JJ's Blog

So this is my second year playing fantasy basketball. I find myself falling into the same routine that I went through with poker. That is, phase 1, play the game badly, but have fun. Phase 2. learn the game and try to play better.

So during the first fantasy B-Ball season, my only strategy was to try to assemble a team that would dominate a few of the scoring categories and might luck out and win another couple of random categories. After all, you just need to win 5 out of 9 categories, and you win your head-up match-up for the week. So last year, I tried to put together a team of 3 point shooting big men. That way, I’d win the following categories: 3PTS, Rebounds, and FT%. I might get lucky and win PTS and blocks.

It didn't work so well. Not sure if it was a bad strategy or the fact that some of my big men turned into real duds (i.e., Andre Kirilenko).

This year I read up a little before the draft and tried to do a better job drafting a “balanced team”.

Fantasy basketball is somewhat similar to poker. If possible, you should try to start with a good hand (i.e., draft good). Then, you need to play the hand well (make a few trades or drop/adds to keep your scoring balanced). Then, in the end, you need to get a little lucky (i.e., pick up that dark-horse player –i.e., Deron Williams, that exceeds everyone’s expectations).

So my drafting strategy was as follows:
1. Draft a balanced team by position. This is key. You really can’t afford to have any open roster spots throughout the week because you don’t have certain positions available. You need to have a balance of Point Guards, Shoot Guards, Small Forwards, Power Forwards, and Centers. One way to do this is to give some preference to players that can play multiple (3) positions. But at a minimum, you need to make sure you have each of the positions covered and balanced.
2. Draft a team that provides balanced scoring across all of the statistical categories.
3. Draft a team of players that….plays. The player must not be injury prone (i.e, played 80 games last year) and they must log big minutes.

So here’s what I did.
Step 1. I built a spreadsheet that would sum up all of my teams statistics as I added each player during the draft. As I selected a player, I would copy/paste his stats from last year into the spreadsheet and watch the totals line change.
Step 2. Compare my team’s totals statistics to statistical winners from last year’s yahoo fantasy basketball league. The spreadsheet would automatically calculate a % deviation statistic for each category. Then, I graphed the % deviation. This way, I had a constantly updated graph of how my team was “shaping up” in each of the categories as I added each player – compared to last year’s category leaders. If I was doing well in the 3pt category (the bar was high), but doing poorly in the steals category (the bar was negative), my next draft selection would be used to address steals.
Step 3. I kept track of each of the positions my players could play. If I drafted a player that could play SF, F, and SG, I would count this player in all three positions. Then, I kept a running sum of players by position. That way, I could easily keep balance across the positions.

So, in the first two rounds, I just selected the best available players. Then, in the last 11 rounds, I would add players that addressed the needs that were indicated on the spreadsheet graph and that would keep balance on my roster. Before I selected a player, I’d just make sure they were not injured, played a “healthy” number of games last year, played a “healthy” number of minutes last year, and could play a variety of positions.

Of course the flaw with this strategy is that is based completely on last year’s performance (both for the players and fantasy teams). This strategy does not take into account situations like a player’s declining health, rookies, a player’s potential, or special situations (i.e., Kobe Bryant’s tenuous situation with the Lakers).

I think I drafted a pretty good team. I guess we’ll see if it can outscore my opponents.