As I mentioned in my last post, a number of us basketbloggers were in the Hoops Addict Fantasy League last season. Fun was had, friends (and enemies – you know who you are) were made. How to enhance the experience for next year? I sent a survey to my fellow fantasy GMs to get their opinions. Here are the results:
1. Where do you want to play? Rate on a scale of 1 (most preferred) to 4 (least preferred).
Last season: Ultimate Fantasy Commissioner (UFC).
Next season: Yahoo! (average rating 1.46), UFC (2.07), Salary Cap Challenge (3.08), Other (ESPN was suggested a few times; 2.83).
The Evil Empire, Yahoo!, is the established leader and naturally got the votes. However, as noted in my UFC post, UFC will be totally revamped and seems worth a try. Who’s with me?
2. Which competition mode do you prefer?
Last season: Rotisserie.
Next season: Head-to-Head (86%). Ryan was worried that, if we played H2H, GMs would drop out when they started to fall behind. But that happened anyway with our roto setup.
3. What scoring system would you like?
Last season: Fantasy Points.
Next season: Fantasy Points (79%).
It was my first time playing in a fantasy points league (apart from Salary Cap Challenge), and I still prefer Categories. I agree with Nels (GiveMeTheRock.com) when he said, “the fantasy point system made picking up free agents who could make a difference nearly impossible. The size of the league [24 teams] also had an impact on that. When players got injured, there was no way to replace them with anyone who could even come close. With categories, you can at least pick up someone who gets a lot of a few categories and try to stay close that way.”
Also, I think categories give a team personality. You can say, “My guys are good at sharing the ball, but Pedro’s team is tops in boarding. How will we match up?” Not much you can do with the FP system.
4. What categories should we include in scoring?
Last season: Points, Total Rebounds, Offensive Rebounds, Assists, Steals, Blocks.
Next season: Points, Total Rebounds, Assists, Steals, Blocks were near unanimous. Treys Made came in at 57%, while half of all respondents want Field Goal Percentage, Free Throw Percentage and Turnovers. Also, Allan (Reggae Boyz) and Marc (Kwyjibo) would like us to count Double-Doubles and Triple-Doubles. Marc would also like to us to track Fouls and Sendoffs.
What do you guys want: a simple, five-cat league, or a stats monster? Personally, I prefer to keep it simple. I’ve already got two full-time jobs (my real one and blogging), I don’t want a third.
5. What do you think is the ideal number of teams?
Last season: 24
Next season: Suggestions vary widely, but most respondents prefer 20 or less. Only three people were happy with the 24-team setup. Perhaps, as Ryan and George suggested, we ought to split the league into divisions of eight or ten?
6. On a team roster, what do you prefer for positions and number of players?
Last season: Guards (2), Forwards (2), Center (1), Utility (2), Bench (3).
Next season: Guard (1), PG (1), Forwards (2), Center (1), Utility (2), Bench (3).
Not a huge difference here, apart from a little more definition at the guard spot. It was a close call between those who want two forwards (50%) and those who want one each of SF and PF (46%).
Other thoughts and suggestions:
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Nobody wanted a limit on number of transactions. Thinking outside the box again, Ryan offered this: “how about a minimum?” I guess this is to keep GM’s participating and interacting.
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We have floated out the idea of a keeper league. Anybody interested?
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If we play in, say, two divisions, we can make one H2H/Categories, the other Roto/Fantasy Points.
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The Zoner wants to set lineups weekly instead of daily.
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From Allan: “If we keep the same format, eliminate the game limitations per position. You could still only start two guards, two forwards, one center and two utilities per day, but not limit it as towards the end of the season it gets difficult to get starts, especially if people sit who are out of the playoff hunt.”
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Do you think we can get a “celebrity” or two to join our league? If you’re thinking Doug Smith, I already tried (see bottom of this page). Who else can we try? Bow Wow? James Denton? Carrot Top?
For your reference – final standings (Hoops Addict writers’ teams in bold):
| 1. Hooded Houdinis | 13. Rising Suns |
| 2. Celticsstuff Live Basta | 14. Gheorghe’s Giants |
| 3. TheHype’s Unrelatedness MAFIA | 15. DNP-CDs |
| 4. Dick Bavetta’s my Homeboy | 16. Manute’s Webb |
| 5. Reggae Boyz | 17. The King of Kings |
| 6. Impending Firestorm | 18. Need4Sheed.com |
| 7. Giorgio’s Bargnani Boyz | 19. Give Me the Rockettes |
| 8. Jeff’s Team U-S, Eh? | 20. SPS Clippers |
| 9. CR Flamengo | 21. Kwyjibo |
| 10. ChiTown Hustlers | 22. Zoners |
| 11. 7 Foot Smurfs | 23. Shady Grove Playaz! |
| 12. Mile High Nuggs | 24. League of Roundie Henchmen |
Anything to add, Hoops Addict League GMs? Please comment below. Not a Hoops Addict League GM? Comment anyway.
InsideHoops.com on Carrot Top: “The sight of him is making babies cry.”
HoopsAddict.com 
this could be long:
2) h2h is the way to go then. great!
3) i used to favor fantasy points but you totally won me over there. more team personality is precisely what the nba lacks and could indeed make the fantasy league that much more interesting. as dallas-gsw proved, match-ups are everything in basketball
4) should the league remain a fantasy points affair, i’d also favor keeping it simple. really hard to figure out who to draft, especially because, depending on the categories chosen, it can be highly counter-intuitive.
5 & 6 – more teams = more fun. but perhaps roster sizes should be limited so that there’d be more decent free agents available. right now i think i’d do away with both utility guys or at least with one of them.
a minimum on transactions would be nice, i think, though probably those gm’s who abandonned the league would just fail on that criteria. i’d also get rid of the trade deadline, if thats possible. makes sense in real life but can be a real bummer in fantasy leagues, especially as the season nears its end and several players on playoff teams are given long rests.
i’m also all for a keeper league. except that i want to draft it all again because, boy, did my draft suck or what.
i always set up my line-ups weekly. all i had to do was choose it in the proper order. but i see where he’s coming from there..could be a choice but it’d introduce a massive luck component. on the other hand, busy schedules would no longer be excuses for pulling a milwaukee in the league so it might pay off.
cheers
Pedro – I like your “more teams = more fun” thought. But I think each team would need to have a smaller roster to deepen the free agent pool: 5 active plus 3 bench = 8, x 20 teams = 160 players. I guess that can work.
First off, a big thanks to Jeff for putting the time into getting the info and then writing the post. I’ve been a slacker this summer and it’s been great having you handle the fantasy hoops side of stuff Jeff!
Yesterday I used ESPN.com and their fantasy football side looks amazing. I’m not sure what the hoops side is like but the football side looked slick,was easy to navigate through and an option I really enjoyed was an option which allowed you to site through mock drafts where you could go through an entire draft without being saddled with a roster (I killed two hours yesterday afternoon tweaking some draft strategies). Just another idea to throw out there alongside Yahoo and NBA.com as possible hosts for the Hoops Addict league next season.
Because the majority of owners would like to go H2H I’m more than willing to admit that I was wrong and switch directions next season.
In regards to total teams, I’d like to keep it at either 16 or 20, but, I’d like to have two divisions with the top two teams from the “bottom feeder” moving up and the bottom two teams moving down to add some incentive to keep playing and to increase bragging rights. That way there would be 8 or 10 teams in each division and each division would have their own draft. This would prevent dealing from the “top” and “bottom” division but it would help owners by now forcing us to draft over 200 players once again (and would make the waiver wires relevant this season). Just an idea to throw out there.
Someone mentioned keepers and I’m cool with that but with less GM’s I think this season would be the one where we pick keepers. I feel that’s the only fair way as some players may have dealt away their franchise picks to make a run last season without knowing that the franchise tag would be brought in.
Umm, hate to complain, but I think you had my final standing wrong… I could have sworn I won the pool 🙂
If we’re playing keepers, we’d have to stick to one place, i.e. UFC or Yahoo. Should we have a vote? Put up a poll?
Ryan – umm … the standings were copied straight from our league page. Sorry. 😉
Great stuff, great work. Thanks for all the effort.
You don’t want a third job?
I switched from H2H to Roto last year and will never look back. My last season in H2H, we cut out the last week of the NBA season because so many teams rested their star players, etc. While I like tournament style where a hot team can beat a team that normally would appear better, it became a true issue of “These results can end up quite far from which team is actually better.”
Categories: I hate 3 pointers and wish they did not exist. Ridiculous stat. You might as well have a category for layups. Points are points, folks.
I also started a keeper league last year and I love that aspect. Although, finding a service (e.g., Yahoo) that does it for you would be nice. We’re stuck doing everything manually.
Ryan – Re: having divisions, each with their own talent pool, I asked Jon Loomer what you can do in UFC. Here’s what he said: “Divisions can be done, but you can’t create two separate pools of players for those two divisions. You’ll need two leagues.”
Luke – Thanks for the input. I used to feel the same way about treys, but it’s a category that’s become so relevant in today’s NBA. And, the survey results show that many fantasy GMs/bloggers like treys.
Luke – I’m with you on trey’s! I think we should keep ’em out but for some reason we’re in the minority it seems. Are you interested in joining the league next year?
Jeff – Running two leagues isn’t a problem, it’s what I had in mind actually. Check out NDBAhoops.com for an idea of what I’m hoping to form 🙂
Hey Ryan,
If you have room for one more, please let me know… the league sounds fun, and I wouldn’t mind giving it a try. If you have room.
Of course, but I don’t think I have your email address. Can you leave it in the comments section of this post or drop me an email?
does anyone know off the top of their head how many teams yahoo caps their fantasy league at ? is it 20 ?
I believe it’s 20… but I don’t want leagues anywhere close to that size this year. I want each league to have a max of 10 GM’s and if we have enough interest we can have a “champ” and “chump” division… I really like the idea of trying to earn your way into the top division and fighting to keep that status.
thanks ryan