Philadelphia plays four games in the first week, Portland two: fill your Thursday

Do this before Tuesday: look at your last two roster spots and check which teams those players are on. In the first week of the season, the 76ers play four games, the Trail Blazers play two, and Thursday night has only two games on the whole schedule. Those three facts are worth ten minutes before your first matchup.

Format: head-to-head categories with daily lineups. The same logic holds for head-to-head points. In roto it does not matter, for the reason I gave in the playoff schedule piece: every team plays 82. Week: Tuesday, October 20, to Sunday, October 25, the same Monday-to-Sunday weeks I used there. Data: the 2026-27 schedule as of October 18, every game placed on its Eastern time date.

The count

The season opens Tuesday with three games: Boston at Detroit, Philadelphia at New York, and Oklahoma City at San Antonio. By Sunday night, 43 games have been played.

• Four games (one team): Philadelphia. Tuesday at New York, Thursday against Cleveland, then Saturday against Milwaukee and Sunday against Detroit.
• Three games (24 teams): everyone not listed here.
• Two games (five teams): Boston, Portland, Phoenix, Cleveland and Denver.

So Tyrese Maxey, Joel Embiid, Jaylen Brown and LeBron James all have four games on the board. Nikola Jokić has two.

Why Thursday matters

The games are not spread evenly across the nights:

• Tuesday: 3 games
• Wednesday: 11 games
• Thursday: 2 games
• Friday: 12 games
• Saturday: 8 games
• Sunday: 7 games

Take a hypothetical roster of 13 players with 10 starting spots, spread evenly across teams. On Friday, 24 of the 30 teams play, so about 10 of your 13 players have a game. You will fill your lineup and may have to bench someone. On Thursday, four teams play, so most managers start one or two players.

That is the point. A game on a busy night may sit on your bench. A game on Thursday almost always counts. The four teams playing Thursday are Philadelphia, Cleveland, Denver and Oklahoma City. A free agent from one of them gives you a game that very few of your opponents' players are getting.

Tuesday works the same way, with six teams: Boston, Detroit, Philadelphia, New York, Oklahoma City and San Antonio.

How much two extra games are worth

Here is the size of the schedule gap, using two real players. I assume each plays the same minutes per game as last season: Maxey 38.0 over 70 games, Jokić 34.8 over 65.

• Jokić, two games at last season's 27.7 points, 12.9 rebounds and 10.7 assists a game: about 55 points, 26 rebounds and 21 assists.
• Maxey, four games at last season's 28.3 points, 4.1 rebounds, 6.6 assists, 3.1 threes and 1.9 steals: about 113 points, 16 rebounds, 26 assists, 12 threes and eight steals.

Do not bench Jokić. He still wins rebounds by about nine in this example. But a four-game guard beats him in points, assists, threes and steals for this one week, and that is what a schedule does to a single matchup.

If the minutes guess is wrong, the edge moves with it. At 34 minutes instead of 38, Maxey's four games come to about 101 points, still close to double Jokić's two.

For your last roster spot the gap is plainer. A hypothetical bench player who scores 0.5 points a minute in 26 minutes gives you 13 points a game. Three games is 39, two games is 26. Same player, one game more.

Check your league's week

Check how your league sets its first week before you act on any of this. If yours runs through Monday, October 26, the picture changes: 15 teams play four games, 14 play three, and only Portland plays two. The Blazers play Wednesday against Phoenix and Friday at Sacramento, then not again until Tuesday the 27th at the Lakers.

If your first week runs to Sunday, November 1, the spread is seven games for eight teams, Philadelphia among them, and four for Phoenix.

Portland plays two in the first two versions of the week and five in the long one, so a Blazers bench player is a weak hold in all three.

What to do with it

• Hold your stars. A two-game week does not make Jokić or a Blazers starter a drop. You drafted them for 25 weeks, not one.
• Look at your last two spots. If either is a fringe player on Portland, Boston, Phoenix, Cleveland or Denver, a three-game player of similar value is worth the swap for this week.
• Fill Thursday. A free agent on Philadelphia, Cleveland, Denver or Oklahoma City who plays real minutes adds a game you will actually use.
• Watch the 76ers' back-to-back. Their third and fourth games are on Saturday and Sunday. Check the injury report before Sunday's lineup locks.

The check I would run next: the minutes in those first three or four games. A schedule edge is worth nothing to a player out of the rotation, and opening week is when we find out who the rotation is.

Update: the opening-night preview, Philadelphia at the champion Knicks.