Fantasy Basketball for Dummies

Basketball season is almost here and it's about time to start drafting your new Fantasy Basketball team. If you want to win, follow my easy steps and you'll go straight to the top.

First thing is first, let's go over the basics of Fantasy Basketball. If you are a beginner then I suggest getting a free team, probably from Yahoo!. It's easy to sign up and it doesn't cost a thing. You can also check into free leagues at ESPN or NBA.com, or various other news agencies.

So let's say that you are a beginner. Ok, what do you know? If you are an avid Basketball fan then you probably already have a good idea of who is good and not good. But do you know how a league is structured? Do you know how to balance your team? You can pick good players all day and still not finish in the top five of your league. Picking your players can be complicated.

There are two main types of leagues in Fantasy Basketball. There is a rotisserie league and there is a head to head league. The difference is a scoring league goes by totals. The head to head league does the same except your teams stats are compared with another teams for one week at a time. Here below will be a break down.

The rotisserie league is based purely off of compiled stats. Let's just say that there are twelve teams in each league. Now for every point, rebound, three pointer, steal, block and turnover that your players get, it will be tracked and totaled. It also consists of your compiled field goal and free throw percentages. If your team is the best in points then you will get 12 points for that category. If you team is third in steals then you will get 10 points for that category. If your team is last in turnovers then you will get 1 point in that category. The object is to do well in as many category's as you can to finish at the top.

The head to head league is of the same concept except your team's stats are compared to other team's stats on a week to week basis. Each category that you win in will mark a win in you win column and each loss will mark a loss in your loss column. If you tie then obviously there will be a mark in your tie column. The object is to win as many as you can. For instance, let's say that you lost in two categories, points and field goal percentage, but you won in the rest. Your score for that week would be 7 wins and 2 losses.

Now that you know how the two leagues work, it's time to choose one. You might even try both, by having two teams, one in each kind of league. It's up to you.

Now that we have the basics of Fantasy Basketball out of the way, it's time to learn about the draft. There are two types of draft, a live one where you can choose round by round or an auto pick draft where the computer will pick for you. For the time being, we will talk about the live draft because the auto pick draft is common sense.

For the live draft, it generally consists of 13 rounds. So for right now we will just go by that for an example. We'll also pretend that there are 12 teams in your league. If you are lucky you will get the first pick and you can go after the best there is (which will be covered in a little bit) but just in case you get the last pick, do not despair; I will teach you how to draft a perfect team regardless of the draft slot. The main thing is that if you do get stuck with the 12 th pick, you will also get the 13 th pick. The person with the 1 st pick will get the last pick of the second round and so on. This is something that you cannot help. The computer automatically selects the draft order so you have no control over your draft slot.

So now your ready to rock and roll right? Well just in case, here are some extra pointers. The first pick should be either LeBron James, Chris Paul or Dwayne Wade. The reason is, they score lot's of points, grab a good amount of rebounds and basically are strong in every category except for turnovers. Quick tip: do not worry about turnovers, field goal percentage or free throw percentage. Just try and draft for the rest of the categories.

You also do not want to have a biased mind when drafting, meaning do not draft your favorite players just because you like them. It's best to pick players that will help you win. Also watch out for players that have a bad history of injury or suspension such as; Jermaine O'Neal, Carlos Boozer, Tracy McGrady and Ron Artest. Although these players are good, they have bad history of not playing the entire season.

Beware of rookies also. Some can be studs but most during their first year will be duds. Also, beware of foriegn rookies (First year players from other countries) because they have a tendacy to struggle during their rookie campaigns. (e.g.: Dirk Nowitsky struggled his first year) This is not always true, this is merely something to beware of.

Watch out for sleepers as well as there are usually several every year. Some big sleepers for 2009-2010 may be: Marc Gasol who is the starting center for the Grizzlies, Chris Duhon who is starting point guard for the Knicks, Aaron Brooks who is the starting point guard for the Rockets and Channing Frye who is starting center for the Phoenix Suns.

Try and stay away from streaky players as well. Sure on any given night they may have an incredible game, but do they do that regularly? What you need for a good fantasy basketball team--especially in head to head leagues--is consistency and dependability. Dwight Howard, for instance, will always be great at four things: field goal percentage, rebounds (he always leads the league), points and blocks. Steve Nash is another prime example: threes, points, assists, free throw percentage and decent in steals. Players like these are great building blocks for teams and are often the difference makers on whether you will or won't win.

Now go draft you a team and blow your opponents out of the water!