Crazy strategy?

[Carlton Banksy]

I'm in a Yahoo H2H league with the standard 9 categories, drafting tomorrow.

I'm thinking of trying something, wondering how crazy you guys think it is. My idea is to just tank rebounds blocks, FG% & turnovers. My mindset is I only have to win 5-4 each week, so if I focus exclusively on the other 5 cats - the guard categories, it's an advantage.

Points, assists, steals, 3's & FT%... when you ignore turnovers & FG% it's not hard to find guards who jack up shots & contribute in all those categories. And if that's all I'm focusing on I could fill my utility spots with those guards while my opponent will still be going for the big men cats, giving me a big advantage in those 5.

What do you think, crazy? Or could there be something to it?

[76ciology]

Punting is a known strategy.

Looking at this year's trend, it's good to punt Assists. Due to scarcity of PGs. If someone drafted Deron, CP3 or Rondo, it's going to be very hard to beat them in the assists category.

Blocks and FG% is pretty easy to win this year. I wouldn't recommend you punting both these categories. My advice is to look for Brook Lopez in the 5-7 rounds of a 12-15 team league. Lopez gives you around 2bpg and high FG% with his 19ppg.

[Carlton Banksy]

Alright, well I decided to not go with that strategy... I put together my own rankings based on a formula with some categories weighted higher (assists, steals, blocks, fg%) & some lower (points, ft%). I just used Rotowire's projected stats for their top 150 players.

Wondering if you think I should adjust the weightings & any thoughts on my rankings to see if my formula's even worth using. I'll put my top 20:

1. Lebron James
2. Kevin Durant
3. Josh Smith
4. Chris Paul
5. Deron Williams
6. Russell Westbrook
7. Brandon Jennings
8. Carmelo Anthony
9. Demarcus Cousins
10. Dwyane Wade
11. Kevin Love
12. Marc Gasol
13. Dwight Howard
14. Danny Granger
15. James Harden
16. Paul George
17. Serge Ibaka
18. Ty Lawson
19. Andrew Bynum
20. Goran Dragic

[cochiseuofm]

Why are you putting together your own rankings? There is a site that does that for you lol.

http://basketballmonster.com/

Click on Ranks and then League Settings. Choose the categories you want to win and press the generate rankings button. Here are your rankings for winning your 5 categories. Note that a lot of their rankings are based on last year's numbers and don't account for injuries (like Rubio's). (Your rankings actually don't make a whole lot of sense because you have players who wouldn't help your strategy at all and actually would hurt it, like D12 who you would never want to draft if you want to win FT%, in the top twenty.)

1 Paul, Chris
2 Durant, Kevin
3 Williams, Deron
4 Bryant, Kobe
5 Westbrook, Russell
6 Lowry, Kyle
7 Jennings, Brandon
8 James, Lebron
9 Conley, Mike
10 Rose, Derrick
11 Pierce, Paul
12 Curry, Stephen
13 Rubio, Ricky
14 Irving, Kyrie
15 Love, Kevin
16 Thornton, Marcus
17 Ellis, Monta
18 Billups, Chauncey
19 Lawson, Ty
20 Granger, Danny
21 Terry, Jason
22 Harden, James
23 Nowitzki, Dirk
24 Johnson, Joe


But punting 4 categories isn't a great strategy. You usually want to punt 2 categories, dominate 4-5, and give yourself a chance in the others. Because no matter how well you build your team, you won't ever always win the same 5 categories every week but you can definitely always lose certain categories if you don't give yourself a chance.

And you also shouldn't use these rankings as definitive...most people in your league will draft based on ESPN's rankings and you should keep an eye on value. These rankings might have LeBron at 8th best, for example, but there is zero question that he is a top-two player overall in fantasy. And Jennings / Conley being so high because of the categories you chose doesn't mean they are 1st rounders either.

[416]

Alright, well I decided to not go with that strategy... I put together my own rankings based on a formula with some categories weighted higher (assists, steals, blocks, fg%) & some lower (points, ft%). I just used Rotowire's projected stats for their top 150 players.

Wondering if you think I should adjust the weightings & any thoughts on my rankings to see if my formula's even worth using. I'll put my top 20:

1. Lebron James
2. Kevin Durant
3. Josh Smith
4. Chris Paul
5. Deron Williams
6. Russell Westbrook
7. Brandon Jennings
8. Carmelo Anthony
9. Demarcus Cousins
10. Dwyane Wade
11. Kevin Love
12. Marc Gasol
13. Dwight Howard
14. Danny Granger
15. James Harden
16. Paul George
17. Serge Ibaka
18. Ty Lawson
19. Andrew Bynum
20. Goran Dragic

Rankings are meaningless. I've used a similar example before:

If you got to fill your garage with 5 cars, would you pick the top 5 cars of the year or pick a mix of cars that best suits your needs?

The correct analysis with be an optimization model - what is the best mix of players that maximizes your chances of winning, based on a set of criteria/limitations.

Anyways you'll be lucky to get 3 of those players on your list, depending on your league size.

I retract a small portion of that statement... based on your model you're technically drafting the BPA. If you're going to do that then you must be VERY active with trades to get the right player portfolio mix.

can't really critique your analysis since you covered the assumptions on a very high level.