FBB Strategery FF-wk11 FBB-wk3

What's the purpose of life?

Trophies.

Frankly, I feel jipped, not getting a medal, when I drop a big deuce in the toilet. Ergo, the only true purpose of fantasy sports is to win big. And one of the most critical components of not sucking is understanding your league's scoring system.

So there's this guy in my fantasy basketball league...

Great guy--love him to death. His ol' lady is in the league with us, and she too is fantastical. She's actually doing really well, early on in the FBB season.

But he...ahem, kinda sucks.

It's not the fact that his girl is beating him that is surprising to me, though. This kid is crazy intelligent. He's one of those cool/nerdy dudes that's covered in tattoos but can hard wire the entire defense system for a small country's army.

Need Halo 4 before it's released in stores? No problem.

REO Speedwagon's entire discography on flash drive? He's the man. 

The guy has no cable but more channels than I do! Yet he can't figure out the scoring of our fantasy basketball league. 

I can't blame him, though. Our league is somewhat custom, but is based off of your standard Head-to-Head (H2H) match up; that is, two players going mano a mano for 7 days:

The key to our H2H scoring system is that we lose a point for every attempted field goal or free throw. This makes field goal and free throw percentages crucial to your game. A decision you may have to weigh is what I like to call the "PG quandary." That is, you have to weigh a players assets against his detriments. For example, Russell Westbrook averages 8-9 assists per game, but he dishes out more turnovers than a bakery and shoots a horrific .293 in losses and a tepid .433 in wins. The decision here is whether or not his overall point total and assists will be enough to overcome his turnovers and missed field goals.

The other league I'm in has a Rotisserie or "Roto" scoring system. I actually prefer this system, because it allows you to take a peak at your performance and know exactly what key pieces you're missing. Here's how things are shaping up so far in my roto league:

 As you can see, I needed help to overcome a deficit in my FG and FT percentages, as well as assists. This comes back to the PG quandary. Who else, but a PG, can dish out assists? But how do you compensate for the terrible shooting of the PG?

In both leagues (H2H and Roto), the best way to fix your weaknesses is through acquisitions.

And this is where my genius friend hits a mental roadblock.

Yes, dropping a player, means dropping him from your roster...for real...as in, he's gone. But who the hell cares? In H2H, they usually set the acquisition limit to 7 to prevent an all-out bench clearing, simply for added points on the last day of the match up. Our league has no such limit. Either way, to sit someone making you points or to not replace someone who's not scoring is just ludicrous! MAKE MOVES. With H2H lineups, you should be rational and cold-hearted. Let's face it, points are points, and winning your weekly match up is all that matters toward making the playoffs, luck be damned.

His girlfriend seemed to get it (she's 2-0; he's 0-2).

With Roto scoring, although there is usually no limit on acquisitions, you may just have to be patient. I chose to offset the horrible shooting percentages of Russell Westbrook and Greivis Vasquez wth the higher percentages of PF's and C's the likes of DeAndre Jordan and Bucks up-and-comer Larry Sanders. This way, I get the insane assist numbers while keeping my FG percentage somewhat normal, thanks to the dunks and layups of my big men. These are players that you are invested in for the long haul. So ideally, the law of stats will always play out, and the ball will never lie. One or two bad games in a row will not kill you, and sitting a player is much better than losing them here. The goal is overall strength, so assessing your progression and rationale are vital.

So to all the cool/nerdy persons trying to figure it out, acquire, acquire, ACQUIRE!