Whoohoo...it's almost time for another NBA season and I'm trying to get some people together here to participate in a private Yahoo Sports Fantasy NBA tourney.

If you're interested, please PM me and I'll provide the ID and password details on how to join the league.

more info can also be found here:

www.sports.yahoo.com/fantasy


I've played in a league with people from work for the last two years and it's a a lot of fun. You'll be amazed at how your knowledge and appreciation of the game will improve too, just by participating.

A few points...

It's FREE, so why not? (if we want to make it a pool with a bit of $$$, we can)
You DON'T need to have immense b-ball knowledge.
You DON'T need to invest a lot of time.

You DO have to commit to a few things:

- checking your roster once per week and swapping out any injured players.
- not quitting halfway through the year as it can ruin the game for others.

participating in the live draft is highly recommended, or else the system will simply select the highest ranked player from last year who is still available unless you pre-rank your desired players. People can still do well if they allow the system to pick their team though.

Everyone will pick 8 players (5 starters, 3 reserves). You'll pick a starting point guard (PG), shooting guard (SG), small forward (SF), power forward (PF) and centre (C) and three bench players of any position who can be swapped in at the beginning of any week.

It's a weekly, head-to-head format, so you set your roster at the beginning of each week and don't need to do anything else. (I find that allowing daily roster changes requires WAY too much of a time commitment).

The stat categories are:

FG% - field goal %
FT% - free throw %
PTS - points
3PTM - three point shots made
REB - rebounds
AST - assists
ST - steals
BLK - blocks
TO - turnovers (the only negative stat category...i.e. less is better)

Your starting 5 accumulate stats based upon the real NBA games in which they play that week and you compete against another team's starting 5. You get one point for each stat category that you win for that week. A tie in any category means no one gets the point.

It's round robin format, all year...so each week your team will play against another owner's team. Trades are allowed (the league can vote to veto a trade if it's deemed ridiculous) and you can add/drop players throughout the year.

Some tips:

- pick players who are good in multiple stat categories, not just a couple. A guy who just scores and grabs rebounds, but doesn't do much else, may not be a great pick. you need guys who also shoot threes, block, steal, etc. in order to do well in a Fantasy league.

- Take a look at the rankings from last year and you might be surprised at who some of the top Fantasy players might be...and surprised at who is NOT a good Fantasy player.

- players who are eligble to play multiple positions (e.g. Garnett plays SF and PF...Bosh plays PF and C...etc) are valuable and give you more flexibility than a player who can only play one position. Position eligibility changes throughout the year.

- a guy who is never injured is probably a better pick than someone who routinely misses a lot of games every year, unless you have a really good backup for that position.


The live draft is tentatively set for Sunday, October 21st at 6:30pm (this can be changed if it's not convenient for everyone). The draft order is randomly set on the day of the draft and works the exact same way a normal draft does. 1st team picks the 1st player, 2nd picks 2nd, and so on...the last team picks last in the 1st round, but then picks FIRST in the 2nd round, the 2nd last team picks 2nd, etc. until everyone has an 8 man roster.

If anyone has anything to add...please do so!

PM me if you want to join or have questions. Check out Yahoo's site for more detailed info, stats, expert advice, rankings, etc:

http://sports.yahoo.com/fantasy

Last edited by MarkT on Sep-20-2007 at 17:03