If you want to win your fantasy basketball league, you have to do your homework now, BEFORE THE DRAFT. The easiest way to do this is to make a cheat sheet.
In the past, I have used two methods to make my Cheat Sheets: 1.) I use large Post-It notes to display my information and stick them on the shelf above my computer screen in an easily visible row; or 2.) I make the old blank sheet of paper 8 ½” by 11″. Whichever you choose is just a matter of convenience for you. The important part is the information you put on those cheat sheets.
The first cheat sheet I make is for each statistical category that is scored in the league. The standard Yahoo Fantasy NBA scoring categories are: field goal percentage, free throw percentage, 3-point range made, total points, rebounds, assists, steals, blocks, and turnovers.
Each category is important, so you need to know who are the leaders in each and who are the deciding factors in each category. It is virtually impossible to win your league and be in last place in any of these scoring categories. You can’t always be strong in every category, but you should be at least average in them.
The essential tools to collect this information are:
Sortable stats found under the “Players” link in each Yahoo Fantasy NBA league;
Yahoo Sports NBA Ranking Stats http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/stats/byposition?pos=PG,SG,G,GF,SF,PF,F,FC,C; Y
NBA.com statistics website http://www.nba.com/statistics/
Using these tools is simply a matter of making lists. However, you should use all of these tools when making your lists for each stat category to get all the angles on how these players actually increased those stats. Before the draft, the Yahoo Fantasy NBA “Players” link only has the total cumulative stats for the last season. Both Yahoo Sports NBA Stats and NBA.Com Stats give you more comprehensive per-game averages that tell a more complete story of last season when a player had many games out due to injury or suspension.
One of the best tools for compiling categorical stat lists is NBA.com’s 48-Minute Stats. The best way to project stats for young rookies, inexperienced or injured players of recent years, who will have more time this season, is with 48-minute stats. It shows you what kind of impact those players had when they were in the game, despite their lack of playing time.
When doing my Cheat Sheets, I try to list the leaders in each stat category that I know I would select, from the category leader to better than average players in that stat. I give more weight in the shooting percentage categories to players who shoot and score more. It’s best to use Yahoo Sports NBA Stats to see who the real stats users are with shooting percentages. This helps remove players who barely scored or shot last season from the percentage rankings.
It’s also important to find players who hurt your chances of winning a stat category. I call these players the “Deal Breakers”. Often a Deal Breaker is great in most stat categories, but absolutely horrible in one category, horrible enough to keep you from winning your league. The biggest deciding factor of all time in Fantasy Basketball is Shaq. Shaq shoots more free throws than any player in the league and shoots a measly 53.1% from the free throw line. In fact, he could miss more free throws in one night than the rest of his starters could attempt…he Find the deciding factors and exclude them from his preliminary list.
It’s also good to look at stats like assist-to-turnover and steal-to-turnover ratios. NBA.Com statistics will give you access to this information. The assist-to-rotation ratio can be a very valuable tool in choosing point guards for the draft. Any player with a high steal-to-turnover ratio is also a solid choice for your draft.
I always try to focus on shooting percentages first when drafting, but I’ve also found that players who get a lot of steals always rank very high in Yahoo Fantasy leagues. Steals always seem to lead to more assists, a high shooting percentage, and plenty of free throws.
Turnovers are the most overlooked stat in Fantasy Basketball. People tend to go for the high-flying, high-scoring players when recruiting for fantasy leagues. I’ve found that I have more success winning fantasy leagues by drafting solid, less spectacular players than superstars who are fun to watch. Some of the players who lead the league in turnovers are the superstars of the games: Allen Iverson, Dwayne Wade, Kobe Bryant and Steve Francis. A more successful fantasy basketball alternative for these players, regarding turnovers, could be: Donyell Marshall, Michael Finley, Raef LaFrentz, and Shane Battier.
In Part II of this article, we’ll look at how to put together a Draft Board Cheat Sheet.