Fantasy Basketball Newbie, Part 1

If you’ve never played fantasy basketball before the NBA’s season is just about to start and now is your chance. You play by picking your favorite superstars and letting them accumulate points, rebounds, blocks, etc. for your team. There are several ways fantasy basketball leagues can be run and we’ll look at the different popular setups you will be able to choose from.

So exactly how does fantasy basketball work? Well if you’ve ever played fantasy baseball or basketball it will seem very familiar. To start the season you’ll draft a roster, usually with around 10 starters and several bench players to serve as backups. There are five positions in basketball: point guard, shooting guard, small forward, power forward, and center. Depending on where you play fantasy basketball, they will judge what positions each actual player in the NBA is eligible to play for your fantasy team, based on their real playtime positions. Several spots on your roster will be combo spots, where you can start either type of guard, or either type of forward, or perhaps utility spots where you can start any kind of player.

Now what kind of team you draft will be very dependent on what type of league you use: a points based league, like fantasy football, where your players get a certain amount of points for each good thing they do, or a category based league, like fantasy baseball, where you try to beat your opponent by getting higher stats in different important categories. The big eight categories in fantasy basketball are points, 3-pointers, rebounds, assists, blocks, steals, field goal percentage, and free throw percentage. Those are usually the ones you will need to be concerned with for your team.

If you play in a points based league, you just want the players who get the most points from doing all of these. If you get two points for a rebound, two points for a steal, one point for every point scored, -1 point for every shot missed, and so on and so on, then basically everything goes into the same pot. It doesn’t matter how the guy gets his points or avoids losing points in some cases, just so long as he gets a lot of points.

If you play in a category league, things are very different. Here you need to lead in a category over your opponent to win that category. So if your team gets 30 rebounds and your opponent gets 27 rebounds you win that week’s rebound category. You want to win as many categories as possible, but it’s not possible to get a team of players who are great in all eight categories. Some players are league leaders in rebounds, but not in points. Some guys are great on defensive categories like blocks and steals but are bad at making their free throws. You could try and draft a team that covers all your bases, but that means while you might not have any weakness, you won’t have any overwhelming strengths.

Also in category leagues you can choose to play head-to-head against an opponent each week or rotisserie style where you compete against your whole league to win each category for the whole season. This creates some difference too as it’s not possible to take advantage of an opponent’s weak categories by just being decent at that category and getting a win. In roto you compete against everyone, so just being solid in a category puts you in the middle of the pack.

As you can tell there’s a lot of popular variation in fantasy basketball so you can pick the style of play that most suits you. In fantasy sports basketball is that sort of third child people aren’t sure what to do with. Is it an intricate statistical game like baseball that lends itself to category based play, or is it a more in-your-face direct game that lends itself to points? It’s a little of both, not quite so individual a sport as baseball nor quite so much a team sport as football.

In the 2^nd part of this series I will look into where you can play fantasy basketball on the web, provide more in depth discussion on strategy, and introduce some of the better known fantasy stars in the NBA. Until then—

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What Did We Learn - Week 2

Week two is all over in the NFL, and I have to say the general level of sucky play was drastically down on the offensive side of the ball. With of course the notable exception of the Minnesota Vikings. Even the 49ers put on a strong showing against the reigning Super Bowl champs Monday night, signaling they’re not ready to be written off as dead just yet.

But back to those Vikings, and Ole Gunslinger, Brett Favre, whose performance these last two weeks is a distant cry from what he gave owners last season. He looks almost unable to throw out there, hell he barely looked like he could walk into the stadium. The receiving doesn’t seem to be much better, but who’s to say Percy Harvin and Bernard Berrian couldn’t catch competently thrown passes?

Favre was rusty coming back last year, and older players almost always are. They just need a longer warm-up period once the season is starts. Take David Ortiz, he needed two and half months just to get going, but he’s had a good year since. As such, don’t sell Favre just yet, but do have one or possibly two backups on your bench to take his place week to week. A lot of owners cut Kevin Kolb, if he’s still on the waiver wire, steal him today before his old owner can get him back. And if you have the roster spot Michael Vick is a good player to keep around in case he steals the starting job a month from now in Philadelphia.

Also Kyle Orton, Matt Ryan and Vince Young are decent spot starters at this point. Keep Favre off your starting roster if you can until he proves he’s back to form. Percy Harvin and Bernard Berrian basically have no value until he does. You can keep them on your roster certainly, but don’t feel guilty about cutting them if there’s an opportunity for a worthwhile free agent. And at the very least, Adrian Peterson is only going to take on more responsibility in carrying this team. So if you own him, good for you.

I know a lot of people who got stuck with Jay Cutler at the start of the season were worried and upset about it, but he’s proven every doubter wrong thus far. He’s a definite starter for your team. The guy is an over 4,000 yard QB, and he’s taking much better care of the ball this year.

After the first week a lot of clever fantasy analysts were quick to point out Jahvid Best actually had a poor running game against the Bears, averaging only 1.4 yards per carry. Well stop listening to analysts. This guy is The Man at running back on a team that believes in having a single starting back. Have his fantasy points been padded by touchdowns these first two weeks? Absolutely! He has been the go to scoring option for this Lions team. I say start him with confidence and be happy that you can.

The Colts are back on track after getting manhandled week one by the Texans. They stomped the Giants, especially under the feet of Joseph Addai and Donald Brown. Peyton Manning looks like he could have another monster year and Reggie Wayne will be right beside him as usual. The young Austin Collie could really be stealing Pierre Garcon’s spot as second most relevant wide receiver on this team. Good speculative pick-up if he’s still available.

Meanwhile the Dallas Cowboys only managed to go further off the tracks. The Bears are clearly better than expected, but this Cowboys team is just not working. They’ve got a lot of talent and I suspect it’s only a matter of time until they start looking good, but thus far they suck. Fortunately their fantasy value is a lot better than their real value, Tony Romo remains a definite starter, Miles Austin remains a #1 WR. Sadly Barber and Jones should remain on your bench for the time being. However, if this Dallas team plans on getting any success this year, one or both of those guys is going to have to start getting good numbers on the ground.

I was genuinely blown away by the Jets win over the Patriots. I think the jury is still out on whether or not they beat last year’s underwhelming 9 and 7 record, but they looked like a real football team this week. Fantasy-wise, they’re still no good. I wouldn’t trust using Mark Sanchez as a spot start yet, none of his receivers are standing out, and then there’s the unfortunateness with Shonn Greene. So far he’s a huge disappointment and Rex Ryan looks committed to splitting his time with LT. If LT was any good, this would be awesome, but he’s never going to be worth starting if you haven’t blown it at running back with your roster. And yet he’s probably going to keep out gaining Greene. Wait and see.

Greene’s preseason counterpart Jamaal Charles seems to be in the opposite, yet exactly same situation. He’s done nothing but been explosive and elusive. But he’s the backup to Thomas Jones. Who looks like garbage. You have to hope the Chiefs start losing (they will) to the point where the coach has no choice but to lean his team’s future on Charles. Because the Chiefs have no other offensive talent; Thomas Jones will continue to be no good, Cassel will continue to be no good, Bowe will continue to be no good. But until that time comes (if it ever comes) all you can do is hope Jamaal makes the most of his 12 carries every game.

Finally, the Green Bay Packers are looking good, especially Aaron Rodgers. You paid big to get Rodgers in a draft and so far he hasn’t disappointed. Ryan Grant unfortunately is gone for the season, but I have a feeling Jackson will fill in nicely if they don’t replace him in a trade. Green Bay just needs a big running back to fill that starting spot, any big running back will probably have a decent season doing the job. I think Greg Jennings’ value is probably down a little bit while Donald Driver’s is up. Rodgers looks content to spread to ball around to whoever is open, so at this point, you have to prepared for Jennings or Driver to have good weeks where they get the ball in the endzone and bad weeks where they don’t.

As a side note, fantasy basketball season is only a little over a month away! This week I will be opening a fantasy basketball homepage and starting an article series to get you started in this fantasy sport if you’ve never tried it. So look for those things and in the meantime get out there, and good luck!

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What Did We Learn - Week 1

With one great week of fantasy football beyond us, it’s time to look over the events of the weekend and see what we’ve learned. It’s safe to say the league looked a little rusty in just about every opening game. The Vikings-Saints match up was a disappointment offensively and that set the tone for the weekend.

One guy who wasn’t a disappointment was Arian Foster. Ben Tate had been one of my favorite fantasy sleepers, but his injury opened up the spot for Foster to take over the Texans run game completely and he didn’t waste the opportunity. Some analysts are looking to blame the Colts defense more than praise Foster, I think they’re being too clever. Right now Foster is a #1 RB until proven otherwise. Don’t trade him, don’t think every RB match up against the Colts is guaranteed money, don’t get too clever yourself.

That being said, the rest of the Texans offense should be a lot better for the rest of the season. Everybody else’s production had to take a backseat to Foster’s absurdly high 33 carries, and that’s not going to happen this second week. Schaub, Johnson, Daniels, etc will all be back and probably putting up decent numbers.

There are quite a few wide receiver situations that seem up in the air right now. It’s okay to guess one way and adjust your roster accordingly, but do so realizing that nothing is for sure yet. To start with the Vikings pass game was atrocious Thursday, and it’s hard to say where Favre, Harvin and Berrian will end their season production-wise. Favre looked old and out of step, but then again so did a lot of younger QBs this week. He missed training camp, so did Harvin, and they’ll all improve with a little warm-up practice. I’m prepared to cut Berrian in favor of some bigger waiver wire pick-ups, but I do think he will come back and have plenty of value this year.

Speaking of good waiver wire pickups, Legedu Naanee of the Chargers distinguished himself in his team’s loss to the Chiefs. For the first three-fourths of the game I would say, he was Philip Rivers favorite wide receiver target. Malcolm Floyd ended the game with more targets, seemingly fitting his role as #1 wide-out, but a lot of those came at the end, and if those last drives worked out a little differently, Naanee could easily have ended the game with more targets. Definitely a good pickup.

The third team with some possible future value are the St. Louis Rams. Slot-guy Clayton got 16 targets while Amendola took in six receptions and could have gotten more if he didn’t get banged up during the game. Meanwhile Laurent Robinson only got three receptions on nine targets despite being at the top of their depth chart for receivers. I’m not sure you can read too far into anything here. I know on one web-site I read them predicting the Rams will immediately flip the depth chart and Clayton will be #1, and just calm down. If Clayton does a good job being the slot guy, that’s where he’ll stay, and defenses will key in on him more. They’re not going to turn their whole offensive package upside down on the basis of one game. But Clayton and Amendola look like good bench pickups if you’ve got a bust to get rid of, while Robinson is a hold.

As for the running game, there are more question marks for under-performers than possible future starters. There’s this problem for fantasy owners of RBBC situations on teams where they don’t have two starting running backs, they have one stud and one clear backup. And I understand it’s absolutely frustrating. Jamaal Charles should not be losing carries to Thomas Jones. And I don’t just mean for fantasy football, I mean in real football. Chief’s coach Todd Haley can either figure that out and give Charles at least 15 runs a game, or he can lose quite a few winnable games. So you have to believe he will and Jamaal Charles gets enough carries to make him a stud. Because he has the talent.

A similar situation exists for the Jets. Shonn Greene blew it for the Ravens game, I think everybody gets that, but if Rex Ryan thinks LT is going to be his lead, or even 50/50, back, then he is high. And his team will not even match it’s rather sad 9-7 record from last year. Tomlinson is running back emeritus at this point, yeah he can look decent while carrying you to a 10 to 9 loss, but that’s about it. Notice the trend with the Jets coaching staff: scaring Mark Sanchez about turnovers to the point where he checks down every play and can barely complete a shovel pass, refusing to trust in their true starting back Greene, and basically refusing to play to win. This is a fearful coaching staff with a head coach more concerned about not making mistakes than about making big plays. And until that entire team gets their heads together, it’s hard to say what you have with Shonn Greene.

Meanwhile, the very real, very workable platoon of DeAngelo Williams and Jonathan Stewart disappointed on Sunday but look for them to be back. Some web experts are already writing off Stewart, I have a feeling they are confused. This is a platoon, Williams will start, but Stewart is going to be close behind him, both are going to rack up major yards and decent touchdown numbers. And when one of them gets hurt, the other is going to become a temporary beast.

That’s all for this week. Now it’s time to dust yourself off and go set your lineups for week two. Get out there and good luck!

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Who to Start On Week One

Being a fantasy football coach is a little bit like being a college football coach in that you don’t get any real preseason games. Sure your players back in real life play four preseason games, but what does your star running back taking four carries for 13 yards supposed to tell you?

As a fantasy coach the two most important things you need to know are how a player is going to be used within his team’s setup, and how many fantasy points is he likely to earn in that role. Right now, I don’t know how C.J. Spiller is ultimately going to be used. I don’t think his coach even knows. I don’t know how many snaps Beanie Wells can take before his knee falls out and Tim Hightower has to go in. I don’t know how many carries Chester Taylor will steal from Matt Forte. I need to see them actually play a real game to have some idea.

Given this lack of information, it might be hard to know who to start on week one. Especially in your weaker roster slots. I’ve got several teams where I don’t have big talent for the #2 wide receiver or running back slot. So I’m left guessing between Wes Welker and Malcolm Floyd, or Ricky Williams and Jerome Harrison.

My suggestion is, don’t sweat it. Week one is a learning week, where you see how guys really perform in gametime situations. Sure things will change, guys will go hot, guys will go cold, but for now don’t sweat it. Pick your best talent to start and where that’s not obvious just go with your favorite guy.

If you’d like some help deciding, the percentage of owners starting a player is often available to compare on fantasy football websites so you can see what the popular trends are. And most of the bigger fantasy football sites feature by-week rankings for who to start. Here are a few you can use: FFToolbox, FantasyFootballCafe, or FantasySharks. Pick your favorite and go with them. And if they’re wrong at least you’ll have somebody to blame if your backup RB blows up and runs for 120 yards and two touchdowns.

I hope you’re all as excited about the start of football season as I am. It’s going to be a great year. So go get your teams rosters set up for your first game—and good luck!

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