Giannis and Bam shared 23 of Giannis' 32 preseason minutes. Take back half of the Bam discount

Move Bam Adebayo up half a round in your nine-category draft. Leave Giannis Antetokounmpo exactly where you had him. Below is the arithmetic, plus the one number from two preseason games I am not yet willing to believe.

Format: 9-category head-to-head, 12 teams. Sample: two Miami preseason games, 32 minutes for Antetokounmpo and 29 for Adebayo, against 36 games and 73 games last season. Minutes assumption: 30 for Antetokounmpo, moved from 29 to 31 for Adebayo, with the range written out below.

What I assumed in September

On September 22 I wrote that Bam loses more than Giannis does. The reason was a reported plan: stagger the two bigs, so one of them is always anchoring the middle. A stagger means fewer shared minutes, and the player who gives up minutes is the one with the smaller role. I put Adebayo at 29 minutes, down from 32.4 last season, and told you to take him one full round later than his name says.

That assumption can now be checked against real substitutions.

What Miami actually did

I rebuilt who was on the floor from every Miami substitution in the two games both men played, and each player's total matches the box score to the nearest minute.

• October 3 at Toronto: both started. Antetokounmpo played 14.1 minutes, Adebayo 12.8, and all 12.8 of Adebayo's came with Antetokounmpo on the floor.
• October 8 against New Orleans: both started again. Antetokounmpo played 17.9 minutes, Adebayo 16.1, and they shared 9.9. Antetokounmpo had 8.0 minutes without Adebayo and Adebayo had 6.1 without him.
• October 10 against Minnesota: neither played.

Add it up: 22.7 shared minutes, which is 71% of Antetokounmpo's 32 and 78% of Adebayo's 29. That is the opposite of a stagger. The second game had more of one, so the plan may still be in there for the bench stretches. But they started together twice, and I take that seriously.

Why that moves Adebayo and not Antetokounmpo

A stagger threatens minutes. Starting together does not. If both men start, both can play starter's minutes, and the cut I took off Adebayo was mostly a minutes cut. So I am giving two of the minutes back: 31 instead of 29.

On last season's rates, per minute, Adebayo at:

• 29 minutes: 18.0 points, 9.0 rebounds, 2.9 assists, 1.1 steals
• 31 minutes: 19.2 points, 9.6 rebounds, 3.1 assists, 1.1 steals
• 32 minutes: 19.9 points, 9.9 rebounds, 3.2 assists, 1.2 steals

Two more minutes is about 1.2 points and 0.6 rebounds a night. Over a full season that is real, which is why the half round comes back.

Antetokounmpo does not move. At 30 minutes on last season's rates he is 28.7 points, 10.2 rebounds and 5.6 assists, on the same 30-minute assumption I used in September. His bigger risk is games: he played 36 last season.

The number I am not buying yet

In those two games Antetokounmpo had 11 assists and Adebayo had two. Per minute, that is 0.344 assists for Antetokounmpo against 0.187 last season, and 0.069 for Adebayo against 0.099.

If that held, the assists would move from one big to the other. At 30 minutes, Antetokounmpo's preseason rate is 10.3 assists a night. I do not believe that. It is 32 minutes, and seven of the 11 came in one 14-minute game in which he took three shots. Use it as a direction to watch, not a number to draft.

A worked example

Take a hypothetical center at 0.10 assists a minute. At 31 minutes he gives you 3.1 a night. Drop his rate to 0.07 because a teammate now runs the offense through him less, and he gives you 2.2. Same minutes, one fewer assist. For a big, that is the difference between helping the category and being neutral in it.

The card

Antetokounmpo: unchanged, 30 minutes, last season's rates, priced for the games he might miss. Adebayo: half a round earlier than my September call, at 31 minutes, still a rebounds, steals and free-throw-percentage center rather than an assists one.

When to redo the math

Miami has two preseason games left, against Brooklyn on Wednesday, October 14 and at Orlando on Friday, October 16, then opens the season at home against Minnesota on Wednesday, October 21. If they start together again and share more than half of their minutes, keep 31 for Adebayo. If Adebayo comes off the bench, go back to 29 and the full round. And after two weeks of real games, check the assists per minute for both men. That is the number that tells you whose card changed.