Top 10 NBA Fantasy Tips For SUCCESS
I have been playing in a 12-man league for the past 6 seasons with some of my very knowledgeable, active, and deceptive friends from high school, and I can safely say that it is one of the most competitive and tough-to-win NBA Fantasy leagues on planet earth. Some of the things that make this league so competitive: 1) we rotate the worst members of the previous year out for new members who are better for the next year 2) it is a nightly league where you have to sub players in on a nightly basis 3) 9-categories 4) 8 players make the playoffs that are 1-week long so just cause you drafted well doesn't mean you will win 5) it is a draft and not an-auction league so you HAVE to make sure you draft well 6) we call the new players Villagers which entices us to make sure that these new villagers/peasants do not win
For these reasons, the league has molded me and some of my close group of friends (we call ourselves the council of justice... (COJ)) into stellar NBA Fantasy players, especially in the 12-man nightly subbing format where each team has 13 players and the teams are formed by draft picks (any other format is trash). It is also this experience that has helped the couple of us to be able to identify good players to add/drop/play each week without even needing to watch the games (though prior real life basketball experience and NBA-watching is pretty important and has helped). Here I will share some of those tips:
1) Basketball is a momentum game, hot pickups rely on momentum - check the 30-day, 14-day and 7-day statistic averages for new players that are playing well and will continue to do so from this point on. Season averages don't matter if they won't play well anymore.
2) Yahoo has a really good way of ranking players based off of some sort of weighted aggregation formula to determine the ranks of players based on ALL 9 CATEGORIES (Just because you score 20 points doesn't mean you will be ranked high if you shoot 20% and get 5 TOs). Definitely use this filter along with the 14-day average to see which players are truly all-around efficient and effective players that deserve to be picked up. I use this as my main source of statistical data and have been able to craft all-around teams because of this. For Example, players that do not stand-out in the basic scoring, rebounding, passing categories CAN and SHOULD stand-out when looking at a weighted-ranking (Iguodala, Seth Curry, Al Horford, Marvin Williams, Nicolas Batum, Ariza, Millsap are just some of the players that come to mind that fit well on any Fantasy team)
3) Basketball players are like the markets. Injury prone players are like High Yield Bonds - they can provide attractive returns, but also have high default risk. Try to factor this in tremendously when you draft your star players, as injuries late into the season can ruin all of your hard work
4) Similarly, good players on great teams / terrible teams will get rested as Fantasy Playoffs near. Kawhi and LeBron are players who will get rested on great teams. Dirk and Brook Lopez are good players on shitty shitty teams with No Future who will get rested in order to develop younger talent. Veterans get rested as well because they are old as dust (Tyson Chandler, Tony Allen..)
5) Steals and Blocks are hard to come by, and usually you need to win at least one of these categories to be a very good Fantasy Team. Players that average more than 1.2stls per game AND 1.2blks per game at the same time are hard to come by, and should be drafted early. I'd rather have a 4-4-2-2-2- statline from Iggy than a 18-1-1-0-0 statline from frikken Bojan Bogdanovic.
6) Pay close attention to schedule, especially in the Fantasy Playoffs. What good is Paul George if he only plays 2 to 3 games a week while some teams play 4 to 5?
7) Stash good players (should have stashed Reggie Jackson, Khris Middleton etc...)
8) More minutes = more stats, pickup players who get minutes (Alan Williams, Marquese Chriss)
9) Don't drop good players who have 1-2 bad games, worthy investments are worthy investments (again.. Marvin Williams who has been returning 3rd round value the past 2 months)
10) Follow the games closely, the Stat Tracker app is a good way to catch all the games and check for new good bench players/hot pickups very quickly in a easy-to-use interface.
Those are some of the main Fantasy Basketball Tricks that I have used the past couple of seasons to help me win 2 out of the 5 championships (and potentially a 3rd in 3 weeks) to keep the Villagers at bay. Let me know if you agree with these tricks and if there are any other ones out there worth noting! Its worth it to have the bragging rights / win all of your friends' money all while following your favorite sport.
