Hey everybody! I’m going to spend some time talking about some strategies I love to use while drafting my fantasy basketball teams. My focus in this article will be on attacking the middle rounds of the draft, which is the most important part of your draft.
We could go on and on splitting hairs about who to take in the first, second, or third rounds. But that is just wasting your time. Where the draft is won is in the middle to late rounds. Now I will break down the draft into 4 simple categories: the star rounds, the cleanup rounds, the DFS rounds, and the waiver rounds.
The star rounds are self-explanatory. The first couple of rounds are where all the stars go. Barring any injuries, no matter who you pick, will not make or break your team. You need to check your score settings to see if there are any positional advantages to help with your tie-breaking decisions.
The cleanup rounds are the most important. After the first 2 rounds or so, you will start to see the draft board take a different shape. You will see players at the top of the draft board bypassed as owners start to reach for their favorite plays. This is where you need to be very disciplined. Grab the best available player! When these owners start to reach for other players, you have to make them pay for their mistakes. Load up on these players because the next step will help you start to form your team.
The 3rd step is the DFS rounds. For those of you that aren’t familiar with DFS, it stands for daily fantasy sports. Around round 8, your team will be starting to take form as you have cleaned up on the players these owners have left behind. The strategy I love to use is to focus on grabbing players who play on fast-paced teams that do not have heavy usage players. In DFS, you look for the highest point total games and stack it up. Minnesota, New Orleans, and Memphis are some of my top examples of this. These teams don’t have an LBJ, Giannis, Harden, or Luka soaking up all the usage. The usage on these teams is spread out much more. Not only that but from a DFS perspective, these are the teams you love to stack up. They are high upside guys that can win you a tournament. Avoid the teams like Orlando, Utah, and Charlotte, who play at a languid pace.
The last step is the waiver rounds. Now the #1 way to win a fantasy league is to be aggressive in free agency. When a starter goes down, you go and grab their replacement. In these last 2 or 3 rounds, you are essentially drafting your waiver wire pool. You are drafting pure upside. Stick to those fast-paced teams. Because more often than not, these are the first players cut from your team for a waiver wire add.
If you have questions regarding the specifics as far as players to target, feel free to follow me on Twitter @mikealby