Nova Budget

A Nova Budget is NovaPredict's projected full-season fantasy point total for a player. It is the single season-long number that sits underneath Nova's ranks, tiers, and auction values, expressed in the points of your league's scoring format.

The name is deliberate. Think of it as the points a player is budgeted to deliver across the season. It is the median expectation, the center of the player's probability bands, not a best case and not a promise.

How to Use It

Nova Budget is most useful as a comparison currency.

• Sizing draft gaps: rank order alone can mislead. If the third receiver's Budget is 40 points above the fourth's, that gap is worth reaching for; if it is 6 points, take the discount and wait.
• Sanity-checking trades: add up the Budgets on each side of a deal. It is not the whole story, because scarcity and roster fit matter, but if you are sending away 60 more budgeted points than you are getting back, you should know why.
• Setting expectations: divide a Budget by the games in your fantasy season and you have a rough weekly baseline for what "a normal week" looks like from this player.

Remember that raw points are not the ranking. Nova ranks by value over replacement, so a modest Budget at a scarce position can be worth more than a big Budget at a deep one. The Budget is an input to that judgment, not the judgment itself.

What It Is Not

A Nova Budget is not a guarantee and not a ceiling. Real seasons land above and below it constantly; the probability bands tell you how far in each direction is realistic. It is also not the number Nova ranks by. Two players with equal Budgets can carry very different Nova Ranks because their positions thin out at different rates.

For how a season total becomes a ranking, see VORP.

Every player's Nova Budget is on the full board at /rankings.