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:
