Last week we started a conversation about 2020's most streaky players. Using the Most Consistent report from the report's page we were able to look at which players were pointing more or less consistently than we would expect given their point pace. We left off with one major question though – is this something that is repeatable? This week we are going to attempt to answer that question.

As a quick reminder the Most Consistent report breaks down a player's total points, their number of games with a point, and then uses that to generate a consistency percentage. Basically the number of games where a player got a point divided by the total number of games. Given that players who score more points are going to show up as more consistent, we ranked a player's point pace compared to the rest of the league and compared that rank to their consistency percentage rank to get an idea of how far off that player was from their expected. A positive change (as seen in the table below) indicates that these players have a more even spread of points than expected for their point paces. It essentially means these players have fewer than expected games without a point, and often means fewer multipoint games.

On the flip side a negative ranking means a player has many more games without a point than we would expect given their point pace. It also typically means this player has more multi-point games.

This week we are going to take it one step further and see if there are players who have demonstrated this streakiness over the course of several seasons.

For the sake of our conversation today we are going to use this negative change in rank as a definition of "streaky." It doesn't necessarily mean that if they score a point in one game, they are more likely to score in the next. However, it does mean that when they do put up points, they are more likely to get more than one. Put a couple of multipoint games in a short time frame and just like that you have a "streaking" player and a potentially appealing fantasy option.

Back to process: I ran the Most Consistent Report again for the 2018-19 season, and the 2019-20 season and built myself a new table that contained all of the change in rank data for all three seasons.  In addition to that I added a position column and a general points per game column so I could filter out most of the non-fantasy relevant players. Below we have the table for the most consistent players, so the least streaky (again controlled somewhat for point pace). Reminder that value matters – the higher the numbers in their change columns, the more games a player is pointing in than they are expected to.

Full disclosure: there are a couple of columns off screen (like standard deviation) that helped to sort/filter here to get our top five list, but generally just made the explanations more confusing.

Brandon Tanev appears to be a miracle worker here. The most consistent player in 20-21 had a change in rank of 53 (Jesper Bratt), but he dropped down to a 5 in 19-20, and a 13 in 18-19. Tanev has consistently finished over 30 for three seasons.

The real focus for us though is those streaky players. Who are the players who are scoring in way fewer games than we would expect (i.e., getting the most multipoint games)?

James van Riemsdyk is our big winner here. He has by far the highest and most clustered three-year numbers. It means that JVR has been the most temperamental-boom-or-bust player over the last three years (as any of his managers can likely attest).

What does this mean in practicality though? Our working hypothesis is that he likely has a chunk of multipoint games, but also likely some long stretches without points. This combo definitely has the potential to result in some pretty wild point paces between two different sections of seasons. So let's dive into his game log.

In 2020-21, JVR had 13 multipoint games and 13 single point games (for reference more consistent players with similar point paces have 30 percent-ish of their total games as multipoint games – not 50 percent). He had some hefty point scoring droughts of eight, five, and four games plus the expected number of one- and two-game absences (true for all the seasons). He also had some incredible streaks, putting up 26 points in his first 19 games (1.37 points per game), while only 18 in the remaining 38 games (.47 points per game).

In 2019-20 he had a bit more usual ratio with ten multipoint games to 15 single-point games (40 percent), but had some massive droughts. He went eight (twice), and seven games without a point. Surprisingly though, he was a bit less streaky with his biggest run a 17-point in a 19-game stretch in January/February (.89 points per game), that followed a 13-point stretch in the 19 games over December/January (.68 points per game).

2018-19, on the other hand, was a bit of a wild year. He had fewer point droughts with a 6 and a couple of three game droughts being the most notable, but he put up 15 multipoint games to only 13 single point games (54 percent multipoint games). He was also very streaky with 15 points in 16 games in February/March (.94 points per game), but over the next 14 games only putting up eight (.57 points per game).

So JVR was definitely streaky over this sample, and for the most part the rest of this list was too (though there might be some arguments about players to exclude), but that appears to be about it. Jordan Eberle and Logan Couture earn honorable mention, but everyone else really seems to either bounce around too much season to season or are too close to their expected levels (based on their point pace) to really be called streaky (in a way that can't be accounted for by their point pace and randomness).

So is it repeatable? Well, the above list is the closest we have over a three-year sample. So based on this measure it is either 5-10 guys across the league that play in a style/situation that lends itself to "multipointedness" or these players 5-10 players (of the 800 some odd sample) happened to randomly have streaky years over this data set. You be the judge.

That's all for now. Stay safe out there.

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