2017-18 fantasy basketball preview: General strategy primer
Has your fantasy football team already gone belly up this year? (Thanks for nothing, David Johnson!) Are you looking for another way to scratch your degenerate gambling itch? Meet seasonal fantasy basketball, your new love for the next six months.
If you’re afraid of a season-long commitment, the fine folks at Fantasy CPR will guide you through the ins and outs of setting daily fantasy lineups. But if you’re ready to take the full-season plunge — and you should! — here’s what you’ll need to know.
Points or categories?
Both ESPN and Yahoo switched default formats this year, going from a category-based system to a points-based style. Whichever one you choose, it’s imperative to know how that will affect players’ pre-draft values.
This season, the NBA adopted an official fantasy scoring system which awards one point per point, 1.2 points per rebound, 1.5 points per assist, three points for every steal and every block and subtracts one point for every turnover, according to Kieran Darcy of ESPN.com. In this points-based format, shooting percentages — whether it’s field-goal or free-throw percentage — are inconsequential. That boosts the value of high-volume, low-efficiency scorers such as Devin Booker, as well as poor free-throw shooters like Andre Drummond, DeAndre Jordan and Clint Capela.
In a categories format, meanwhile, you go head-to-head with one of your fellow leaguemates each week and attempt to win more categories than they do. ESPN’s default setting is an eight-category league — with points, rebounds, assists, steals, blocks, 3-pointers, field-goal percentage and 3-point percentage — but nine-category formats including turnovers are increasingly popular as well. (Nine-cat formats make ties far less likely on a week-to-week basis, for what it’s worth.)
Once you’ve settled upon whether you prefer a points or categories format, you’ll have to consider the other big style question: do you prefer going against a single leaguemate each week, or do you want the entire league to compete against one another throughout the entire season?
Head-to-head or rotisserie?
Those who play fantasy football or baseball will be most familiar with the head-to-head style for fantasy basketball. In H2H formats, you’ll compete with one leaguemate each week to outscore them in total points (for points leagues) or win more categories than they do (for category leagues). H2H leagues can award points per category — i.e., scores will be 5-4, 6-3, 7-2, etc. — or whichever owner wins more categories than the other can get one point for winning the overall matchup (similar to how fantasy football operates).
Rotisserie formats, meanwhile, ditch one-on-one matchups in exchange for league-wide competition. In a category-based roto league, every owner will compete with one another through the season in each category. Whoever finishes with the highest mark in that category will get 10 points in a 10-team league, 12 points in a 12-team league, etc., while the second-place finisher will receive one fewer point, the third-place finisher will receive two fewer points and so on. The goal in a roto format is to build a well-balanced roster so you’re competitive in most (if not every) categories, even if you aren’t overwhelmingly dominant in a few particular areas.
Deciding between points and categories leagues or roto vs. H2H formats comes down to owner preference. You can also decide between daily lineup changes — in which you’re able to swap players in and out on any given day — or locked weekly lineups, where you often must give precedence to players who are competing in four games that week rather than two or three.
Once you’ve settled upon a format, it’s time to begin strategizing. Consult our Top 200 overall big board or our in-depth breakdown of the top 10 point guards, shooting guards, small forwards, power forwards and centers. Read our team-by-team profiles to get a sense of which players should be on your radar in the early, middle and later rounds. And if you’re in a head-to-head format, consider the following strategy as you build your draft-day plan.
The ‘punt’ strategy
Since you only need to win five categories on a given week in head-to-head formats to emerge victorious — particularly come playoff time — the “punt” strategy is especially popular in these types of leagues. By effectively conceding competitiveness in a certain category, you can focus your attention on bolstering your advantages elsewhere.
Free-throw percentage is one of the more common punt techniques, as it boosts the value of big men who can’t knock down their freebies. Whereas DeAndre Jordan and Andre Drummond ranked as the 49th- and 83rd-best players on a per-game basis in nine-category leagues last season, remove their dismal free-throw shooting from the equation and both posted top-20 value otherwise. By pursuing such a strategy, you can unearth early-round value with middle-round picks, giving your roster a decided edge over those of your leaguemates.
Free-throw percentage isn’t the only category which you can punt, though. Punt turnovers, and guys like Russell Westbrook, James Harden and John Wall suddenly become that much more valuable. Punt field-goal percentage, and Ricky Rubio, Trevor Ariza and Robert Covington turn into top-35 values. Those who punt assists, meanwhile, shouldn’t dream of touching either Westbrook or Harden with a first-round pick.
Owners in rotisserie leagues don’t have the luxury to punt categories, as a last-place finish in a single category is an enormous chasm to overcome. I’ve been a proponent of punting free-throw percentage for years, though, and I continue to believe a punt strategy is the easiest way to storm your way to a fantasy basketball championship in head-to-head leagues.
Next: 25-under-25 -- The best young players in the NBA
Other draft prep
All average draft position info via FantasyPros. All rankings via Basketball Monster are based on nine-category leagues.