Given that the rankings don't count the lack of stats against you, I expect this is the intended (and unfortunately least bad) alternative.
What's the other option? Your players get some made up points/rebounds/assists that skews their per game ratings artifically high or low? Players who don't play in game 1 receive jersey sales based on last year, which can then be (ab)used by teams to deliberately avoid playing players in a rough/away game 1 matchup to get their big money from last season's full season rankings instead?