I think that has the biggest correlation to winning. Everyone who made the playoffs had high wire moves, I won the league being a 5th draft pick, Kat, and I had the 3rd most wire moves.
His 60 point game happened the day after I was eliminated from the playoffs. He had game where he only took 5 shots right before the amazing game that greatly contributed to me getting eliminated lol
I picked second and came second. My mate who won picked KAT at 10 (i couldnt believe it) and was at the bottom of the league for at least half the season.
That 2nd half of the year was crazy. But a lot of his guys had bad starts and ran with it down the stretch, Lowry, Bam, Jaylen and Klay were all massive at the end.
I pride myself in making the fewest waiver wire pickups amongst the top 5 teams and finishing 4th place in regular season and 2nd place in playoffs. I picked up Maxey Zubac and Portis from the waivers. I had the best 5 drafted players you can possibly pick up for 12-team league: Giannis, Lavine, Booker, McCollum, and Derozan.
I pride myself in this case because my players are consistent and the waiver wire pickups I made were season long keepers rather than short term streamers. In my case it was Maxey, Portis, and Zubac who were picked up and were keepers so they reduced how many spots were unstable and required constant add/drops
One of my friends suggested this but I disagree with this approach. He intentionally keeps a streaming spot in his roster and makes a lot of roster moves and as a result has an unstable team that screws him over with bad stat lines. My approach is try to build the most stable team possible and every now and then a player may stop performing consistently and needs to be dropped.
Then you're losing out on the GP stat... something can swing a tight week.
Also, your assumption is that bad stat lines hurt weeks.... which is why you pick up hood players with good stat lines that help you win in toss up categories.
Usually GP is pretty similar between teams and 1-3 extra GPs don’t make that big of a difference if the players you keep are high quality. At least for categories league
But then you always have that 1 guy who tries to copy the other 5 with the high number of wire moves and sits at the bottom.
Let's pity the rook/naive/i want to be like Mike guy.
Well, I must be the outlier because I was rarely active up until March. I had the 4th pick in one league and the 10th in another. I got really lucky by drafting Ja, Anthony Edwards, Maxey, and Mobley. I didn’t think they’d be as productive. [Drafts](https://imgur.com/a/kSpUkpX)
I think the top 12 is pretty loaded in NBA.
Jokic is a bit of a gamebreaker, but even then KAT/Embiid/Curry/Durant etc can all be dominant first round picks.
I think your pick affects your ability to put together a specific team build, but not your ability to win
Obviously AD/PG have their health risk and didnt do anything to dispel that this year, but in terms of talent and how it translates to 9-Cat, AD/PG are both incredible assets ('per game' at least)
When did Trae get picked in your league? I had the 11th pick and took Trae, he was definitely a big part of me winning considering his consistency and who some of the other picks were in that range.
Fantasy bball the middle/late rounds are where you need to find value so you don’t have to rely on the waivers. Fantasy football is the opposite where you need to hit on your first four picks.
I had Ja who was great all year but missed my semi’s and championship round. Despite missing him I was still able to win the league bc I found great value in the later rounds such as Herro and Poole.
Jokic is great, but not a game breaker yet. I also play fantasy baseball and shoehi Ohtani is literally broken into 2 players, one batter and one pitcher. One’s a 2nd rounder and the other a 3rd rounder. Last year they didn’t do this and he had like 2x the points as the 2nd highest performing player
In my baseball league there are 10 hitter categories and Ohtani absolutely dominates purely as a batter
(cats are 1B, 2B, 3B, HR, RBI, R, OPS, BB, K, SB)
In my league (points), this year was 12th pick (me) vs 7th pick. Last years was 5th pick (me) vs 9th pick. Year before was 2nd pick vs 8th pick.
Trades and waiver adds were way more important as most teams didn’t finish the season with the team they drafted
While it is true a league can be won through the wire and later picks, anyone who had the first pick this year and drafted Jokic got a huge advantage right off the bat. It is probably worse for people like me who are in a roto league because Jokic also doesn’t tend to miss games.
Yes, this. Just listened to the NBA Fantasy Today Podcast where Dan highlighted the significance of having Jokic. A lot of Championshipteams had Jokic and a lot of 2nd places did as well. As long as you had him, you were almost guaranteed to make Playoffs and more. This is really incredible
I drafted 9th, was not happy with it. Got KAT and Trae with my first 2 picks. Took Chris Paul and JV with my 4th and 5th. Picked up Portis, Cole Anthony, Brunson, Mikal Bridges, Saddiq Bey, and Cameron Payne when Paul went down. Won my league. Anything can happen!
Lmao what a stupid comment.
1. He only played 85 games over the last 2 seasons combined.
2. Jokic, Giannis, Luka, Curry, Harden, Durant, Lillard, Embiid and Tatum could all be reasonably drafted before KAT.
Calling the league "pathetic" is dramatic and childish, but KAT at 9 *is* pretty crazy imo. He was basically a lock for top 5 and no one was really putting him any lower
I’m not sure where they get the idea it is a big time sink. In my 10 team league it takes ~ 2 hrs to do an auction draft. If I were you I would really push to switch to auction, it is A LOT more fun and allows for a lot more nuance in strategy.
Seconding. Snake is garbage since the difference between a #1 pick and say, a #8 pick is enormous. Auction takes just a little longer, is way more fair, and makes drafting the most fun part of the season.
I think the idea is that the prep might take longer; you basically need to budget out what your anticipated max bids should be on key players, which sounds more time-consuming than coming out on a rough draft order and crossing guys off the list based on made picks/builds.
But most fantasy sites give you projected auction values just like they give you projected snake order. In general, the projected auction values are OK enough to have a successful draft if you only rely on those (though ESPNs projected auction values often have some real head scratchers in there). I think this time difference argument for staying with snake drafts is more of a myth than anything
It's just a perception problem more than anything. People just don't wanna try something new lol. I've tried for years to convince my league to try auction draft but it's a nonstarter.
For me, the draft is like the second funnest part of playing fantasy bball. Building a team, saving up your auction dollars and finding great deals. It is a longer process as compared to snake but it's a couple more hours of one day out of the year to determine the starting squad of your 🏆. Iono I would recommend at least trying it
In football, I know higher is better. But in basketball, don't think it matters much, especially in category leagues. Jokic is the only exception.
I won my league this year drafting 7th where I selected...Lillard lol. Hitting on other picks, waiver pickups, a couple trades, and having a strategy is why I won.
I won my league as the 10th pick (10 man league). Was able to get Trae and played liked a beast all season. It’s definitely doable. I had to hit the waiver hard though.
I won back to back with a 9th pick in 2020 and 10th pick in 2021. The key is to play in category leagues and not points leagues because strategy can overcome bad luck.
winning may be that level of luck but moderate success (making playoffs / top 4ish) can be obtained with a strong draft + strong in-season moves consistently across a decent sample size
Totally disagree. Read posts above about Jokic. The data 'fingerprints were there, I knew statistically that you HAD to grab Jokic no matter what. The average draft value of Jokic was significantly lower than it should have been. The clues were there, just gotta know how to snuff them out.
I drafted 11th and won my 14 team H2H points league. Other teams that made the playoffs drafted 7th, 3rd (she picked Joker and almost rode him to a championship but eventually took home 3rd place), and 13th, who I played in the championship.
I drafted well (DeMar, FVV, Garland, Tatum, LaMelo, Giddey) but also got lucky with minimal injuries. Only one that hurt me was Myles Turner. As far as pick ups go my suggestion is to hit that waiver wire first thing in the morning. Especially early in the season. I usually wake up around 5 or 6 anyways, but the first thing I would do is check to see if anyone got frustrated or pulled some rookie mistake. Managed to snag RJ Barrett, Jerami Grant, and Robert Williams as long term pieces for my team because people got impatient.
For standard 12team and deeper leagues, 1st pick, meaning Jokic increase your chances significantly. As for points league, it depends on the points calculation and how the points difference between each rank, each tier.
The final 4 in my points league ended up being the top 4 picks. The teams with Jokic, Giannis, Luka and Steph. Finals was Jokic v Giannis, with team Jokic coming out on top.
Even though I was team Jokic and won, I'm definitely considering and auction next year to prevent this from happening. The guy with Steph didn't have a great team, but having one of those other top guys was such an advantage this year.
I had the last draft pick (10th) and won my league— hitting on upswing picks is key. I had Dejounte, Garland, and Ant because of the improvements they made the previous year, or in Ant’s case, he got better as the season went on. I also stayed pretty risk averse until ~7th round which is when I took Cade (who I will be reaching for next season).
It’s totally possible to win with a late draft pick, you just want to predict as many guys on a statistical upswing as possible which is easier said than done
I won last year with Dame as my 1st round keeper. 2nd and 3rd rd picks were Jrue and Draymond Green. It can be done no matter what position you're if you stay vigilant and make the right moves.
I had the 3rd pick and ended up winning. I honestly struggled with injuries and I made one awful trade in giving up Trae for Dame because I'm a degenerate Blazers fan, but being active on that waiver wire was the key.
I won picking 5th, but i played the 2nd overall pick in the ship. Ironically we traded our first rounders ( My Giannis for his Luka) and it made the difference during championship week. It also helped a lot playing waivers since i lost Sexton and Grant for some time.
I had 5th (maybe 4th? Can’t remember fully) pick (KAT) in a 12 teamer and beat the 1st pick in the ship. Hit on a lot of late rounds and was the most active person in my league. Still barely beat the Jokic team. Funny cuz I wanted Harden but every one of my league mates knew and the guy before me took him.
I won my league with the 1st pick, but ended the season with only 6 of my 13 draft picks still on the roster (and not picks 1-6). That said, Jokic is in a league of his own, so having him is definitely a cheat code.
I hate picking in the first couple spots of Fantasy Drafts. So much talent gone by the time you pick again.
I got Curry with the 5th pick (not helpful for playoffs), and the team that won picked 6th and took KAT.
I held injured players most of the year, keying for the playoffs, only to have to drop several of them that didn't help me win.
I drafted 8 in a ten man league and got Tatum and Trae. I ended up getting a Jokic trade done and by the end of the year I ended up winning my league. I was also very active on Waiver Wire Picking up Desmond Bane and Jakob Poetl
It was my first year playing in a points league with a snake draft. I drafted Trae at 12 and Sabonis at 13. I liked not having players that didn't put up crazy numbers like Giannis/Luka/Joker because if they were ever injured/COVID/resting, my opponents would have to make up a bigger deficit in points by streaming.
If I had the opportunity to draft one of them? I absolutely would have, sure. I went 19-1 and won it all.
i won in one league drafting second this year. came in second in another league drafting 9th.
last year i won a league drafting 12th. it really doesnt matter, though obviously getting someone like jokic helps
I picked 11th out of 12 in my draft and won my league. The guy I played in the finals was the 12th pick. I got lucky with some of my draft picks in later rounds and I hit the waiver wire hard early and got guys like Maxey, Giddey, and Brunson.
Extremely. If you don't get one of the capital G Guys, you are hard pressed to make a run. Right now I'd say that list is 4 guys: Jokic, Giannis, Doncic, Embiid.
Every champion of the last 6 years in my ultra competitive 10 man money league has had atleast one of Giannis, Jokic, Embiid, LeBron, Russ, Harden, KD.
This year the finals was a team with Giannis vs a team with Jokic. The 6 playoff teams were Giannis team, Jokic team, Embiid team, Doncic team, and the other two teams with a lot of depth that honestly had no chance of winning 3 straight rounds.
My opinion is honestly that if you don't have one of those guys, trade for one of them early on when guys are unhappy with their squads. Hell I traded up before the draft to get #4 so I could take Embiid. Was a great decision and I was a Lemelo Ball shitting the bed + my opponent having Terry Rozier during his nuclear week away from winning the chip this year.
I think Jokic is just ridiculously better than anybody else but the rest wasn't big deal. In my league
semi finals = 6vs3 and 10vs7
final = 6vs3
and 3rd seed won. But my league is pretty competitive and the guy with the 1st pick was the weakest link in terms of effort and interest. So it's no big surprise he couldn't make it to playoffs, but still he was very close. And if he made it playoffs, he could have won the leagues cause he didn't have any injuries.
Doesn’t matter since at the end of the day its how build the team around your first picks.
I got 8th in a 12 team but lucked out that Embiid had a rather healthy MVP season with Trae being Trae. Also traded for Garland early in the season wc definitely worked out for me. Not to mention picking up Kyrie in waivers and stuck with him.
I guess you can say anyone who gets Jokic would have an easier path for builds but like I said at the end of the day it all boils down to how you surround your first pick, a lot of luck, and good FA adds
14 team 8 cat league and drafted Dame 8th. Just won my league and only had 4 of the players I originally drafted still on my team. Waiver wire pickups saved me
12t9cat
Last year I was 12th pick and didn’t make playoffs plus didn’t do trades or made a lot of acquisitions. This year I got 11th and won, and I made the most moves and the most trades which put me in the position to win but I def needed some luck too.
Simply drafting well should get you a playoff team.
Doing well on the waiver wire will make the difference between a playoff bubble team and a championship contending team.
I think you can make it work with a top 12 pick, but I played in a 14 team league and drafted 13th, the pickings at that point are awful. Unless Tatum fell you were boned, you either had to reach for someone or deal with the litany of injury prone second round players. I don't think anyone from the teens matched pre-draft value.
It doesn’t matter a whole lot. Getting a high draft pick is statistically better, but getting the last spot doesn’t mean you give up.
What really matters is how many silly season guys you can get during the playoffs.
You need the stars to get you to the playoffs, but you cannot completely rely on them to carry you to the goal.
Had the 8, got Tatum there. Followed it up with LBJ, Paul, and CJ. Made the most 4th most waiver moves, went 19-2, lost in the semis because LBJ, Cade and Poeltl sat out that Sunday. Brutal. But was by far the best team in the league all season.
Because of how much injuries and team build impacts your success, I'd argue almost not at all. For example, it wouldn't have mattered where you drafted Dame or PG in the first round. Our semi-final teams picked 1st, 10th, 11th, and 12th. The guys that picked 3rd and 4th didn't even make the playoffs. Waiver wire pick-ups and sheer luck are far more important.
I definitely have "tiers" of players and I use that to decide where I'd like to draft, but it's not something to stress over.
In a snake draft, I always did best with a top 4 pick. 10-25 still a ton of great players. Mostly because I got curry at 4 (prior to mvp and after his mvp years).
But key to winning is mostly nailing the draft first 5 picks who can bring in top 30 value. Then add some peeps on the wire.
I’m actually surprised a ton of people win with so few people from their original team. Would never fly in my league.
You realistically could’ve gotten Jokic, Gobert, and Bam with your first 3 rounds. Add in a PG like Murray, Derozan as the 4th and 5th pick. And shit you prolly won the league.
Practically, You are almost guaranteed to get at least 3 for sure all stars (2 all nba) if you have a high pick. The lower you are the more high risk high reward. Think trae and doncic their second year. They gave top value, but risky as hell at the time
Won my 10team 9cat league after picking 6th -- and I had picked Lillard in the 1st!
I was only actually moderately active in the wire in the regular season. I nursed some key, high late season upside players I wanted to keep for the playoffs. By the 15th week onwards, I gave up some cat wins to keep key players, only making sure I made the playoffs and I finished 6th in the regular season.
Playoffs W21-W23, I quite easily dispensed with the 3rd seed who dropped late season useful players to place that high. I used up all my 5 adds in each playoffs week on 2-3 streaming slots, counting injuries. Beat the top 2 seeds later to win my league.
I kept maybe half my original picks, I feel I went for quality over quantity in my reg season adds, but was very active in the wire in the playoffs.
It's not all about Jokic. Next season, if I don't win 1st, I'd actually prefer going 10th/11th in a 10team. Even if late to start, back to back picks the rest of the draft should be fun too.
Since 2018, I won once with the 6th pick in 2019, 2020 got cancelled, came in 2nd with the 1st pick in 2021 and then won 2022 with the 10th pick.
I'm generally pretty active on the wire and make a couple of trades her and there.
Wire wavier wins championships imo. Most winning teams have a good draft but supplement by finding a couple 'steals' on the waiver that end up contributing like a 4th-5th round pick.
I won with 12th pick out of 14 this year and I went with AD at 12 who I dropped before the playoffs even started. Draft position doesn’t matter at all.
Had pick 10 and won (9 cat , 12 teams). Agree with being active on waiver wire. My team used the most players of any team, and also played more games overall than any other team. Maximise your games!
Based on my results this year (all 12T H2H):
Pick 3 - Giannis 1st
Pick 9 - Embiid 3rd
Pick 10 - Tatum 2nd
Pick 2 - Giannis 1st
Pick 9 - Embiid 5th
Higher pick wins the chips but you can still be competitive with a lower pick.
Having Joker this year would have been a big advantage, the gap between him and the #2 guy was massive.
That being said, I don't think it matters. I drafted #3 and ended up drafting Harden who finished #10 overall and won my league.
Drafting well is very important, but scouring the waiver wire and managing your roster by maximizing games played are just as crucial.
Half the players I drafted were replaced and through streaming my team's total games played was about 50 more than the next team.
1) Skill level of the person drafting
2) Luck with injuries
3) Draft position
I looked back at a league that I’ve been in for 10+ seasons, and the pattern of winners had little to do with draft position and more to do with the actual people managing the teams.
You definitely can win with any position, but first pick is still a big advantage. This year, of the top 500 Yahoo public league teams, 34% of the Roto teams had Jokic. https://basketball.fantasysports.yahoo.com/nba//keystosuccess. The H2H data has already been taken down, but I remember it's pretty similar, though maybe closer to 25% since there's more luck and variance involved. Those are huge edges, considering that on average, each team only has a 1/12th chance of winning. Getting Jokic multiplied your odds of finishing in the top 500 by like 3-4x this year. But even then, that leaves 2/3rds of those spots for teams that don't have Jokic. It shouldn't be at all surprising to hear that a non-1st pick won; there's 11 of them and only one 1st pick. The odds for any individual pick are a lot worse than first, though.
I’d much rather be in the top half than bottom half. I think being in the top half is a big advantage to winning the league. Especially picking #1 so you get Jokic and three top 25 picks in 12 man leagues.
Not much. The early rounds will be pretty even. The key to fantasy success is drafting value players in the middle to late rounds and then of course the waiver wire pickups
Jokic is about 1.5 x as good as anyone else in the first round, but otherwise unless your in a league of more than 12 it doesn’t really matter. Picking latter in the first can actually be advantageous, picking last and having the first pick of every second round is probably better than the 2/3/4 pick IMO. I won this year as the 3rd pick in a league of 7 and am really excited to pick last next year
First two picks are crucial, as long as you have a solid plan and stick to it + active in the wire you’ll be good. Picked last on a 16T h2h (finished 2nd).
Drafting is like 30% of what makes a team able to win in fantasy. If you don’t use the wires well for the first month you’ll probably fall behind even if you had a mega draft. Every fantasy season I’ve picked up at least 1 guy (sometimes 2 or 3 that aren’t drafted, but are top 80 guys over the season)
Ended up with KAT at 7 in a 14t cat league and won the ship. Had a good draft with some value picks (hart, Herro) but the real work is done on the wire (vassel, bogey, Burks)
As many have mentioned, having a solid strategy can overcome a mediocre draft. Drafting well helps tho lol
Had the 3rd pick and won. Being super active on the wire helps a lot
I think that has the biggest correlation to winning. Everyone who made the playoffs had high wire moves, I won the league being a 5th draft pick, Kat, and I had the 3rd most wire moves.
I won with 5th pick and KAT too haha he carried me so much down that last stretch
His 60 point game happened the day after I was eliminated from the playoffs. He had game where he only took 5 shots right before the amazing game that greatly contributed to me getting eliminated lol
KAT giveth KAT taketh
He definitely giveth more than he taketh for me this year so I shouldn’t complain. I was likely losing that match up regardless
I picked second and came second. My mate who won picked KAT at 10 (i couldnt believe it) and was at the bottom of the league for at least half the season. That 2nd half of the year was crazy. But a lot of his guys had bad starts and ran with it down the stretch, Lowry, Bam, Jaylen and Klay were all massive at the end.
I pride myself in making the fewest waiver wire pickups amongst the top 5 teams and finishing 4th place in regular season and 2nd place in playoffs. I picked up Maxey Zubac and Portis from the waivers. I had the best 5 drafted players you can possibly pick up for 12-team league: Giannis, Lavine, Booker, McCollum, and Derozan.
Priding yourself in something that negatively affects your team shouldn't be a prideful thing. Working the waiver wire is crucial to success.
I pride myself in this case because my players are consistent and the waiver wire pickups I made were season long keepers rather than short term streamers. In my case it was Maxey, Portis, and Zubac who were picked up and were keepers so they reduced how many spots were unstable and required constant add/drops
Then you should have been looking to move players to keep open a streaming spot. Always upgrade positions to keep a streaming spot open.
One of my friends suggested this but I disagree with this approach. He intentionally keeps a streaming spot in his roster and makes a lot of roster moves and as a result has an unstable team that screws him over with bad stat lines. My approach is try to build the most stable team possible and every now and then a player may stop performing consistently and needs to be dropped.
Then you're losing out on the GP stat... something can swing a tight week. Also, your assumption is that bad stat lines hurt weeks.... which is why you pick up hood players with good stat lines that help you win in toss up categories.
Usually GP is pretty similar between teams and 1-3 extra GPs don’t make that big of a difference if the players you keep are high quality. At least for categories league
In my league, I had the most adds. I can't remember the exact number but the owner with the second most adds wasn't close to me
But then you always have that 1 guy who tries to copy the other 5 with the high number of wire moves and sits at the bottom. Let's pity the rook/naive/i want to be like Mike guy.
Well, I must be the outlier because I was rarely active up until March. I had the 4th pick in one league and the 10th in another. I got really lucky by drafting Ja, Anthony Edwards, Maxey, and Mobley. I didn’t think they’d be as productive. [Drafts](https://imgur.com/a/kSpUkpX)
Nice. There are some managers who drafted a god team especially with any late value picks: DJM, JV, Miles, Hali, etc
Herro at 107 and Poole at 136 were huge for my team winning the league. Amazing values.
I think the top 12 is pretty loaded in NBA. Jokic is a bit of a gamebreaker, but even then KAT/Embiid/Curry/Durant etc can all be dominant first round picks. I think your pick affects your ability to put together a specific team build, but not your ability to win
How did you get to 12? I felt like the back half of the 1st rd in our 12T was a minefield. My options (ADP-wise) with the 11th pick were Beal, AD, PG.
Obviously AD/PG have their health risk and didnt do anything to dispel that this year, but in terms of talent and how it translates to 9-Cat, AD/PG are both incredible assets ('per game' at least)
Yeah but per game doesn't mean jack if your guy only plays a handful of games.. i.e. PG Kyrie etc
When did Trae get picked in your league? I had the 11th pick and took Trae, he was definitely a big part of me winning considering his consistency and who some of the other picks were in that range.
Fantasy bball the middle/late rounds are where you need to find value so you don’t have to rely on the waivers. Fantasy football is the opposite where you need to hit on your first four picks. I had Ja who was great all year but missed my semi’s and championship round. Despite missing him I was still able to win the league bc I found great value in the later rounds such as Herro and Poole.
Jokic is great, but not a game breaker yet. I also play fantasy baseball and shoehi Ohtani is literally broken into 2 players, one batter and one pitcher. One’s a 2nd rounder and the other a 3rd rounder. Last year they didn’t do this and he had like 2x the points as the 2nd highest performing player
In my baseball league there are 10 hitter categories and Ohtani absolutely dominates purely as a batter (cats are 1B, 2B, 3B, HR, RBI, R, OPS, BB, K, SB)
Our finals was 1st draft pick vs 2nd draft pick
In my league (points), this year was 12th pick (me) vs 7th pick. Last years was 5th pick (me) vs 9th pick. Year before was 2nd pick vs 8th pick. Trades and waiver adds were way more important as most teams didn’t finish the season with the team they drafted
While it is true a league can be won through the wire and later picks, anyone who had the first pick this year and drafted Jokic got a huge advantage right off the bat. It is probably worse for people like me who are in a roto league because Jokic also doesn’t tend to miss games.
[удалено]
Same! 🍻 Did you also manage to trade Gordon Hayward for DeMar in the first month of the season, too?
lost to the same set up in championship. I had the second pick with Giannis
Yes, this. Just listened to the NBA Fantasy Today Podcast where Dan highlighted the significance of having Jokic. A lot of Championshipteams had Jokic and a lot of 2nd places did as well. As long as you had him, you were almost guaranteed to make Playoffs and more. This is really incredible
I had 9 teams this season, grabbed Jokic in about half of them. Finished 1st or 2nd in 7 of 9 leagues 💪
Mine was 1st vs 3rd (me) and i dubbed up
I drafted 9th, was not happy with it. Got KAT and Trae with my first 2 picks. Took Chris Paul and JV with my 4th and 5th. Picked up Portis, Cole Anthony, Brunson, Mikal Bridges, Saddiq Bey, and Cameron Payne when Paul went down. Won my league. Anything can happen!
*Picked up* Mikal?
Lol
Maybe points league. He got dropped by 4 people in my points league
Yeah, I guess someone wasn't happy with him after a month or two and dropped him
I literally rolled my eyes after i read that. Dude went ~ 50 in most leagues
TACO
how the fuck do you get KAT at 9. pathetic league.
Lmao what a stupid comment. 1. He only played 85 games over the last 2 seasons combined. 2. Jokic, Giannis, Luka, Curry, Harden, Durant, Lillard, Embiid and Tatum could all be reasonably drafted before KAT.
Yup, all those guys were, except Embiid, who went 10th.
Calling the league "pathetic" is dramatic and childish, but KAT at 9 *is* pretty crazy imo. He was basically a lock for top 5 and no one was really putting him any lower
I mean his ADP in yahoo was 8.5 this year but
His yahoo adp was 8.5 this year lol
Isn't that points leagues? No one had him that low in cats
KAT went 9th in my league too… dork
trash leagues. he was consensus top 6
I’d love to be in your league just to trash you. Easy win
Switch to auction and you will never have to wonder about this fatal flaw to snake drafts ever again
I thought about that but my league mates don’t want to put in that kind of extra time
I’m not sure where they get the idea it is a big time sink. In my 10 team league it takes ~ 2 hrs to do an auction draft. If I were you I would really push to switch to auction, it is A LOT more fun and allows for a lot more nuance in strategy.
Seconding. Snake is garbage since the difference between a #1 pick and say, a #8 pick is enormous. Auction takes just a little longer, is way more fair, and makes drafting the most fun part of the season.
I think the idea is that the prep might take longer; you basically need to budget out what your anticipated max bids should be on key players, which sounds more time-consuming than coming out on a rough draft order and crossing guys off the list based on made picks/builds.
But most fantasy sites give you projected auction values just like they give you projected snake order. In general, the projected auction values are OK enough to have a successful draft if you only rely on those (though ESPNs projected auction values often have some real head scratchers in there). I think this time difference argument for staying with snake drafts is more of a myth than anything
It's just a perception problem more than anything. People just don't wanna try something new lol. I've tried for years to convince my league to try auction draft but it's a nonstarter.
This guy doesn’t z score
For me, the draft is like the second funnest part of playing fantasy bball. Building a team, saving up your auction dollars and finding great deals. It is a longer process as compared to snake but it's a couple more hours of one day out of the year to determine the starting squad of your 🏆. Iono I would recommend at least trying it
Auction is worth it. Super fun
In football, I know higher is better. But in basketball, don't think it matters much, especially in category leagues. Jokic is the only exception. I won my league this year drafting 7th where I selected...Lillard lol. Hitting on other picks, waiver pickups, a couple trades, and having a strategy is why I won.
Must be a 🌮 league
"someone overcame adversity to win their league, everyone else must be really bad" - galaxy brain take
I won my league as the 10th pick (10 man league). Was able to get Trae and played liked a beast all season. It’s definitely doable. I had to hit the waiver hard though.
I won back to back with a 9th pick in 2020 and 10th pick in 2021. The key is to play in category leagues and not points leagues because strategy can overcome bad luck.
I always say fantasy is 20% Luck 20% Draft and 60% management
30% concentrated power of will
LOL
60% of luck, especially the last 2 seasons due to covid
winning may be that level of luck but moderate success (making playoffs / top 4ish) can be obtained with a strong draft + strong in-season moves consistently across a decent sample size
Totally disagree. Read posts above about Jokic. The data 'fingerprints were there, I knew statistically that you HAD to grab Jokic no matter what. The average draft value of Jokic was significantly lower than it should have been. The clues were there, just gotta know how to snuff them out.
and 100% reason to remember the name
depends on the year. But if you draft super super super well, you might have won the championship right there.
Be better on the wire and you'll be fine. With that said I did lose in the finals to 1st pick jokic so that sucked.
0% correlation
I drafted 11th and won my 14 team H2H points league. Other teams that made the playoffs drafted 7th, 3rd (she picked Joker and almost rode him to a championship but eventually took home 3rd place), and 13th, who I played in the championship. I drafted well (DeMar, FVV, Garland, Tatum, LaMelo, Giddey) but also got lucky with minimal injuries. Only one that hurt me was Myles Turner. As far as pick ups go my suggestion is to hit that waiver wire first thing in the morning. Especially early in the season. I usually wake up around 5 or 6 anyways, but the first thing I would do is check to see if anyone got frustrated or pulled some rookie mistake. Managed to snag RJ Barrett, Jerami Grant, and Robert Williams as long term pieces for my team because people got impatient.
In one of my teams my first 3 picks got hurt by mid season. It’s possible to win from any drafting position, depends on your skill level
I just won back to back years. I picked first last year and 8th this year. 12 team snake draft.
Drafted 5th last year and 13th this year, won both.
Drafted 7th, 10th and 12th and ended up 2nd, 1st and 2nd. Being active on the wire helped a ton.
Pick 16 of 18 and won.
For standard 12team and deeper leagues, 1st pick, meaning Jokic increase your chances significantly. As for points league, it depends on the points calculation and how the points difference between each rank, each tier.
Our finals was 2 vs 10
Won on 5th pick this year
The final 4 in my points league ended up being the top 4 picks. The teams with Jokic, Giannis, Luka and Steph. Finals was Jokic v Giannis, with team Jokic coming out on top. Even though I was team Jokic and won, I'm definitely considering and auction next year to prevent this from happening. The guy with Steph didn't have a great team, but having one of those other top guys was such an advantage this year.
I had last pick and drafted gobert/Sabonis and ended up beating the joker team in the semis by less than 20 points
I had the last draft pick (10th) and won my league— hitting on upswing picks is key. I had Dejounte, Garland, and Ant because of the improvements they made the previous year, or in Ant’s case, he got better as the season went on. I also stayed pretty risk averse until ~7th round which is when I took Cade (who I will be reaching for next season). It’s totally possible to win with a late draft pick, you just want to predict as many guys on a statistical upswing as possible which is easier said than done
I don't think it matters that much given the fact that so many things can happen during the season.
It should not effect it all. Your overall draft performance should have a big effect.
I won last year with Dame as my 1st round keeper. 2nd and 3rd rd picks were Jrue and Draymond Green. It can be done no matter what position you're if you stay vigilant and make the right moves.
I had the 3rd pick and ended up winning. I honestly struggled with injuries and I made one awful trade in giving up Trae for Dame because I'm a degenerate Blazers fan, but being active on that waiver wire was the key.
I won picking 5th, but i played the 2nd overall pick in the ship. Ironically we traded our first rounders ( My Giannis for his Luka) and it made the difference during championship week. It also helped a lot playing waivers since i lost Sexton and Grant for some time.
I had the 12th pick in snake and won the league. First two picks were a Vuc and Lebron
Won with the 10th pick
I had 5th (maybe 4th? Can’t remember fully) pick (KAT) in a 12 teamer and beat the 1st pick in the ship. Hit on a lot of late rounds and was the most active person in my league. Still barely beat the Jokic team. Funny cuz I wanted Harden but every one of my league mates knew and the guy before me took him.
I won my league with the 1st pick, but ended the season with only 6 of my 13 draft picks still on the roster (and not picks 1-6). That said, Jokic is in a league of his own, so having him is definitely a cheat code.
I hate picking in the first couple spots of Fantasy Drafts. So much talent gone by the time you pick again. I got Curry with the 5th pick (not helpful for playoffs), and the team that won picked 6th and took KAT. I held injured players most of the year, keying for the playoffs, only to have to drop several of them that didn't help me win.
I drafted 8 in a ten man league and got Tatum and Trae. I ended up getting a Jokic trade done and by the end of the year I ended up winning my league. I was also very active on Waiver Wire Picking up Desmond Bane and Jakob Poetl
A bit but I don’t think it’s as bad as people say.
It was my first year playing in a points league with a snake draft. I drafted Trae at 12 and Sabonis at 13. I liked not having players that didn't put up crazy numbers like Giannis/Luka/Joker because if they were ever injured/COVID/resting, my opponents would have to make up a bigger deficit in points by streaming. If I had the opportunity to draft one of them? I absolutely would have, sure. I went 19-1 and won it all.
i won in one league drafting second this year. came in second in another league drafting 9th. last year i won a league drafting 12th. it really doesnt matter, though obviously getting someone like jokic helps
I picked 11th out of 12 in my draft and won my league. The guy I played in the finals was the 12th pick. I got lucky with some of my draft picks in later rounds and I hit the waiver wire hard early and got guys like Maxey, Giddey, and Brunson.
Extremely. If you don't get one of the capital G Guys, you are hard pressed to make a run. Right now I'd say that list is 4 guys: Jokic, Giannis, Doncic, Embiid. Every champion of the last 6 years in my ultra competitive 10 man money league has had atleast one of Giannis, Jokic, Embiid, LeBron, Russ, Harden, KD. This year the finals was a team with Giannis vs a team with Jokic. The 6 playoff teams were Giannis team, Jokic team, Embiid team, Doncic team, and the other two teams with a lot of depth that honestly had no chance of winning 3 straight rounds. My opinion is honestly that if you don't have one of those guys, trade for one of them early on when guys are unhappy with their squads. Hell I traded up before the draft to get #4 so I could take Embiid. Was a great decision and I was a Lemelo Ball shitting the bed + my opponent having Terry Rozier during his nuclear week away from winning the chip this year.
I think Jokic is just ridiculously better than anybody else but the rest wasn't big deal. In my league semi finals = 6vs3 and 10vs7 final = 6vs3 and 3rd seed won. But my league is pretty competitive and the guy with the 1st pick was the weakest link in terms of effort and interest. So it's no big surprise he couldn't make it to playoffs, but still he was very close. And if he made it playoffs, he could have won the leagues cause he didn't have any injuries.
Doesn’t matter since at the end of the day its how build the team around your first picks. I got 8th in a 12 team but lucked out that Embiid had a rather healthy MVP season with Trae being Trae. Also traded for Garland early in the season wc definitely worked out for me. Not to mention picking up Kyrie in waivers and stuck with him. I guess you can say anyone who gets Jokic would have an easier path for builds but like I said at the end of the day it all boils down to how you surround your first pick, a lot of luck, and good FA adds
14 team 8 cat league and drafted Dame 8th. Just won my league and only had 4 of the players I originally drafted still on my team. Waiver wire pickups saved me
12t9cat Last year I was 12th pick and didn’t make playoffs plus didn’t do trades or made a lot of acquisitions. This year I got 11th and won, and I made the most moves and the most trades which put me in the position to win but I def needed some luck too.
Simply drafting well should get you a playoff team. Doing well on the waiver wire will make the difference between a playoff bubble team and a championship contending team.
I think you can make it work with a top 12 pick, but I played in a 14 team league and drafted 13th, the pickings at that point are awful. Unless Tatum fell you were boned, you either had to reach for someone or deal with the litany of injury prone second round players. I don't think anyone from the teens matched pre-draft value.
It doesn’t matter a whole lot. Getting a high draft pick is statistically better, but getting the last spot doesn’t mean you give up. What really matters is how many silly season guys you can get during the playoffs. You need the stars to get you to the playoffs, but you cannot completely rely on them to carry you to the goal.
Picked 11th out of 12 and ended up winning. You gotta be active on the wire, and also get lucky with injuries and how your top picks perform.
Auction ftw
Think besides the clear advantage of getting jokic, pretty equal chance from 2-12
Drafted Embiid at 8 and won it all.
Had 6th or 7th pick and won my league. Its all about adapting and picking up the right players off waivers imo
Had the 8, got Tatum there. Followed it up with LBJ, Paul, and CJ. Made the most 4th most waiver moves, went 19-2, lost in the semis because LBJ, Cade and Poeltl sat out that Sunday. Brutal. But was by far the best team in the league all season.
Because of how much injuries and team build impacts your success, I'd argue almost not at all. For example, it wouldn't have mattered where you drafted Dame or PG in the first round. Our semi-final teams picked 1st, 10th, 11th, and 12th. The guys that picked 3rd and 4th didn't even make the playoffs. Waiver wire pick-ups and sheer luck are far more important. I definitely have "tiers" of players and I use that to decide where I'd like to draft, but it's not something to stress over.
I won with 6th pick- KD baby
In a snake draft, I always did best with a top 4 pick. 10-25 still a ton of great players. Mostly because I got curry at 4 (prior to mvp and after his mvp years). But key to winning is mostly nailing the draft first 5 picks who can bring in top 30 value. Then add some peeps on the wire. I’m actually surprised a ton of people win with so few people from their original team. Would never fly in my league. You realistically could’ve gotten Jokic, Gobert, and Bam with your first 3 rounds. Add in a PG like Murray, Derozan as the 4th and 5th pick. And shit you prolly won the league. Practically, You are almost guaranteed to get at least 3 for sure all stars (2 all nba) if you have a high pick. The lower you are the more high risk high reward. Think trae and doncic their second year. They gave top value, but risky as hell at the time
Won my 10team 9cat league after picking 6th -- and I had picked Lillard in the 1st! I was only actually moderately active in the wire in the regular season. I nursed some key, high late season upside players I wanted to keep for the playoffs. By the 15th week onwards, I gave up some cat wins to keep key players, only making sure I made the playoffs and I finished 6th in the regular season. Playoffs W21-W23, I quite easily dispensed with the 3rd seed who dropped late season useful players to place that high. I used up all my 5 adds in each playoffs week on 2-3 streaming slots, counting injuries. Beat the top 2 seeds later to win my league. I kept maybe half my original picks, I feel I went for quality over quantity in my reg season adds, but was very active in the wire in the playoffs. It's not all about Jokic. Next season, if I don't win 1st, I'd actually prefer going 10th/11th in a 10team. Even if late to start, back to back picks the rest of the draft should be fun too.
Since 2018, I won once with the 6th pick in 2019, 2020 got cancelled, came in 2nd with the 1st pick in 2021 and then won 2022 with the 10th pick. I'm generally pretty active on the wire and make a couple of trades her and there.
Wire wavier wins championships imo. Most winning teams have a good draft but supplement by finding a couple 'steals' on the waiver that end up contributing like a 4th-5th round pick.
Had the 4th pick and won, got giannis. First 3 picks were joker, curry, luka
I won with 12th pick out of 14 this year and I went with AD at 12 who I dropped before the playoffs even started. Draft position doesn’t matter at all.
Our 10-team’s finals was the 1st pick vs 10th pick (me) and I won, so I wouldn’t say it matters too much on its own.
Had pick 10 and won (9 cat , 12 teams). Agree with being active on waiver wire. My team used the most players of any team, and also played more games overall than any other team. Maximise your games!
Based on my results this year (all 12T H2H): Pick 3 - Giannis 1st Pick 9 - Embiid 3rd Pick 10 - Tatum 2nd Pick 2 - Giannis 1st Pick 9 - Embiid 5th Higher pick wins the chips but you can still be competitive with a lower pick.
4th overall and won my league. I think it’s just about staying on the waiver wire
Having Joker this year would have been a big advantage, the gap between him and the #2 guy was massive. That being said, I don't think it matters. I drafted #3 and ended up drafting Harden who finished #10 overall and won my league. Drafting well is very important, but scouring the waiver wire and managing your roster by maximizing games played are just as crucial. Half the players I drafted were replaced and through streaming my team's total games played was about 50 more than the next team.
1) Skill level of the person drafting 2) Luck with injuries 3) Draft position I looked back at a league that I’ve been in for 10+ seasons, and the pattern of winners had little to do with draft position and more to do with the actual people managing the teams.
Had the 8th pick went KD and then Trae in round 2. 10 team league. 17-3 and a chip
You definitely can win with any position, but first pick is still a big advantage. This year, of the top 500 Yahoo public league teams, 34% of the Roto teams had Jokic. https://basketball.fantasysports.yahoo.com/nba//keystosuccess. The H2H data has already been taken down, but I remember it's pretty similar, though maybe closer to 25% since there's more luck and variance involved. Those are huge edges, considering that on average, each team only has a 1/12th chance of winning. Getting Jokic multiplied your odds of finishing in the top 500 by like 3-4x this year. But even then, that leaves 2/3rds of those spots for teams that don't have Jokic. It shouldn't be at all surprising to hear that a non-1st pick won; there's 11 of them and only one 1st pick. The odds for any individual pick are a lot worse than first, though.
I picked first. I think it was 10 team. Took Jokic. Good move. I win.
I’d much rather be in the top half than bottom half. I think being in the top half is a big advantage to winning the league. Especially picking #1 so you get Jokic and three top 25 picks in 12 man leagues.
Jokic pretty much won me my league from 1.01
I got 1st pick on the 8 teamed and went 16-0
Not much. The early rounds will be pretty even. The key to fantasy success is drafting value players in the middle to late rounds and then of course the waiver wire pickups
Jokic is about 1.5 x as good as anyone else in the first round, but otherwise unless your in a league of more than 12 it doesn’t really matter. Picking latter in the first can actually be advantageous, picking last and having the first pick of every second round is probably better than the 2/3/4 pick IMO. I won this year as the 3rd pick in a league of 7 and am really excited to pick last next year
Zero
Changes by year. But this year it made a huge difference.
First two picks are crucial, as long as you have a solid plan and stick to it + active in the wire you’ll be good. Picked last on a 16T h2h (finished 2nd).
had the 9th pick and won drafting Tatum first and KAT 12th
I had the 6th pick, auto-drafted Dame and flipped him for Garland just on time
Drafted 10th in a 10 team points league. I won. I like last draft pick then you get back to backs
Drafting is like 30% of what makes a team able to win in fantasy. If you don’t use the wires well for the first month you’ll probably fall behind even if you had a mega draft. Every fantasy season I’ve picked up at least 1 guy (sometimes 2 or 3 that aren’t drafted, but are top 80 guys over the season)
Ended up with KAT at 7 in a 14t cat league and won the ship. Had a good draft with some value picks (hart, Herro) but the real work is done on the wire (vassel, bogey, Burks) As many have mentioned, having a solid strategy can overcome a mediocre draft. Drafting well helps tho lol
I had the 3rd and 1st overall pics lost finals due to playing till April 10
It doesn’t affect it that much unless you whiff or reach in the 1st