fantasy basketball optimization using SOLVER

He elementasrat and welcome to the forum,

I need a little help filling out the possible positions each player can play. You will need to put an X in each position, individually, to the right as I have started. Then send it back to me filled in with correct playing positions. Then I need to know how to pick the best team.

Is the criteria to pick 8 players that cover all the possible positions that have the highest sum of average points per game and total price is less than 50K? I think I can do this problem but don't want to fill in all the X's. Don't you need to somehow pick players who play more often? You don't want to pick a guy who never gets in the game. OR does the price imply they play more often? Fix the X's and attach it back to me and I'll play with it. Any more rules on needing a player of each type?

Originally Posted by MarvinP

He elementasrat and welcome to the forum,

I need a little help filling out the possible positions each player can play. You will need to put an X in each position, individually, to the right as I have started. Then send it back to me filled in with correct playing positions. Then I need to know how to pick the best team.

Is the criteria to pick 8 players that cover all the possible positions that have the highest sum of average points per game and total price is less than 50K? I think I can do this problem but don't want to fill in all the X's. Don't you need to somehow pick players who play more often? You don't want to pick a guy who never gets in the game. OR does the price imply they play more often? Fix the X's and attach it back to me and I'll play with it. Any more rules on needing a player of each type?

Wow sorry for the late response. I really appreciate your help. You had it all correct except for the U(utility position). Every player is a utility player. the game just uses that position so you can have an extra player on your roster. All I did was fill in an x in the u spot for every player.

As for any other criteria I think you have it all. As for now, I'd like to keep it basic so I'm using their average points as a so called "projection" to use when making my optimal lineup. In the future, I can use this workbook as a referennce and just manually changethe values and insert my own projections in the cells.

Yes, the object of the game is to pick 8 players, one for each position while staying under the salary cap limit of 50k. You don't need to worry about players who don't play often as I can account for that when using my own projections.


Also, I know this might be asking too much but maybe after, could you help me make a program that does the exact same thing as but instead I have to use 100% of the salary. Basically, optimal lineups don't matter and instead I'm looking to use 50k up and leave none left.

But for now the first task is my priority as I'm trying to get the most points.

The updated file is attatched

Hi,

The plan was to simply draw 8 guys at random and see if I have all the needed X in the position spots. Then to look at the cost to see if it is > 50K. Then look at the average points. I keep the first random team that fits the criteria. I would then do another random team, check positions, less than 50K and if their average points is greater than the first I keep them as my team.

Do the above about 1000 times (Excel doesn't care about the work) and you end up with a pretty good team.

NOW - How do I insure I have 8 players that cover the needed positions? I need for you to recheck the X's and tell me how to pick a team based on the player position X's. I can than add up the $ and see the average pts.

I'm ready to have you explain exactly how to use the solver for this problem. I'm really not a solver expert. I remember back in college when we were doing solver types of problems and the original guess was important. Also the solver method was very important depending on the type of problem.

My past methods have been to simply make a random guess and see what I get. If I have all 8 spots filled, I then add the average points up. If the average is bigger than the highest past guess it then replaces the "high" guess standard. If you can write code to do this, then you simply let it run 10,000 times and get very close to the best pick. No solver needed.