluation

COLOR RATINGS

The color schemes are:

• Dark Green (massive win involving a player that performed very well relative to ADP and/or the other site, easily had opportunity to draft/avoid that player)
• Green (a general rankings win, better positioned to draft or miss a player who over/under performed, when evaluating both sites and ADP)
• Yellow (painful loss, rankings prediction put drafters in likely position to move the needle backward with their team)
• Red (brutal loss, rankings prediction hurt drafters in significant ways, missing the mark badly when chance wasn’t a factor)

Another way to look at it might be:

• Dark Green (you did a real good thing)
• Green (you beat the other site/ADP in a way that wasn’t totally negligible)
• Yellow (your rank moved the needle backwards for squads)
• Red (you did a real bad thing)

How they get scored:

• Dark Green (+4)
• Green (+2)
• No Color (1)
• Yellow (-2)
• Red (-4)

Not all prediction wins are created equally. Some are dumb luck and have massive impact, which isn’t the sign of a good prediction, and other great predictions have smaller impacts but deserve more credit. If there was an uncontrollable event not tied to obvious injury risk, that may not get an assessment. In cases where a player without known injury risk is performing as a win and then bad luck hits, nine times out of 10 that's going to result in a win for the better predictor there (rather than strict allegiance to final rank).

On this front we want to look at the nature of injuries. Were they something that we could have known about? Were they factored into the draft situation as a risk-reward play? If a player got extremely lucky due to unforeseen injuries ahead of him, we’re not trying to reward or punish predictions as much as we would a prediction that’s based on known variables — one that reflects greater understanding of stat sets, usage rates and the like.

Mix that all up and then everything gets weighed out in context, but at its core these color ranks are measuring how much gain and loss occurred in terms of pure value.

Each rank and evaluation is given the type of scrutiny you’d want to have if you could turn back time and do it all over again.

As we go further down in the draft, when player values start to bunch up, the grading loosens up a tiny bit and color grades won’t reward mild differences. At the same time a sleeper that can crawl up into early round value would get rated as a high impact.

Again, the key to this is to be brutally harsh with myself and give my competition benefit of the doubt when evaluating these predictions.

It’s entirely possible I have screwed up on a piece of logic in an example in an attempt to be expedient. I’m pretty sure any shifting results will be within a reasonable margin of error and not take away from the findings.

If you see anything hugely off, just let me know and I'm happy to make adjustments.

IMPACT ANALYSIS

The impact analysis seeks to determine whether the prediction put the drafter in the position for a gain, avoid a loss and to what degree — and then it aggregates that for the entire prediction set.

As for the impact analysis itself, it is also qualitative to some degree but it does trend toward ‘just the facts.’ It's qualitative in the sense that if a prediction win didn't beat ADP, that's not a very impactful play, which happens when ADP actually wins out (it happens!). From there, we’re measuring how much distance was there between the predictions and the results.

That scale from 1-5 — it’s really just 1-4 as a grade of 5 is for Hall of Fame level needle-movers that occur maybe once in a season if they occur at all. Let's look at the scale:

5: Historical result
4: Prediction leads to extremely important high-end production, or a large number of rounds in the ballpark of a half-draft or greater of increased (or decreased) value for their fantasy GM
3: Prediction leads (or loses) very important high-end production, or results in gaining or losing a significant number of rounds of value (in the 4-8 range depending on how early or late the player in question was drafted)
2: Prediction secures substantial increased (or decreased) value for their fantasy GM (2-4 rounds worth of value dependent upon the facts)
1: A basic head-to-head win that doesn't meet the criteria above is a 1

No players from the last two years received the fabled ‘5.’ Only one player got a 5 a few seasons ago and that was James Harden who nearly lapped the entire field in 8-cat.

SOME QUICK HITS PLAYER TALK

To keep this section from being all over the place it's split into the players that did well and the players that did not, with some brief commentary about how it all played out.

DID WELL

*These are players that did well, not always with respect to the B150, but in general

I don't really think it matters, perhaps conveniently so, if somebody rated Nikola Jokic or Victor Wembanyama number one overall. The arguments were there and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander was actually the fun one that I flirted with for a little bit. But for all of the talk that Wembanyama was going to ruin fantasy leagues, and again the arguments were/are there, none of that actually happened. He didn't have that kind of a gear because of a shot diet and cadence on the floor which just isn't at that level right now.

It's absolutely reasonable to say that it may never come, but assuming the blood clot doesn't have a TOS component in line with what Markelle Fultz, Kyle Anderson and yours truly has had to deal with, he may at any point in time figure out how to become truly unstoppable.

If that efficiency kicks in, those arguments about ruining fantasy leagues will come back. For now, I think folks will be a little gun shy this upcoming season.

As mentioned Shai Gilgeous-Alexander had as good of a set up for a big time fantasy season as I can recall, both within the context of his own play as well as having great teammates. James Harden was consistently a force. Trae Young and Karl-Anthony Towns had remember me kind of seasons. As mentioned, Anthony Edwards and Tyrese Haliburton answered the bell big time. Cade Cunningham broke out in 8-cat formats. Dyson Daniels went nuclear. Tyler Herro proved he could be a number one on offense and Ivica Zubac proved that giving a lot of minutes to a very good center is probably going to go well. Jaren Jackson Jr showed that less can be more, which is something we have been talking about for a while. Nikola Vucevic survived for another massive campaign and Bam Adebayo was finally good. Josh Hart picked up where he left off the season before. Darius Garland shook off a down season and leaned into the Cleveland machine. Austin Reaves dominated with an early round season. Jamal Murray beat the fade as did Zach LaVine. OG Anunoby enjoyed all those Thibs minutes, too. Coby White took another step forward, Christian Braun was one of the best late drafted, waiver wire pickups of the year. Mikal Bridges was good despite all of those preseason videos about his shot. Jaden McDaniels cruised to an 82 game season in the top 50 range. Amen Thompson was absolutely electric all season and justified our top 50 B150 rank. We can never quite quit Onyeka Okongwu and it finally paid off. Ranking Keon Ellis at 54/47 (8/9 cat) and having him finish 65/53 even with Sacramento messing with them was one of the best hits of my career. If you just stayed way more aggressive than anybody else there you had a monster. Peyton Prichard went off. Deni Avdija really got it cooking in the second half of the season, and Tyrese Maxey was the truth until things started heading south in Philly. Malik Monk was cooking for a solid half of the season and Trey Murphy was elite whenever he was on the floor.

DID NOT DO WELL

*These are players that did not do well, not necessarily with respect to the B150, but in general

LaMelo Ball did it again again. Joel Embiid fell all the way apart. If you want to be mad at Victor Wembanyama or De'Aaron Fox you can be but they weren't exactly chopped liver. Donovan Mitchell was a disappointment with everybody else having fun in Cleveland. Anthony Davis was good until ol' injury risk struck again. It wasn't surprising that Giannis Antetokounmpo had another lackluster year. Alperen Sengun once again fell short of the hype. Luka Doncic got hurt in several ways last season and it ultimately crushed a lot of squads. Scottie Barnes couldn't stay on the floor and neither could a pair of high profile Orlando Magic players in Paolo Banchero and Franz Wagner. Cam Johnson was a popular play for some and did well for a bit but Brooklyn was a terrible place to bet on last season, which also made Cam Thomas a brutal play. I took a chance on Jimmy Butler and made out like Pat Riley. If not for Fred VanFleet getting red-hot against the Warriors in the playoffs I would be really questioning if he was all the way cooked and he certainly was for fantasy purposes. Ja Morant continued to nosedive and Nicolas Claxton was pretty much awful. Jrue Holiday was a wasted pick that folks should have seen coming from a mile away. Keyonte George predictably struggled in fantasy as did Bradley Beal. Donte DiVincenzo never really got a chance to do his thing and only played 62 games. Mark Williams was awesome for the 44 games he played and it probably was a win of a season for him but still half the year isn't paying the bills. Brandon Podziemski didn't live up to the hype and Jalen Johnson managed just 36 games to put a wet blanket on the public going big a season too late. Paul George played just 41 games and his season was probably snake bitten before it started. Kawhi Leonard played just 37 games and somehow made it look good but still, what a hassle. Lauri Markkanen predictably bombed and Jabari Smith was one of the least impactful good players in the league. One season after defying the odds Chet Holmgren snapped in half on a tough fall and missed 50 games. Kyle Kuzma looked like he didn't belong on the basketball floor but folks should've already known that. Brandon Ingram was Brandon Ingram and somehow played himself into a major deal in Toronto, where Immanuel Quickley lasted just 33 games as a fairly hyped up player heading into the year. Zion played just 30 games as his career continues to tumble. People tried to make Jonathan Kuminga a thing and it just wasn't going to be a thing.

The Most Impactful Players

Impact Ratings, if you forgot from above, range from 1-5 with 5 being historical and 1-4 being the only scores issued in the past two years. Again, the scale looks like:

5: Historical result
4: Secured (or lost) extremely important high-end production or a large number of rounds of increased (or decreased) value for their fantasy GM
3: To get a 3 the prediction needed to secure (or lose) very important high-end production or significant increased (or decreased) value for their fantasy GM
2: Securing substantial increased (or decreased) value for their fantasy GM
1: A basic head-to-head win that doesn't meet the criteria above is a 1

Finally, Here are the Receipts

***CLICK THE IMAGE TO CHECK IT OUT***