NBA Supercoach | The Week to Sell Every Cheapie


<p>Last season, Cooper Flagg went from $5.0M to $15.35M. Raynaud went from $3.5M to $12.18M. </p>



<p>Every coach knows cheapies make money. What I see coaches get wrong, myself included, is the timing. Some sell too early and leave $4M on the table. Others hold so long that the cheapie has been flat for six weeks, sitting in a spot that should have been a gun.</p>



<p>So this piece is about the shape of a cheapie&#8217;s price rise, not just its size. How high can each one go? When does the rise slow down? When is the right week to cash out and turn that money into points?</p>



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<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>How prices actually move</strong></h2>



<p>SuperCoach doesn&#8217;t publish the formula, but it does publish the rules. Prices change weekly. They&#8217;re based on a rolling average of each player&#8217;s last six games, compared with the average his price was set on. And a player has to have played at least three games before his price moves at all.</p>



<p>Put that together with the $654k rule from my first preseason piece, and you get the most useful number for any cheapie: his ceiling price. Opening prices are almost exactly $654,000 per point of average. So when a player&#8217;s last six games settle at a level, his price heads toward 654k times that level. Then it stops.</p>



<p>Flagg is the proof. He averaged 23.9 last season and finished at $15.35M. 654k × 23.9 is $15.6M. His price finished within $0.3M of where his scoring said it should, and no higher.</p>



<p>So the ceiling sum is simple: ceiling = $654k × the average you expect him to hold. A cheapie who settles at 22 a game tops out around $14.4M. One who settles at 11 tops out around $7.2M, however cheap he started.</p>



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<p>Two other things fall out of the rules.</p>



<p><strong>The window is about two weeks.</strong> Six games is roughly two SuperCoach weeks of three or four games. So a cheapie&#8217;s price reflects his last fortnight, not his season. A hot start pushes him up fast. A cold patch, or a few games coming off the bench, pulls him back down just as fast.</p>



<p><strong>Two-game teams start late.</strong> A player needs three games before his price moves. Boston, Cleveland, Denver, Phoenix and Portland all play only twice in Week 1, so their cheapies can&#8217;t rise until after Week 2. That includes Koa Peat at Phoenix and Meleek Thomas at Cleveland.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>The curve</strong></h2>



<p>We know where a cheapie&#8217;s price ends up. What we don&#8217;t know is exactly how fast it gets there, because SuperCoach doesn&#8217;t say how much of the gap closes each week. </p>



<p>So I modelled a slow version and a fast version and drew both. The real answer is somewhere in the band.</p>



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="521" src="https://blog.scplaybook.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/image-3-1024x521.png" alt="" class="wp-image-2406779" srcset="https://blog.scplaybook.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/image-3-1024x521.png 1024w, https://blog.scplaybook.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/image-3-300x153.png 300w, https://blog.scplaybook.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/image-3-768x391.png 768w, https://blog.scplaybook.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/image-3-640x326.png 640w, https://blog.scplaybook.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/image-3-1200x611.png 1200w, https://blog.scplaybook.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/image-3.png 1344w" sizes="(max-width: 639px) 98vw, (max-width: 1199px) 64vw, 770px" /></figure>



<p>My model: price moves each week part of the way toward $654k × the last-six-game average, once 3 games are played. Slow = 35% of the gap per week, fast = 60%. Assumes 23 a game and Washington&#8217;s schedule.</p>



<p>The shape is the point, and it holds in both versions. The rise is steep early and flat late. By Week 4, Dybantsa is somewhere between $13.3M and $14.8M against a ceiling of $15.0M. That&#8217;s 82% to 97% of the total gain already banked. Everything after that is crumbs.</p>



<p>The same goes for every cheapie. The first three or four weeks make the money. After that, a cheapie who keeps scoring at the same level is just holding value. He&#8217;s a fine player, but he&#8217;s not making you any more cash.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>Every cheapie&#8217;s ceiling</strong></h2>



<p>Here&#8217;s the ceiling and the likely Week 4 price for the 2026 first-rounders worth owning. The projected averages are my estimates from the first preseason piece. The ceiling moves with whatever average they actually hold, so treat those numbers as the thing to update every week.</p>



<figure class="wp-block-table"><table><thead><tr><th>Cheapie</th><th>Team</th><th>Start</th><th>My proj avg</th><th>Ceiling</th><th>Max gain</th><th>Modelled Week 4 price</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>AJ Dybantsa</td><td>WAS</td><td>$5.25M</td><td>23</td><td>$15.0M</td><td>+$9.8M</td><td>$13.3–14.8M</td></tr><tr><td>Darryn Peterson</td><td>UTA</td><td>$5.20M</td><td>22</td><td>$14.4M</td><td>+$9.2M</td><td>$12.8–14.2M</td></tr><tr><td>Cameron Boozer</td><td>MEM</td><td>$5.15M</td><td>22</td><td>$14.4M</td><td>+$9.2M</td><td>$12.7–14.2M</td></tr><tr><td>Mikel Brown Jr.</td><td>BKN</td><td>$5.00M</td><td>17</td><td>$11.1M</td><td>+$6.1M</td><td>$10.0–11.0M</td></tr><tr><td>Darius Acuff Jr.</td><td>SAC</td><td>$4.95M</td><td>16</td><td>$10.5M</td><td>+$5.5M</td><td>$9.5–10.3M</td></tr><tr><td>Keaton Wagler</td><td>LAC</td><td>$5.05M</td><td>16</td><td>$10.5M</td><td>+$5.4M</td><td>$9.5–10.3M</td></tr><tr><td>Caleb Wilson</td><td>CHI</td><td>$5.10M</td><td>16</td><td>$10.5M</td><td>+$5.4M</td><td>$9.5–10.3M</td></tr><tr><td>Yaxel Lendeborg</td><td>GSW</td><td>$4.75M</td><td>11</td><td>$7.2M</td><td>+$2.4M</td><td>$6.8–7.1M</td></tr><tr><td>Koa Peat</td><td>PHX</td><td>$3.80M</td><td>9</td><td>$5.9M</td><td>+$2.1M</td><td>$5.3–5.8M</td></tr></tbody></table></figure>



<p>Two things stand out.</p>



<p><strong>The top three are worth more than the other six combined.</strong> Dybantsa, Peterson, and Boozer project to make $28.2M between them. The other six on this list make $26.9M. That&#8217;s the whole case for starting all three, which I made in the first piece.</p>



<p><strong>Cheap isn&#8217;t the same as profitable.</strong> Koa Peat costs $3.80M and projects to gain $2.1M. Lendeborg costs $4.75M and gains $2.4M. Neither will fund much. Their job on your bench is cover, not cash.</p>



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<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>When to sell</strong></h2>



<p>The ceiling tells you when a cheapie is done. Combine it with the rest of this preseason series, and you get five sell rules.</p>



<ol>
<li><strong>Sell when the price is within about 10% of the ceiling.</strong> Once Dybantsa is around $13.5M on a 23 average, the cash is mostly made. Holding him longer only makes sense if he&#8217;s one of your best ten scorers.</li>



<li><strong>Re-check the ceiling every week.</strong> If a cheapie&#8217;s last six games jump, so does his ceiling. Peterson at 26 a game has a $17.0M ceiling, not $14.4M, so don&#8217;t sell a player who&#8217;s still climbing because of a number you set in October.</li>



<li><strong>Sell into a role change, not a bad week.</strong> Price follows the last six games. One quiet week from a player whose role hasn&#8217;t changed costs you a little and comes back. A player who loses his starting spot is the one to sell before the window catches up.</li>



<li><strong>Sell the cheapie into a schedule cliff.</strong> If his team is about to hit a run of three-game weeks while your target has fours, that&#8217;s the week to move. Trade timing and schedule timing can line up.</li>



<li><strong>Upgrade in pairs.</strong> Two matured cheapies at about $14M each come to roughly $28M. Add a few million from your other risers, and that buys a gun plus a $3.75M basement player to fill the second spot. That&#8217;s the move that turns October&#8217;s cash into January&#8217;s points. It&#8217;s also how my early-points squad gets Jokic in by Week 5.</li>
</ol>



<p>The Week 4 to 6 window is where those rules land for most first-rounders. That lines up nicely with the Lakers double exit in Week 4 and Denver&#8217;s clean four-game week in Week 5. You can see why I like this structure.</p>



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<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>Five cash numbers</strong></h2>



<p><strong>$654k.</strong> Multiply it by a cheapie&#8217;s average, and you have his ceiling.</p>



<p><strong>6 games.</strong> That&#8217;s the price window, roughly the last two weeks.</p>



<p><strong>3 games.</strong> That&#8217;s the minimum before a price moves. For cheapies on Week 1 two-game teams, the first rise comes after Week 2.</p>



<p><strong>82-97%.</strong> That&#8217;s the share of Dybantsa&#8217;s projected gain banked by Week 4 in my model, depending on how fast prices respond.</p>



<p><strong>$28.2M.</strong> That&#8217;s the combined projected gain of Dybantsa, Peterson, and Boozer. It&#8217;s your Jokic fund.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>A note on the model</strong></h2>



<p>The ceiling is solid: it&#8217;s the same $654k-per-point rule that sets every opening price, and Flagg finished within $0.3M of his. The speed of the climb is my estimate, which is why I&#8217;ve shown a range. </p>



<p>After Week 2, we&#8217;ll have real price moves to check it against, and I&#8217;ll update the curve on the pod and in Buy, Hold &amp; Sell. If prices are moving faster than the fast case, the sell window comes forward a week.</p>


NBA Supercoach | The Week to Sell Every Cheapie

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