Guide

New to Sleeper Lock-In? Start here. How the format works, what our player archetypes mean, and a glossary of terms used across the site.

How Lock-In Works Player Archetypes Glossary
How Sleeper Lock-In Works
Lock-In mode works like Deal or No Deal. Each week, every player on your starting lineup gets one game that counts toward your fantasy score — but you don't pick the game in advance. You watch them play, see the score, and decide: lock it in (take the deal) or let it ride and wait for a potentially better game later in the week (no deal). Once you lock a score, that's final — and once their next game tips off, the previous score is gone forever.
1
Draft Your Team
Build your roster like any fantasy draft.
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2
Set Your Lineup
Only starters are eligible to lock in a score.
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3
Player Plays
Their first game of the week happens.
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4
Lock or Wait?
Take the score, or risk it for a later game.
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5
Repeat or Final
If you wait, repeat for their next game. If it's their last game, you're forced to take it.
Example
Jayson Tatum has 3 games this week. Monday he drops 28 FPTS — solid, but not great. You decide to wait. Wednesday he explodes for 47 FPTS against a weak defense. You lock it in immediately. His Friday game no longer matters for your score — you already banked the 47.

A few important rules to know:

This is exactly why our Lock Decision tool exists — to help you weigh "is this score good enough to lock, or should I gamble on a later game?" using real probability instead of gut feel.

Player Archetypes Explained

Every player on the site is classified into one of seven archetypes based on their stat profile. These aren't just labels — they directly affect a player's trade value, because some archetypes are simply more valuable in Lock-In's "pick your best game" format than others.

Why archetypes matter in Lock-In specifically: in a normal fantasy format, a steady 25-point-every-night player and a boom-or-bust player who alternates between 10 and 45 points score the same on average. But in Lock-In, you only need one big game per week — so the boom-or-bust player is actually more valuable, because their ceiling is what counts, not their average.
Stat Stuffer +12%
4+ AST and 1.5+ combined STL/BLK
Fills the box score everywhere — high floor AND high ceiling since they can pop off in multiple categories at once.
Versatile Big +10%
7+ REB, 1.5+ stocks, 14+ PTS
Modern bigs who rebound, defend, and score — their floor is rarely low because rebounds and blocks are sticky stats.
Lockdown +10%
3+ combined STL/BLK, 4 or fewer AST
Defensive specialists whose stocks alone can carry a Lock-In score even on an off shooting night.
Playmaker +8%
7+ assists per game
Elite passers have boom potential on triple-double nights, but rely on teammates making shots — slightly more variable.
Rebounder +5%
9+ rebounds per game
Rebounds are one of the most consistent stats in basketball — a reliable floor, even if the ceiling is capped.
Pure Scorer +2%
22+ PTS, low AST and stocks
High ceiling on hot shooting nights, but score-dependent volatility means a cold night tanks the whole performance.
Balanced —
Doesn't meet other thresholds
Solid contributors without a standout category. No bonus or penalty — their value comes purely from raw production.
Glossary
TermWhat It Means
Lock-In The Sleeper scoring format where you choose one game per player per week to count toward your matchup, deciding after each game whether to lock the score or wait for a potentially better one.
Adjusted Value Our 0–100 trade value score for each player, after applying position scarcity, archetype bonus, volatility, and tier adjustments to their raw model output.
Stud Tier A player's overall ranking bracket: Elite, Superstar, Star, or Starter. Higher tiers get exponentially larger trade value bonuses since true difference-makers are much harder to replace.
Elite Tier The top 1.5% of players — true franchise cornerstones like Jokic. So valuable that even two very good players often can't match their trade value alone.
Stud Bonus An extra value bonus applied to the single best player on a trade side, scaling exponentially with how far above league average they are. Only the top player on each side receives this bonus.
Roster Bonus A flat +22 points added when your side of a trade has fewer players than the other side, representing the value of an open roster spot you can fill from waivers.
Value Falloff (Slot Weights) Each additional player in a trade contributes less of their raw value — your best player counts 100%, your 2nd best ~85%, 3rd best ~72%, and so on. Prevents stacking depth pieces to match a star.
VOE (Value Over Expected) Used in Draft Grades — the difference between a player's actual trade value and the value we'd expect from whoever should have been picked at that draft slot. Positive VOE = a steal, negative = a reach.
Archetype A classification (Stat Stuffer, Versatile Big, Lockdown, Playmaker, Rebounder, Pure Scorer, or Balanced) based on a player's statistical profile, used to apply Lock-In specific value bonuses. See the section above for full details.
Volatility Proxy An internal measure (usage rate × points ÷ true shooting %) that estimates how boom-or-bust a player's game-to-game output tends to be. Higher volatility players get a small value premium since Lock-In rewards ceiling over consistency.
Playoff % In the League Analyzer, an estimated probability of making the playoffs based on a team's roster value rank relative to the rest of the league.
Stud Index A weighted score combining how many Elite, Superstar, Star, and Starter tier players a team has — used to identify the league's best and weakest top-end cores.
Lock Decision Verdict The recommendation from our Lock Decision tool: LOCK (take the current score), WAIT (risk it for a later game this week), or SWAP (no games left for this player, but the score is bad enough that benching them for a different player is worth considering).
Percentile (Lock Decision) Where a player's current score ranks among their typical games this season. An 85th percentile score means it's better than about 85% of their games — usually a strong signal to lock.