How to Build Your First Fantasy Basketball Team Without Feeling Overwhelmed

Today, we will focus on playing with friends or colleagues.  My league with my friends is the one I focus on, but I also enjoy playing $1-5 daily fantasy basketball contests to make the games more enjoyable to watch.  The public leagues that I play in are mostly “best ball” drafts, where you draft and the computer sets your best lineup after the week is completed.  No moves or work, but more players to watch and root for.

So, if one of your friends or colleagues has an existing league, that is the easiest way to get started.  You have a group you can trust to help get you acclimated and make sure you have fun and feel the camaraderie that makes fantasy sports fun.  You can even join a team that someone else is leading for the first year to get used to all the ins and outs.

Understand your league’s format and scoring system before the draft

Review the settings section of the site you play on and understand the rules.  The most important things to know are roster restrictions, the scoring method, how players can be replaced or acquired, and the economics of playing, as many leagues have league fees and prizes to make things more engaging.

Understand the roster restrictions

Leagues have different rules, but for the most part, all fantasy basketball leagues’ rosters have starters and bench players.  Most leagues will require a certain number of players at each position, coupling point guards and shooting guards as just guards and coupling small forward and power forward together as just forwards.  Then, you will be required to start a center, and there will be a set of positions that will be called “flex,” which means that they can be any position.

There are then a number of bench positions for the rest of the team.  Those players do not accrue points during the period that they are on the bench.

It is generally wise to have a balanced roster with good players at all positions instead of having all your good players at one position or another.  For beginners, the average draft position or ADP can be used as a guide to help make sure that you draft players who have the right value for the spot you are drafting them to create a competitive team.

Scoring and playing types

Many of the first fantasy basketball leagues played Rotisserie style.  This means that statistical categories are selected by the league, and then at the end of the season, each team gets one point plus one point for each opponent that they are ahead of in a particular statistical category.  Then all the category points are aggregated for each team to create a score.  Each team owner is then ranked based on the points to get the standings.

There was a period after that where many leagues formed and just wanted to aggregate the fantasy points scored by each team for the whole season.  This is called Season Points style. 

The most popular way to play fantasy basketball is a head-to-head play format.  Head-to-Head Points style is where the total points for the period, usually a week, determines the winner.  Head-to-Head Categories style is where teams receive one win for each statistical category that they beat their opponent in.  The most popular is Head-to-Head Roto style which is where you get one point for each statistical category you beat your opponent in and then you compare that with how many he beat you in to see who gets a win.  This was the default for league setup on Yahoo! And became the most popular way to play.

Replacing or acquiring players for your team’s roster

Drafting a Team

To create the initial rosters, there is a draft similar to those in pro leagues.  Some leagues use an auction style to acquire the initial roster, but in fantasy basketball, not many leagues use this method.  Most drafts are done in a “Snake” draft.  Each team owner selects a player, and when the draft gets to the last pick in the round, you go the other direction for the next round, giving the last team owner to pick in a round will also get the first pick in the next round. 

When a beginner is drafting, it is a very good idea to use the ADP values and make sure you get a balance of positions for both your projected starters and your bench players.  Choose some players that you also enjoy watching.  It is important to have fun with the game.

In-season changes for your team: waivers, free agent pickups and trades

It is more fun if you visit your team daily to see how it is doing, and depending on how your in-season moves are determined in your league, you may be able to just review your team once a week and just enjoy the games for the rest of the week.

Most leagues will have three different ways to add or replace players for injury or bad performance: first-come, first-served pickups, waivers, or blind bidding for free agents.

First-come, first-served pickups

I don’t recommend starting or playing in leagues that do first-come, first-served pickups.  This means that the person with the most time or who is watching the news the most will get all the best replacement players.  I play in one league like this, and from time to time, I compete for the players by waiting for it to open and being there at that time.  You should avoid doing that as a first-time player.

Using a waiver system

Using a waiver process can be a way to allow team owners to make moves daily, but when an injury happens and there is a player who will receive more playing time who is available, all team owners can put in for that player.  Each week, the waiver order gets reset to reverse order of the standings so that the worst teams get the best “priority”. Once a team owner makes a move for the week, they are moved to the bottom of the waiver “priority” list for the next day’s run.  This is a very fair way to execute in-season moves.

Blind bidding using free agent acquisition budget (FAAB)

One of the most popular and the most fair ways to administrate team owners making moves in-season is through a blind bidding process.  All sites have this feature, and each team owner puts in bids on players into the system.  Each team owner is given a budget, usually 1000 units.  Each week, the system processes all the blind bids from the team owners to determine which owner had the winning bid for each player and assign him to their roster.  It creates the fairest method as each owner can only make a finite number of moves, and the last-place team doesn’t have a weekly advantage to rebuild his team.  

Trading systems and simple strategies

Fairness through league vote

Most leagues allow team owners to trade players to help with replacements.  In many systems, there is also a voting mechanism to make sure that team owners cannot collude with each other in the trading process.  When a trade is made, it places that trade up to a vote as to its fairness.  The league members then vote to decide if it goes through.

Tips for trading in fantasy basketball

When looking to trade to help your team, you should review your roster to see where your strengths are positionally and / or statistically.  Look to see if you have too many good guards, forwards, or centers.  Then you can look at the teams and see who might be light in that area.  The same is true for categories if you are playing in a non-points format.  Try to create an offer that helps both teams.  Working on something that can work instead of trying to fool your league mates is critical to creating long-term trading partners.

Playing for fun or for money

Generally, all leagues in which I have some money at stake are more fun.  Financial commitment is another way to make sure that everyone stays engaged and allows you to remember who did well in future years.  I suggest that you play for a small amount of money.  Less than $100 per person put in and have the third place team get their money back, second place make about three times their money, and the winner gets the rest. If you have twelve team owners with a $100 entry fee, the prizes would be $800 for first place, $400 for second place, and $100 for third place.

Final note

When playing for the first time, consider joining a friend's league or organizing a group of friends to play with.  When you draft, use the ADP as a guide to help you not make mistakes.  When you make moves during the season, assess your team each week and use the league rules to make pickups.  If you decide to dive into the trading pool, try to make fair trades.  If others present them, look at them closely, and I would do fewer trades in the first yea,r as they can ruin your team.  Most of all, enjoy the games and the camaraderie.  That is what it is all about.

Next, we will look at getting started in daily fantasy basketball.  That is daily fun!