BALL DON’T LIE recently published a guest post from RealGM’s Alex Kennedy that discusses why fantasy basketball is struggling when compared to fantasy football. Kennedy goes on to promote PASPN, a company that runs uber-realistic 30-team leagues where fantasy owners can play GM or even take the role as agent to negotiate contracts for their clients.
But what about fantasy basketball as it stands? Is there a way to fix it?
I think so. As both an avid fantasy football and fantasy basketball owner, I think fantasy hoops struggles for several reasons:
Problem #1: Roto or category scoring systems are convoluted and difficult to understand/manage.
Most fantasy basketball leagues utilize one of two formats. A roto format awards points based on a team’s rank in each of several categories. The team with the most roto points at the end of the season wins the leagues. Another format is category scoring, where each team plays head to head with another team in several categories, so one team might win in points, rebounds and assists, but lose in FG%, turnovers and blocks.
Solution: Go to a head-to-head fantasy points system.
My recommendation is to use the NBA’s efficiency statistic to calculate fantasy points for each player. Here is how efficiency is calculated:
EFF = ((Points + Rebounds + Assists + Steals + Blocks) – ((Field Goals Att. – Field Goals Made) + (Free Throws Att. – Free Throws Made) + Turnovers))
That may look complicated, but really it just adds up a player’s points, rebounds, assists, steals and blocks, while subtracting his turnovers, missed free throws and missed field goals. I like this statistic because it covers all the major stats while rewarding an efficient shooter more than a volume shooter. For example, a player that scores 20 points on 15 shots is probably going to have a higher EFF than a player that scores 20 points on 20 shots, because of the negative effect of missed field goals. Most importantly, a fantasy owner can look at a box score and have a pretty good idea about how his player performed that night.
Here is a list of the top 10 EPG players from the 2008-09 season: 1) LeBron James, 2) Chris Paul, 3) Dwyane Wade, 4) Dwight Howard, 5) Al Jefferson (pre-injury), 6) Dirk Nowitzki, 7) Pau Gasol, 8) Chris Bosh, 9) Tim Duncan and 10) Kobe Bryant.
Of that list, only Al Jefferson stands out as a surprise, but don’t forget that he was averaging 23.1 points and 10.9 rebounds before going down with a knee injury mid-season.
Problem #2: There are too many games.
With games going on throughout the week, owners have to pay more attention to their teams, and this narrows the appeal to only those people with enough time or desire to check/set their rosters on a daily basis.
Solution: Set rosters once-a-week.
Every Monday (or any other day of the week), fantasy owners set their roster for the week and it is frozen when the first game tips-off. This would only require that the most laid-back owners manage their teams once a week.
Problem #3: One player might have four games, while another has two or three games in a given week. Who do you start?
While some fantasy owners may appreciate the strategy involved with maximizing their team’s schedule, this is beyond the scope of casual fans.
Solution: Instead of total fantasy points, use the AVERAGE for the week.
If LeBron scores 40 fp in his game on Monday, 35 fp on Thursday and 30 fp on Sunday, his average would be 35 fp per game. His average would be added to the averages to all of the other players in the starting lineup to come up with a total (average) fantasy points for the week. This would allow fantasy owners to start their best players every week and not worry about the number of games they play week-to-week. It would also keep the games interesting heading into the weekend. A team that’s trailing could pull out a win with an epic performance from its star player or even win with a horrible performance by an opposing player.
I am going to test this format this season and see how it goes. Drop me a line at scoresreport@gmail.com if you’re interested in participating.
10/10/09 Update: After hunting around for a site that offered average stats without much success, I found one (Fantrax) that is free and offers what I want. I have a 12-team league that’s full and ready to go, and I’ll report back after the season with feedback from the members of our league. I had to tweak my scoring system a bit, because they don’t currently offer a stat for free throws missed, but the work around is simple — assign -1 points for each free throw attempted and 1 point for each free throw made. The result is -1 point for each free throw missed.
