I get it: drafting can be stressful. Sure, you can do a bunch of mocks, do a bunch of research, and map out a great strategy. Few things can replicate the butterflies that come with making a decision that is irreversible. Sure, it’s not brain surgery, but what is? It’s what’s so great about basketball and fantasy basketball: it’s simultaneously nerve-wracking and escapist fantasy. 

Over the course of several days, the Belly Up staff engaged in one of these very drafts for our own Belly Up Fantasy Basketball League. As we’ve mentioned here before, I am a basketball guy learning fantasy basketball lessons here, sharing them with you all as I learn them. Sometimes I learn that lesson on time (like that it is okay to draft good players on bad teams). Other times (read: THIS TIME), it will be lessons I learn too late… like about drafting. 

The Fantasy Basketball draft was a daunting six-day experience. I think “Team Bam OuttaDaBayou” looks pretty strong. 

Here are some lessons I learned from the Fantasy Basketball Draft and tips to help you do better than I did.

Trust All of the Stats

The player I made a mistake with here is Karl-Anthony Towns. Yes, the same Karl-Anthony Towns I said to draft in the bit about good players on bad teams. I was scared by the notion that his emotionally draining year could alter his basketball. That would be totally understandable and normally not make me mad. Except it was something I wasn’t ready to deal with on my fantasy basketball team. 

Putting that aside, there was no statistical reason I didn’t take Karl-Anthony Towns. He was drafted right after my first two picks and high scoring guards like Devin Booker (whom I took instead) were available later in the draft. The buyer’s remorse was immediate, so don’t be like me. In early rounds, get the stat monsters, not just the volume scorers.

Volume scorers were available all the way through the fourth round in our draft. De’Aaron Fox was the eleventh pick in the fourth round. He scored 21.1 points per game last year. Big-men that fill a stat sheet, especially with three-point range, went much faster. 

Use the Pre-season Games

This came into play late in our draft. Players coming back from injury can be finicky. It’s hard for anyone to tell just how healthy they really are. Take Kevin Durant. Any year he was on the Warriors, he was a sure fire top pick in any fantasy draft. He was a 25 points per game scorer, got steals and blocks, and shot well from three-point land. After sitting out over a year with an Achilles injury, is he still the lethal scorer he once was? 

Answer after seeing his first bucket in a Net uniform? Yes. Before that? Okay, in Durant’s case he probably still is a top five pick. An immobile Durant in a walking boot is still a seven-footer with deadly shooting from distance. And in 2011, we saw that win a Finals MVP. What about other injuries?

One of these I’m really kicking myself on is Boogie Cousins. Boogie was taken with the second pick in the fourteenth round in our league. I had the twelfth pick in the thirteenth round and the first pick in the fourteenth round. I am also a Houston Rockets guy that was more than pleased with how he played in our two preseason games against the Chicago Bulls over the weekend. He may finally be, after losing some weight, back.

A risk I would have called silly a week ago is one I’m kicking myself for not taking after one simple thing: watching the preseason games. Boogie shot the ball from three and drove the ball well. He, and the space that combination creates, will be an integral part of Houston’s offense when he is on the floor. That’s what you want in late rounds of a fantasy basketball draft.

Similarly, Kendrick Nunn was picked with the eleventh pick in the eleventh round, just before I could have drafted him with the twelfth pick. Watching Miami play in the preseason, Nunn is clearly closer to being back to his pre-Covid self than he was in the Orlando Bubble. The Bubble play would have scared many, but he was an NBA All-Rookie Team performer a year ago. After watching pre-season, he clearly would have been a late round steal.

Look at Schedules

Usually, most NBA schedules offer the same competition. Sure, San Antonio may have a long road trip while the rodeo is in town, but for the most part an NBA team plays a home and home with each team in the other conference and a two and two with almost every team in their own conference. You always play your division four times, then you play six of the other ten teams four times. You play the remaining four conference teams three times. Yes, when those games happen, it makes the schedule more difficult for some, but everyone has to play LeBron. Everyone has to play Giannis.

This season, that’s not going to necessarily be the case. The NBA has outlined a first half of the season only. In doing so, they tried to restrict travel as much as possible. Further, the max the season will be is 72 games. Thus, some teams are going to get an easier break than others. My Rockets, for example, have one of the easiest schedules based on last year’s win totals. The Warriors, however, do not.

This could actually work both ways, so you have to kind of know your potential player’s opponents. Do they sit out and “load manage” when they play bad teams? Or, do they rack in 62 points when they play the Knicks? Whatever is the case, be sure to take that into consideration because it will be very unique this year.

Bigs Are Valuable

In most scoring formats, blocks and rebounds both count as stats towards scoring totals, much like assists do. In modern basketball, a player that gets more than a block per game is also very likely to get a lot of rebounds per game. The “bigs” are then more valuable in that they fill up multiple statistical categories, even if they aren’t sharp shooters from the outside. Additionally, if you get a guy that can hit a couple of threes a night, you’re in for a very valuable player.

Yes, I know… “But a guy who gets assists also gets steals!”

In tracking NBA games, few players actually get the 1.2 steals a night, or whatever they average. They’re more likely to have a great night and get four, then not get any for a few nights. Schematically a steal is a bonus, not a strategy. In many defensive coverages, forcing an offensive player into the big for a block or disruption is a part of the scheme. They may not be a boom or bust, but consistency is king in fantasy. Go with the “bigs” getting boards and blocks and, if you can, one that also hits threes.

Pros to a Slow Draft

In the Belly Up Fantasy Basketball Draft, we went with a “slow draft” using the Sleeper App. This meant that each pick was given a four hour timer. Thus, if I got a “You’re On The Clock!” notification at 11:00 am, I had until 3:00 pm to make a decision. Thus, if it were a busy day at work, I could wait until my lunch. If I got an alert when I wasn’t at my phone, I never had to worry about autopick taking it away from me.
What this also meant is that I could do adequate research. I could look up schedules, stats, etc. before picking. I was “on the clock” for so long that I could be confident in my decisions.

Cons to a Slow Draft

This also meant that the draft took almost six days. While it was nice to be able to mostly escape it when I wasn’t on the clock, I was at least adjacently paying attention to the draft for nearly a week. As someone who wanted to prove that my knowledge of the NBA could mean a successful rookie Fantasy Basketball campaign. that is enough to drive a sane man berserk.

Also, there were a handful of times that people who will remain nameless went a full four hours and still had the system autopick. Sleeper does have a function that, if used properly, could turn autopick on while you know you won’t have a free four hours. Thus, when it hit your turn you’d have an immediate pick. Instead, we all waited for a couple people a couple of times.

Pros to a Corner Pick

In this draft, like most fantasy drafts, we ran a snake pick system. Thus, when you have the last pick in one round, you have the first pick in the next. Second to last turns to second, and so on.

What was nice about having the last pick in the first round, first in the second, last in the third, etc. was that I really felt like I was doubling up my picks each round. I felt like my first pick in the fourth round of Ja Morant was as good as most third rounders.

Additionally, as it felt like I was getting two picks per round, I was able to focus on filling out a roster, not just the best available player. I didn’t have to worry about getting a necessary forward or a great third center at the end of the fifth round because I could take the other to start the sixth.

Cons to a Corner Pick

When my pick came around, it felt like I was getting double the picks each time because they were back to back. However, this also meant I would go nearly two whole rounds without a pick. This meant I missed out on players I valued highly because I miscalculated where they’d go. I thought John Wall would be an eighth or ninth round pick, so I didn’t take him to begin the sixth round. He was drafted with the seventh pick in the seventh round of our draft amidst a sea of players I had no shot at getting. When I passed on Karl-Anthony Towns with my second pick, I kind of thought Nikola Vucevic, a poor man’s KAT, may fall to me at the end of the third round. I was also wrong. Sometimes, it becomes easy to outsmart ourselves.

For a full run-through, pick by pick, checkout #BellyUpFantasyHoopsDraft on Twitter and see a play by play of who went where!

Follow me @painsworth512 for more! And give our podcast “F” In Sports a listen wherever you listen to podcasts! The latest episode discusses potential James Harden trades