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How do fantasy basketball leagues work
How do fantasy basketball leagues work
ESPN Fantasy Basketball 101 - How to play
Sep 26, 2022
You love basketball. You follow the NBA, root for your favorite team and watched in amazement as Stephen Curry led the Golden State Warriors to another championship.
And you still haven't played fantasy basketball?!
If that sounds a lot like you, this is the perfect season to give it a try -- there is just so much exciting stuff happening around the league. Giannis Antetokounmpo and Nikola Jokic can do everything on the court. Luka Doncic and Trae Young have moved into the MVP discussion. Zion Williamson is coming back from a missed season. And superstars LeBron James and Kevin Durant continue to put their teams on their backs like they did 10 years ago.![]()
There has never been a better time to jump right into the fantasy game.
Create or join an ESPN Fantasy Basketball league for the 2022-23 NBA season.
Sign up for free!
Imagine having Curry on your team when he gets on a roll from 3-point land and carries you to victory. Or what it feels like to have LaMelo Ball on your squad when he stuffs the stat sheet in his third NBA season.
These are the moments you remember as a fantasy manager!
In fact, many of those who've played fantasy basketball over the years can recall specific games that certain players had for them. An epic scoring night by James Harden or Damian Lillard, or maybe a timely triple-double by Russell Westbrook.
So fun. So, so fun!
If you're not an expert, don't worry -- we have everything you need to know about how to enter a league and draft a winning team. Even if you're a total beginner, you will still have the tools to experience the joy of fantasy basketball like millions do every year.
Make the league your own
Every fantasy basketball league is different. While there are basic rules and settings that apply across the board (you will learn about those below), each league takes on its own identity based on settings like roster size, injury spots, stat categories and other specifics.
We encourage you to join or start a league that fits what you're looking for. If you want to be more casual and set your lineups once a week, find a league that uses weekly lineup changes. If you're a little bit more diehard with all this and want to be able to add and drop players and craft new lineups on a daily basis, that's the type of league you should enter.
The bottom line is to do what's fun for you. Find a league that keeps you tuning in to watch your players every night.
With that in mind, we've put together ESPN Fantasy Basketball 101 to give you an overview of how to get started, how to prepare for your draft and how to play during the season.
Now it's time for you to sign up and join the fun!
Getting startedESPN Fantasy Basketball FAQ
Click here for a quick reference for basic game-related questions.
How to sign up on the ESPN Fantasy app
Were you invited to an ESPN Fantasy Basketball league? Do you want to create your own as a League Manager? We have complete instructions for you right here.
How to sign up online
Whether you were invited to join an already-existing league or want to create your own as a League Manager, you'll find everything you need to do so right here.
League settings
If you created your own league, you'll need to make sure all of your league's rules and settings -- including roster size, scoring, regular-season schedules and playoff schedules -- are to your liking. We have all of the details of how to do that right here. Note: This season
You've signed up, now what?
Check out your league and team pages
It's time to learn more about your league and team pages, so you know where everything is.
We've got you covered with a detailed tour right here.
Know your rules
This might seem incredibly basic, but even veteran fantasy basketball players often assume they know their league rules even when they don't. The result of overlooking a rule can be costly, so be sure you know the rules before your draft.
Go to your fantasy basketball league page, click on League, then Settings. Here, you'll be able to find all the rules that are in place for your league this season. This includes roster construction, scoring, schedule, playoff structure and more.
Take the time to carefully go over every section. To make sure you understand the thinking behind each rule, check out our League Settings overview.
Draft prep
A good draft will put you in position to have a successful season, and taking time to prepare beforehand is key. That includes formulating strategies and printing out rankings that reflect your league's scoring format.
Don't worry, we have you covered with customized expert rankings and draft strategies in the ESPN Fantasy Basketball draft kit.
Autodraft prep
If you don't plan to take part in a live draft, that's OK. Our system will automatically draft for you.
Still, you have the option of guiding how our system will draft your team. Go to your Team page and click "Edit Autopick Strategy." Here, you can decide which player positions you'd like to pick in which parts of the draft and how many players at each position you want to select overall.
Mock drafts
Mock drafts are simply practice drafts that don't count for anything. It's a terrific way to get used to the ESPN draft software, make sure you know how everything works and test out different strategies. For example, that might mean drafting a point guard in the first round versus drafting a small forward in Round 1 and waiting on a point guard until the fourth round.
These practice drafts also let you see which players are going higher than expected and which are routinely slipping down a round or two (or more).
This is extremely useful knowledge that you can take with you in your real draft and use to your advantage, avoiding those "sliding" players until later rounds when you have a good idea that they will still be available.
For an overview of how everything in the ESPN draft room works, click on this link.
The draft
Draft day is the most exciting day of the season, because it's when your team goes from a plan to a reality. It's when you finally get the chance to assemble the group of players you get to root for all season. Of course, you can always add and drop players throughout the year, but the draft is still the most fundamental part of your roster and you want to make sure you don't miss on your top players.
If you have prepared for your draft by reading up on players and strategies, and by participating in several mock drafts, you're on the path to success. Believe in your hunches and don't look back.
To make everything go as smoothly as possible, be sure to follow these handy rules.
The season is starting, let the fun begin!
Trading
In most leagues, there are at least a few managers who enjoy the art of the deal. If you're one of those people, trading is going to be one of the most fun aspects of fantasy basketball. When done well, it's a great opportunity to improve your roster while unloading someone you perhaps no longer want or need.
There are several important factors to keep in mind. You must look at the roster of the team you're trading with and understand which, if any players, that manager might be willing to part with. For example, it'd be unwise to make a trade offer for a point guard on a team that is battling injuries and down to one healthy point guard. Also, while you may never want to send your best trade offer with your first proposal, be careful not to offer up too little. That can be offensive to the other manager and can lead to that person not only declining your offer but ending all future trade talks with you.
In-season strategies
Beyond trading, there are other factors to consider during the season like how to manage your games played in roto leagues, how to approach head-to-head playoffs, and how best to work the waiver wire. Check out the in-season strategies section of our draft kit.
Fantasy basketball etiquette
Every few years, no matter what type of league you're in, you'll run into someone who causes problems. Sometimes it name-calling on the message board and being a bully. Other times it is a constant stream of wild trade offers and questionable transactions. Whether you are in a hyper-competitive league or just trying to have some casual fun, you want to avoid being this way or having others in your league who conduct themselves like this.
Generally speaking, that just means following the golden rule: Treat others the way you'd want to be treated in your league.
Fantasy basketball -- ESPN Fantasy Basketball 101: Mock drafts
AP Photo/Chris O'Meara
Sep 16, 2021
Mock drafts are simply practice drafts that don't count for anything. They provide a terrific way to get used to the ESPN draft software, make sure you know how everything works, test out your draft strategies and get any mistakes out of the way before the real draft -- when it really counts!
We encourage you to see where your favorite draft targets are being selected, with a special eye toward which players are being selected higher than expected and which are slipping to later rounds. This is the type of knowledge you can gain only by participating in mock drafts.
Remember, practice makes perfect.
So after you've done some thinking about which strategies you may use in your draft, take your rankings cheat sheet and head to the ESPN Mock Draft Lobby. If you're on the ESPN Fantasy App, go to the football section and click "Mock Draft."
Look through the League Format column to find a league that matches your league's settings (auction or snake draft; category or roto scoring; 10-,12-,16- or 18-team league). Once you've found one, click the Room Name then click the blue "Join This League" button. Once the clock hits zero, your mock draft room is ready. All you have to do is click on the blue "Launch Draft" button.
From here, it's smart to take a look around the draft app and to test each button to see what it does. This is your chance to get used to the layout of the draft app.
Draft order: At the top, you'll see the draft order; the team on the left will draft first. The teams will cycle through as each pick is made, so whoever is drafting next will be shown on the top left, and the team on deck will be to the right of that team.
Take a look to see where you are drafting -- you are highlighted with a yellow square -- and begin preparing for who you think will be there for your first-round pick.
Players: You can sort them by position, NBA team, our projected stats and bye weeks. More importantly, you can use the search box to quickly find a specific player you want to draft -- even someone who may be way down in the default rankings and off the radar of most managers in your league.
Nomination Queue: Drag and drop players you might want with your next pick into the Nomination Queue in the order you rank them. If your clock runs out -- be it because you took too much time thinking or had a computer glitch -- the system will pick the top player in your queue for you. It also helps you avoid forgetting about a player you want during the draft.
Making your pick: When it's your turn, the clock at the top left will start ticking down toward zero, at which point it will take the top player in your queue or (if there is no one in your queue) the top-ranked player available.
To make your pick and avoid the automated selection, click on the player you want and make sure his image and stats appear in the Selected Player section. If you want him in a specific position, use the dropdown to choose the position before you finalize your pick. Then click the bright red Draft Player button to finalize your pick.
Draft Summary: As each pick is made by your league, they will show up above your queue. You can also click Draft Summary to see the full draft and which team took which player.
Draft Results: On the right, you'll see your roster, so you can see which positions you still need to fill (you'll need to fill each of those positions by the end of the draft). You can also use the Select Team dropdown to view other teams and see which positions they have filled.
League Chat: Use this area to talk smack, ask questions or beg your league manager to pause the draft if an emergency comes up.
League Manager: This section allows your LM (if you are in a league that uses that system) to pause the draft and roll back picks, in case someone made a mistake.
To improve your chances of draft day success, we highly recommend participating in as many mock drafts as possible before your draft. That way, you'll enter your real draft with a leg up on the competition and feel more confident knowing you are fully prepared.
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How to play fantasy league?
This season in the Parimatch Championship of the Nizhny Novgorod region we are again waiting for the fantasy league, which has already managed to catch the fancy of many fans over the past year.
How fantasy league works : 1) A user registers on fantione.com. You can register through Vkontakte with one click, or you can use an email address, but then the mail will need to be confirmed - without confirmation it will not be possible to play fantasy.
2) Then the user searches for the league he needs (the list of active leagues will be on the main page). In our case, this is the Major League of the Championship of the Nizhny Novgorod Region.
3) After selecting a league, the user goes to its page, clicks "Play" and becomes a member.
4) Next, you need to open the card sets to find out which players can be fielded for the upcoming fantasy tour. You will have 15 sets of cards. Each set contains 5 cards (for each position - point guard, attacking defender, small forward, heavy forward, center).
5) After opening all the cards, ideally, you need to look at what has fallen.
There will almost certainly be duplicate cards - duplicates can be removed, leaving only 1 card of the same cards available. When deleted, the user receives points, which can then be exchanged for new sets of cards (1000 points for 1 set). Removal of a simple card - 100 points, removal of a silver card - 200 points, removal of a gold card - 500 points. The difference in the color of the card is the bonuses that are awarded for each useful action by the player. Regular cards have no bonuses, silver cards have 1 bonus, gold cards have 3 bonuses. Bonuses and which cards drop out are all randomly generated. There will always be 1 silver card in one set. Possibility of getting into the gold card set - 10%. You can delete not only duplicate cards, but also cards of players that, in the user's opinion, will not be useful in fantasy, and he will not put them on upcoming rounds. It is impossible to remove a previously played card in one of the rounds. It is also not recommended to delete everything in a row - a situation may occur that there is no player in the position, and then 0 fantasy points will be awarded to the user for this position.
6) When all the cards are open, you need to go to the selection of the composition in the menu. The choice of the composition is 5 players for the next games, one player for each position. You just need to scroll down and choose from among the available cards those that, in the opinion of the user, will be most useful in the next tour. The choice is simple - scroll down, find a card from the available ones, click on it, and it should automatically appear at the top. Click "Save", etc. no need. Everything is saved. Changes to the selected five can be made before the start of the first game in the upcoming round. You can replace an already issued card if the changes are not blocked yet.
7) After choosing the composition, you can go to the prediction league. The League of Predictions is an additional opportunity to earn points for new sets of cards. There you need to guess the outcomes of matches and some random events. Correct predictions go to the overall standings, as well as to the standings of points that can be sprayed.
At the end of all games, the results for the round are processed, and the site in the "Leaders" section displays user data with their five players by fantasy points. And in the section "Statistics" - indicators of fantasy-points of the players of our Championship. By default, summary indicators are opened, but you can switch to a specific tour.
Please note that one round in the Parimatch Championship of the Nizhny Novgorod region lasts 2 weeks, but in the fantasy league we play for a week, so points are calculated every Monday.
You can play the Fantasy League here - https://fantione.com/
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Where to play fantasy NBA?
Since the season in the most spectacular basketball league has already started, which means that the most attentive daily fantasy sports sites have already taken care of that part of their players who follow this sport, and have launched tournaments within which you can play fantasy NBA.
We have made for you a selection of DFS sites where you can play fantasy basketball for money or for free. But first, we offer a refresher on the basics of NBA daily fantasy so you can approach the game fully equipped.
How to play fantasy NBA?
Below is the general principle of NBA Daily Fantasy. However, we ask you to be careful, as the details may vary from site to site. Therefore, before you start playing on a particular DFS site, study its rules. In general, daily fantasy basketball is the following.
NBA Fantasy Team Recruitment
In each tournament you get a certain budget to create your own fantasy team, which on most sites will consist of 9NBA basketball players. The list of available players will include the participants of the matches of the selected game day.
The cost of of a player usually depends on:
- Average points for the season
- Number of points earned in the last game
- Popularity (% player ownership)
Normally your team will consist of 9 players from the following positions:
- Point Guard (PG)
- Shooting Guard (SG)
- Small Forward (SF)
- Power Forward (PF)
- Center (C)
- Guard (G)
- Forward (F)
- 2 Utility Players (UTIL) - Player of any position
What are points awarded for in NBA Daily Fantasy?
In Daily Fantasy Basketball, during matches, your team members earn or lose points for their actions on the court.
On most DFS sites where you can play fantasy NBA, when scoring the following events are taken into account :
- Point (Point)
- Three-Point Shot (3pt FG Made)
- Effective transmission (Assist)
- Rebound
- Blockshot (Block)
- Interception (Steal)
- Double-Double (Maximum 1 per player)
- Triple-Double (Max 1 per player)
- Loss (Turnover)
- Technical Foul
- Flagrant Foul
Before recruiting players to a team on a specific DFS site, study the available positions and the scoring system, as they differ on different sites.
Where to play NBA Daily Fantasy?
Now that you've got the basic rules of the NBA Daily Fantasy game in mind, check out the main articles from the Daily Fantasy Basketball Strategy section, as well as recommendations from DFS pro Peter "DraftCheat" Christensen . After that, you can start choosing a platform for playing daily fantasy basketball for money or for free.
Among the sites that provide the opportunity to play fantasy basketball, and the NBA in particular, we would like to highlight the following sites where you can play daily fantasy NBA from Russia, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Ukraine, Latvia or other European and CIS countries.
Sites where you can play NBA Daily Fantasy for money
The above sites accept players from Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and other CIS and European countries, and provide an opportunity to play NBA fantasy for money or for free.
There are other sites besides these sites, but it is not possible to play for money there if you do not live in the US or Canada. On such DFS sites, you can register using special programs to bypass blocking and play fantasy basketball for free. We do not recommend depositing money on such sites, as it may be difficult to withdraw winnings.
Sites where you can play fantasy basketball (including fantasy NBA) for free
NBA, NCAA
User reviews on the forum: DraftPot discussion
How to choose a site where to play fantasy basketball (NBA)?
You are now pretty well prepared to start playing fantasy basketball.
You know the basic rules of the game, refreshed your memory of the strategy, and received complete information about all the existing DFS sites where you can play NBA daily fantasy. It remains only to choose one or more, make a deposit and enter the game. Here are some guidelines to help you choose the right DFS site for your needs:
- Look in what language is the platform interface . If you are uncomfortable playing on a site where most of the information is in English, pay attention to the DraftGaming site, which has a Russian-language interface. There is also Zweeler, where the main part of the site is machine translated. The rest of the sites presented in this review are created for an English-speaking audience, so you will need at least a superficial knowledge of English to play there.
- Read the reviews of our forum members in the Daily Fantasy Sports Sites section. You can ask for advice or take an interest in their opinion about this or that DFS site, as well as leave your feedback, which will help other players.
