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5 Tips to Guarantee You Win Your Fantasy Basketball League This Season | News, Scores, Highlights, Stats, and Rumors

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5 Tips to Guarantee You Win Your Fantasy Basketball League This Season

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Fantasy basketball season has arrived, and now's the time to strike and create some separation from the rest of your league mates.

For those who haven't drafted, you'll find a few tips specifically for you in here. In short: Preparation will make or break you.

If you've already drafted, you'll instead need to focus your attention on the early-season waiver wire. Don't hesitate to pick up surprise performers in the first few weeks of the season, especially if one of your late-round picks isn't producing as expected.

Whether it's your first time playing fantasy basketball or you're a seasoned professional at this point, these five tips will help guide you to your league's championship this coming season.

1. Strike Early on Point Guard

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If you haven't had your fantasy draft yet, here's the best advice I can offer in 2012-13: Go big on point guard or go home.

With the plethora of young, exciting point guards in the NBA, this suggestion may sound counterintuitive at first. Look a bit deeper, though, and you'll see why it's not so crazy.

Derrick Rose, Ricky Rubio and John Wall will all miss the start of the season due to injuries, and at least five other teams have new starting point guards. With the rise of score-first, pass-second point guards, drafting a traditional PG in the first two or three rounds becomes that much more critical.

Chris Paul, Deron Williams and Russell Westbrook should all be top-six picks in your draft, especially with James Harden's departure from Oklahoma City likely freeing up even more time for Westbrook. Ty Lawson and Kyrie Irving won't be far behind.

If you haven't acquired a point guard by the fourth round, you could already be looking at slim pickings, though. Unless you're ready for Jrue Holiday or Jeremy Lin to be your squad's fantasy starter at the 1, do yourself a favor and make sure you grab a PG in the first three rounds.

2. Go for Multi-Category Stat-Stuffers

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In fantasy basketball, there's nothing like players who fill up every single category in the box score, such as LeBron James.

You won't be getting James without a top-two pick this season, but you should be targeting the poor man's versions of him in your draft.

Scoring specialists who don't offer much else have their place in the NBA, but not on your fantasy team. Instead, target players who will contribute their fair share of points, rebounds, assists, three-pointers, steals and/or blocks.

You'll also want to target players, both in the draft and on the waiver wire, who contribute in categories that you might not expect from someone at that position. Think Kevin Love's three-point field-goal shooting or Rajon Rondo's rebounding, for instance.

Drafting multi-category stat-stuffers won't pigeonhole your team into being overly focused on winning certain categories, which will help you maintain flexibility as you work your way toward your fantasy playoffs.

3. Have a List of Sleepers Handy

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If you're drafting and you don't have a list of potential fantasy sleepers handy, you're dramatically lowering your squad's chances of taking home your fantasy title. (Here's my top 10.)

Barring injury or other major calamity, you can't really screw up your first few picks that badly. It's those middle rounds where you either forge championship greatness or completely fall apart.

At this point, guys like Damian Lillard of the Portland Trail Blazers and Klay Thompson of the Golden State Warriors have become chic sleeper picks, but they bear repeating here. They're going to each be fantasy gold in 2012-13.

Don't ignore the impact of recent trades and injuries, either. Nikola Pekovic and Derrick Williams of the Minnesota Timberwolves each get a major early-season boost thanks to Kevin Love's broken hand, while Eric Maynor just took on some extra importance with the Oklahoma City Thunder in the wake of the James Harden trade.

The middle rounds of any fantasy draft are all about drafting players who are brimming with potential, whether due to talent, playing time, or a combination of both. Referencing a list of sleepers (or compiling your own!) could be the difference between having a team full of stars or being forced to resort to the waiver wire early.

4. Don't Ignore Players on Terrible Teams

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The Orlando Magic and Charlotte Bobcats will be lucky to win 45 games combined in 2012-13.

That doesn't mean you should completely ignore all of their players in terms of fantasy basketball.

Look, someone has to put up stats on those teams. They might not be pretty. They might not be all that impressive. But those teams are each scoring at least 85-90 points per night.

Personally, one of my favorite sleepers of the year, Glen Davis, plays for the Magic. When Dwight Howard went down with his back injury in April, Davis came in and averaged 16.4 points, 8.8 rebounds and 1.4 steals in only 31.4 minutes per game over the final month of the season.

With Howard now a permanent resident of Los Angeles, Davis has the best shot of any to become his permanent replacement as the focal point in the post. Jameer Nelson of the Magic, Michael Kidd-Gilchrist of the Bobcats and his teammate Bismack Biyombo are all solid later-round picks, too.

5. Plan Accordingly for Your League's Format (Roto vs. Head-to-Head)

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If you're going to heed the advice of only one of these slides, make sure it's this last one.

When gearing up for your league this year, make sure you pay close attention to your league's settings, most specifically whether it's a rotisserie or head-to-head format.

Much like points-per-reception in football, player values can dramatically change depending on what format you're playing. (ESPN has a great breakdown of all the differences between the two.)

For instance: The month-long injuries to Kevin Love and Dirk Nowitzki aren't worth sweating about as much in a head-to-head league compared to a roto league. When Love and Nowitzki return, they'll go back to putting up their typically ridiculous averages, so you'll just have to sustain those first few weeks without them in h3H.

In a roto league, however, the games-played limit will cause you to play other, lesser players in the stead of Love and Nowitzki. Those are tough decisions you'll want to try to avoid whenever possible.

Also, h3H leagues introduce the concept of "punting" a category, like any good Dwight Howard owner should try to do with free throws. In essence, you can decide that you'll never try to win a certain category in lieu of winning a few others each week, such as points, rebounds, blocks and field-goal percentage.

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Fantasy basketball - How to win your fantasy league

Sep 21, 2022

• Andre SnellingsESPN

• print

People ask me all the time for tips on how to win their fantasy basketball leagues. I love having those conversations, and I'll typically go as far as someone wants as far as the level of advice.

What I tell my father-in-law or my children on how to get into fantasy leagues is a lot different than what I'd tell someone that's been playing fantasy hoops every year for 20 years and is looking for Jedi-level tricks to get that little bit of edge.

For this space, I'll address the group of people that lives in the middle of those two extremes. But if you're the latter, and want to dive deep and/or get specific about your questions for your specific league... definitely hit me up on Twitter @ProfessorDrz.

The Draft

The draft is one of the most fun parts of fantasy sports, and it's also how you set your team up for success. Is it still possible to win a league if you had a bad draft? Yes, it is. But man, a great draft makes it so much easier to win if you start off with the type of strong foundation you can get through the draft.

Create or join an ESPN Fantasy Basketball league today and draft your league any time before the first game tips off every Monday. Your league starts fresh with 0-0 records for the new matchup period.

Sign up for free!

The first advice I'd give for drafting is make sure to take some time to prepare. I've been playing in fantasy leagues for decades, and I'll have draft-day conversations all the time with friends that say, "Hey. I haven't looked at this league much, yet. You got rankings or something I can look at?"

The answer is, of course, yes -- I've got rankings for you to look at. These days, those rankings are on ESPN. Which means that literally everyone in the league has those same rankings to work off. Don't get me wrong, it's important to have rankings. But, it'd be even better if you had a good idea about why players are ranked where they are, so you can decide if you agree with the rankings and adjust accordingly.

To do that, you'd need to be paying attention to NBA offseason coverage. What players have moved in free agency and offseason trades, and what were the fantasy ramifications of those moves? Which young players finished last season much stronger than their season averages and seem likely to make a leap this season? Who were the most impressive rookies coming out of the NBA Draft, or even better, coming out of the NBA Las Vegas Summer League?

Answering these questions are key to your draft prep. They should also be fun to answer, because it just means that you learn more about what's going on in the hoops world. You're not studying for a test, you're instead digging further into the sport that you love. And by doing so, it puts you in a better position to win your leagues.

Winning strategies

It's important to know the scoring system you're playing, and to draft according to it. A points-based league will have a different set of expectations and necessities than a roto league, which is also different than a roto head-to-head league. Category specialists are more valuable in the roto-style leagues than points-based, whereas efficient volume scorers that don't contribute across the board or that may have a horrible FT% on high volume may be more valuable in points leagues. Draft accordingly.

It's just as important to know your history when it comes to the players. These days, there are a lot of players with a huge dichotomy between their per-game potential and their history of game-to-game availability.

Kyrie Irving and Ben Simmons may both project to top-20 producers on a game-to-game basis. But, between them, they missed triple digit games last season, for a variety of reasons that it'd behoove you to understand.

Kawhi Leonard may have a top-10 per-game average, but his load management history suggests strongly he could miss up to 25% of the games even if he doesn't have an injury relapse.

LeBron James and Kevin Durant could challenge for number one in terms of per-game averages, but they're both at the stage of their careers where they've been typically missing major swathes of games. You need to keep these types of things in mind, before you decide whether to spend a first, second, third or fourth round pick on these types of players... or whether you want to let someone else in your league deal with the situation.

Start building your team around the best players available moreso than drafting for team fit. Particularly for the first few rounds, it's better to build around the players that will generate the most points than worry about whether you have two or three of one position over another. With that said, Jedi-level drafting will pay some attention to position scarcity, but as a tie-breaker as opposed to a leading factor.

If I've got a choice between a player that I believe will average 55 fantasy points vs. one that'll average 50, for example, I'm taking the former every time. But, if I've got a choice between two players that I think will both average about 50 fantasy points, and one plays a position where there are plenty of producers available even into late rounds (say, point guard) while the other plays a position where the talent falls off quickly (say, small forward), then in this case I'd be more likely to draft the latter.

Middle and later rounds

Now, in the middle rounds of the draft, I typically start paying more attention to team fit and making sure I have strong contributors across the board. By rounds 5-8 I'm also making sure I don't have any position holes that I don't think I can adequately fill in the later rounds.

And speaking of the later rounds, since by then I already have my foundation in place with sufficient positional flexibility, when it gets to the late rounds I'm shooting my 30-foot Steph Curry-like bombs with my picks. I'm going after my sleepers. I'm taking more chances. I'm leaning into more risk-reward type plays, instead of just going with steady contributors.

Often, it's the players taken late in drafts that hit that end up being champion-making picks.

Think a level deeper

Think about where your players of interest are in their careers, and how that might affect their production. You want to draft younger veteran players that are trying to carry their teams into postseason consideration... they tend to be more durable and play more minutes because they're younger but have their NBA legs under them. And they have to do everything they can to get their teams to the promised land.

On the other side of the coin, maybe you think twice about bringing in players that may be the best in the game, but they're older and playing on teams that are championship-or-bust... and therefore will have an eye on staying fresh for the postseason as opposed to going all-out every game for the regular season.

Another next level thing to keep in mind, that may be trite but also contains truth: pay attention to players that may have some contract year motivations. For example, I already mentioned about Irving's history of missing major swathes of games. However, this offseason he had a majorly publicized contract disagreement with his team, and thus next offseason he will be negotiating his next big deal.

ESPN's Stephen A. Smith has suggested that Irving might even be an MVP frontrunner this season because of his motivation level. These types of considerations play into fantasy hoops expected production as well, and you should be prepared to judge accordingly.

Early season and free agency

Be flexible and ready to make moves, right out the gate. One habit that I had to change was relying too heavily on my "draft brilliance," even once the season began and initial information was different than expectation. If my 13th round sleeper starts off the season on the bench or playing poorly, but there's an undrafted free agent that's scored 20 points in the first two games, I have to be willing to drop my drafted player to move onto the better prospect.

I see those first couple of weeks as crucial, because many overlooked players will make themselves known early. And you've got to be ready and willing to give them a try early, before your competition does.

Another decision that can be tough is deciding whether to move on from injured players... or whether to stash them. To me, it's all a question of potential reward vs, availability. In order for me to stash an injured player, that player has to be significantly better than any player available on the free agency wire. The roster composition on my team also has to be strong enough to survive having an injured player on the bench. 'Injured list' spots are crucial, and allow more stashing.

Similarly, weekly transaction leagues may not require as deep of an active bench as daily transaction leagues, where volume of player availability absolutely helps determine weekly wins and losses. In a daily transaction league with no injured list and/or shallow benches, I'm not stashing any player short of a superstar.

If I'm in a team with 10 or fewer teams, or with fewer than 13 roster spots per team, I'm also much more likely to move on quickly from injured players because the free agency wire is likely to have more productive players and the line between what can be found on the wire vs. the average rostered fantasy producer is even thinner.

In a 10-team league that starts 10 players with three bench slots, the production of a 'fantasy starter' ranked in the 90s and the 131st ranked player on the wire is going to be similar enough that it'd make no sense to stash that injured player on your bench for six weeks instead of getting the production of the 131st ranked player for all that time.

Trading

I'm a firm believer that trading is the absolute key to winning championships in fantasy sports. Very often, at the end of the season, the teams that have pulled off the most trades tend to be clustered more toward the top of the leagues. Trades are your opportunity to look at your teams, identify strengths and weaknesses, and identify specific players to acquire to help accentuate the strengths and/or minimize the weaknesses.

To that end, there are important methods for making good trades. First, you need to really understand your team. Did you come out of the draft with any clear positions that weren't up to standards? Did you end up having to rely on a player(s) with a history of injury or high risk/reward, without a suitable backup and/or level of redundancy? Or, conversely, do you have great depth but not enough pop in your starting lineup such that you're unable to maximize your daily output with too much firepower on the bench?

Take some time to evaluate your team, so that you know exactly what you might hope to gain in a trade on a more granular level than just "I want to get better." Next, evaluate the other teams in your league. In my best league performances, I not only know my own team's strengths and weaknesses, but I also know the same for the other teams. This is crucial, because it always takes at least two teams to trade. You can come up with trade ideas to get every great player in the league, but if your league mate(s) don't get what they need out of the bargain, there's no impetus for them to make a move.

I like to come into any trade negotiation with a logical reasoning for why the opponent should make the move, then build a deal so that they very visibly get what they want/need... while of course assuring that I get what I want as well.

Also, when you're ready to trade, know the personalities of the team managers you'll be dealing with, because the way you approach a trade negotiation will need to be case specific.

Some managers may respond well to you just sending them an offer, but in my experience, most won't. For some, adding a sentence or two of reasoning in the trade 'comments' area may be enough. For others, it might be best to send them an email with trade thoughts before you send any offer. For others still, I've found it best to call or text them about another topic entirely, then casually bring the conversation around to the fantasy league, and nudge the conversation along until you get them to bring up the topic of a trade. If they feel like the trade is their idea, they're more likely to say yes.

It's up to you to figure out the trading personalities of the people in your league, and to tailor your approach accordingly to maximize the likelihood of success. I like to trade early, and often. If you only operate off the draft, or maybe only do one or two trades in a season, it adds pressure to your evaluation skills early, because your team won't have much opportunity to improve. But if you trade often, it gives your team multiple opportunities to course correct and improve, even as the season progresses.

Final tips

Finally, and most importantly, have fun. Have an absolute ball.

Set up a group Zoom for your league on draft night, so all the team managers can talk trash to one another. Or, if possible, draft live.

If you're the defending champion in your league, show up to the draft with a WWE-style championship belt.

Make the manager that finished last the previous season buy everyone's drinks on draft night.

Personalize it. Make everyone love the league.

Once the season starts, maybe have some game-watching parties as a league. Either in person, or over Zoom.

Watch as many games as you can... I know one of my best investments when I got into fantasy sports was purchasing NBA League Pass for sheer enjoyment in addition to helping me keep up with my players and see for myself who I wanted to have on my team vs. potentially trading away.

Set up group chats or text chains. Create more opportunity to talk your stuff, bond and enjoy your league mates.

Not only do these things help motivate you to build a team that'll win, but they also help make your league super enjoyable and a daily joy for the next six or seven months of your life. If you can do that, then it's like you already won... OK, maybe that's a step too far.

Having a fun league is great but if you follow the advice in this article, you will hopefully put yourself in good position to take home the title. And trust me when I tell you -- there's nothing more fun than winning!

3 Tips for Winning Daily Fantasy Basketball

Daily fantasy sports pro player Peter "DraftCheat" Christensen gives 3 top tips for beginners on how to start winning at daily fantasy basketball.

Before we get into the NBA Daily Fantasy winning strategies, let me tell you how interesting and exciting it all is. Two years ago, I would have had to work hard to name 30 NBA players. Now I can shoot out the roster of every NBA team, and now it's my favorite fantasy sport. The feeling of fighting for the big prize in the GPP, when you have Stephen Curry in your roster, who literally starts pouring three-pointers and dragging you to victory, is simply indescribable. Add to this the significant edge that can be gained in daily fantasy basketball (if you know what you're doing), and you have a recipe for a very interesting and profitable activity. Or rather: an activity that becomes profitable.

1. Trust the bookies

Have you ever been to Las Vegas? Have you been to these huge, posh casinos? These monsters were built by smart people who knew what they were doing. One of the first steps to success in NBA daily fantasy (and even in all fantasy sports in general) is checking NBA quotes at bookmakers. You should aim for games with high Total Over and Total Under, which are predicted to be even games. If you have starters on your roster from a game that is far from being played out by the end of the match, it's much more likely that your guys will be playing in those minutes.

If one team is beaten by another, you will often see starters going to the bench early to rest for the next game. Games predicted by the bookmaker to have a high total are likely to score more fantasy points as this is based on the teams' pace of play. High Total games tend to not only earn more points for your players, but also more rebounds, assists, blocks and steals, and more possession time. Finally, in a tied game there is always the potential to get bonus minutes in overtime. Owning players who have played in overtime can be a big advantage in big-field tournaments in the NBA's Daily Fantasy.

2. Minutes are everything

If you've never played Daily Fantasy Basketball, one lesson you'll quickly learn is that you should chase minutes. Given the nature of basketball, and the fact that only 5 people from each team can be on the court at a time, fantasy points are earned in almost every possession, be it through baskets, assists, rebounds, blocks or steals. This means that in daily fantasy basketball you need a roster of players who are likely to be on the court for the majority of the game. It can be hard to predict at times, but in general you should target starters in games that are predicted to be even, and players from teams that have few players left. Perhaps this statement sounds strange to those who do not follow the NBA closely. But as the season progresses, teams inevitably pick up injuries and suspensions, and there's often a team or two that don't have a lot of players available to play at the moment. When the team drops to 8 or 9healthy players, you can almost be sure that regardless of the score, the starters in this game will get a lot of minutes. Choose such players and reap the rewards.

3. Who owns the information owns the world

One of the most important aspects of Daily Fantasy Basketball, which is unique in the NBA, is the need to be at the computer until the start of the competition. Unlike other sports, in NBA daily fantasy, a lot of important information pops up much more often before the game starts. And if you play often enough, there will be times when you will frantically press the buttons, as a couple of your guys unexpectedly dropped out of the game a few minutes before the lineups closed. Even worse, if you ignore this news and end up drafting a player who will serve the entire game. You need to be vigilant and follow all NBA news on news sites and related sources on Twitter. Although it may sound complicated, if you know where to look and improve your information gathering process, it can really be a huge advantage in daily fantasy basketball and in the NBA in particular, as you are less likely to have zeros in their roasters.

Conclusion

There is much more to building winning rosters in Daily Fantasy Basketball. But the three points listed above are critical for those who are just starting out. Follow them and you will build a solid base to which you can add other profitable strategies and tools, such as individual matchup analysis. For starters, build a roster of high-scoring, tied-match players who are likely to play many minutes, and try to avoid dead players. This is already half the battle. The rest will come with time and experience. Just start playing daily fantasy basketball.

Good luck!

Read more: Sites where you can play fantasy NBA

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.

1) The 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.

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