We’re an 8-category league with 5 positive categories (pts, rb, st, ast, blk) and three negative ones (mfg, mft, to). So basically what that does is to make a player like Shaq (who misses a lot of FT) or Iverson (who misses a lot of FG) less attractive. Duncan is a god in our league when he is hitting his free throws.

We’re a 12-team h2h league with weekly lineups. You start a C, 2Fs, and 2Gs, and 3 “reserve” players, who get half their points. So the challenge is to figure out whether 2 games from Baron is better than 4 from Ridnour. It’s not always that easy.

Another good thing about our league is that it’s so utterly wierd that you have to REALLY do your homework on waiver wire and draft stuff. You can’t just run ESPN’s player rater and pick from that. It takes a good 3-5 years to figure out the system.

But once you figure it out, it’s golden.

The two categories that seem to differ from the average league are FTM and OREB.

FTM: The commish strongly believes in rewarding agressiveness and not allowing a team to get away w/ a player who shoots (and makes) 2 FTs a game.

OREB: I absolutely love this category and don’t really understand why it isn’t more widely used. Offensive rebounding is such an empowering stat because while any dope can grab a board, OREBs mean so much more to a team. And it’s interesting because often some guard s excel (at their relative position on the court) in this stat.

Two other things that make this league interesting and competitive:

1) Positions: PG, SG, G, SF, PF, F, C, C, and 4 bench. No utility position requires decent depth at all the positions. 2 Cs counter the glut of Gs and Fs in the NBA. Having quality big men to take advantage of that 2nd C spot is significant in terms of production/output.

2) Limiting the number of free agent pickups: Ours is set to 35. The benefits are: a) it makes one really weigh whether the scrub w/ the hot hand is worth a transaction; b) it encourages trading.

The league has been going on for several years and is stronger than ever.

Great site. Go Bullets!!

The league is H2H and is 12 Categories: Minutes, Points, 3Pointers, FG%, FT%, Off. Rebounds, Tot.Rebounds, Assists, Blocks, Steals, Turnovers, and Technicals.

I’m currently sitting in fourth place with the following team:

Kobe Bryant
Boris Diaw
Lamar Odom
Brad Miller
Raef LaFrentz
Troy Murphy
Joe Johnson
Damon Stoudamire
Andre Miller
Gerald Wallace
Samuel Dalembert
Nedad Krstic
Sarunas Jaskfajiadfjkl
Ron Artest

I just picked up SJ for Luther Head, whom I picked up when Alston and McGrady went down. My main use from this spot is threes or whatever I need. I picked up Troy Hudson for today’s game, but it doesn’t look like he’s playing. Likewise, Troy Murphy doesn’t appear to be playing. Must be Troy’s day off.

Does anyone have any suggestions? I have essentially “punted” FG% and Turnovers every week. Oh, btw, there is no limit to the number of games and there are 10 roster spots open and playable every day (PG, G, G, F, F, PF, C, C, Util, Util).

Any more opinions about what I should do with Raef. I was loving the three pointers and blocks, despite not getting any rebounds. Now he’s only playing 20 minutes a game adn I think hasn’t made a field goal in like 4 games. He’s too good to necessarily drop, but there aren’t any decent centers out there (except Pachulia who’s on waivers), not to mention the variety of center that will get me 11/6 with a block and a three. Oh darn..

My opinions on the subject - if I’m playing for cash - I’d rather be playing in a roto league. It takes a lot of the random luck out of equation, which is a good idea when . Playing for fun, I’ll take H2H, for the talking trash factor.

But categories as a whole are the only way to go in fantasy basketball. Arbitrarily assigning points to stats? Might as well go play football.

Most of the leagues I’ve played in (excluding the Jedi one, of course) are the typical 8 cats. I’m not a big fan of turnovers as a category myself (I get a warm feeling inside from the positive counting categories as well) but I can see that they could work for some people.

I’ve done both weekly changes and daily ones and I like daily slightly better, but I could go either way. Although the frustration of having someone like a pre-2005 Marcus Camby on your weekly changes team might be enough for you to swear off weekly.

Here’s an idea that might sound sacrilegious to everyone out there, but I’ll throw it out there because it really does work in a category league. I’ve been playing in an 11 team league with no positions. Basically, it’s 10 Util spots. The great thing about it is that it mimics the NBA better than any other system I’ve seen. If I want to throw out a team of guards - I’m more than free to do that. That team is not going to win the league - but I can do it. At the same time, if the Suns want to throw out Boris Diaw at center, why can’t I do the same thing? Why force me to play Kendrick Perkins? Bottom line is that I’m still going to need some big men to get rebounds and blocks to win the league.

It might sound crazy to you guys, but you should try it just once. It’s great and it’ll make trading a little easier.

And I guess maybe I should re-think some of the “strategy” articles I was going to do about how to pace yourself over an 82 game season. Or maybe try to at least have some more H2H stuff to balance it out.

I must say that I like having two centers. For the same reason I like having two catchers in AL or NL-only baseball leagues. It’s an easy way to have an advantage over people who might not pay attention.

As for Kevin’s questions … I think that’s a pretty solid trade. For both teams, actually. Billups and O’Neal should both be top 25 players, while Terry and Johnson should both be top 50 players and Dalembert is showing the goods. James Posey looks pretty lost with the Heat so far. He’s always someone to keep an eye on because he can hit 3s and get steals. I’d probably go with Hedo for now, but if/when Grant Hill comes back, Hedo will probably head to tbe bench and be even more inconsistent than usual.

And I know that other league is deeeeeep, but both Perkins and Kwame are worthless.

I am in two H2H leagues right now on Yahoo Fantasy. Much like others have posted, I think H2H is the best type of league. You have much more ability to talk shit and go H2H against buddies. Plus I think that you have to have more strategy, especially with weekly set-ups, because you have to see who has the most games AND what type of team you are competing against. If you know there’s a category that you will not be winning, you load up on the other categories to balance out the scoring. Depth is important.

League Setup:
Both are H2H 9-category: FG%, FT%, 3PM, PTS, AST, REB, STL, BLK, TO. There are 10 spots on a given night/week: PG, SG, G, SF, PF, F, C, C, UTIL, UTIL with 4 bench spots.

10 Teams - League 1: Nightly Set-up
5th Place….with valid excuses

PG: Gilbert Arenas
SG: Luol Deng
G: Chauncey Billups
SF: Shawn Marion
PF: Jermaine O’Neal
F: Pau Gasol
C: Brad Miller
C: Channing Frye
Util: Mo Williams
Util: David West
Bench: Hedu Turkoglu
Bench: Mike Miller
Bench: Donyell Marshall

Question to FBB and All Readers: Last night I trade Jason Terry, Joe Johnson, and Samuel Dalembert for Chauncey Billups and Jermaine O’Neal. Was that a good trade? Also, with my team who would you like better Turkoglu or James Posey?

14 Teams - League 2: Weekly Set-up
1st Place

PG: Chauncey Billups
SG: Raja Bell
G: Jason Williams
SF: Kevin Garnett
PF: Chris Bosh
F: Lamar Odom
C: Marcus Camby
C: Samuel Dalembert
Util: Sarunas Jasikevicius
Util: David West
Bench: Bobby Simmons
Bench: Andres Nocioni
Bench: John Salmons
Bench: Kendrick Perkins

Who is a better back-up C to have Perkins or Kwame Brown?

i like the weekly lineup format because it’s easy to manage. it takes too much time and effort to do daily lineups. i also do fantasy football so i already spend more time then i should be looking at fantasy stats

Roto may award the team that’s best overall and eliminates the chance of luck but it’s very boring. the other GM’s in my league are my friends so of course we do head to head- much more exciting having a different opponent each week, leaving the possibility of endless trash talking. and just like the NBA, normally the team that’s playing well down the stretch is the team that wins

I am a big fan of the H2H (makes each day meaningful and of course makes for smack talkt) but not the weekly. However, for keeping everybody involved without quitting our jobs, the weekly lineups were voted in. For our group, it’s probably not how long it takes to set weekly lineups, but the severity of the penalty for not setting them up. In daily, you can rotate and get a game for every position, every night, so neglecting your lineup for even a couple of days is a big penalty.

The big league is great (12 teams with 10 starters and 5 bench guys), because it forces you to be resourceful and make use of players outside of the top 100.

I am enjoying the blog — I look long-term for any changes I am going to make, so I am thinking about the same kind of things roto players are. I almost never pick up a player because of how many games he’s playing in a week.

2)This is my first time doing fantasy hoops, but I totally agree with you about Roto vs H2H/weekly for all the reasons you mentioned. I definitely wouldn’t want to play in a league that the # of games played in a week is what you’re concerned about.
And, I agree that the turnover category is annoying and unfairly punishes players who touch the ball (i.e. point guards) more than others. Maybe I’m just mad because it’s my worst category. (thanks to Arenas,Pierce,ridnour,m.james,Pachulia)

One complaint about my league is that there’s no injured list. (which is actually the NBA’s fault) It really awards those lucky enough not to get hit by injuries. I really wish I could test out more waiver wire guys when I lose a starter. Also, I hate the fact that Yahoo doesn’t give you the option of seeing the standings by averages instead of just totals. It’s hard to figure out exactly how you’re doing given the fact that everyone’s played a different amount of games. You kinda have to guess/estimate your ‘real’ position.

To respond to the 2nd person who commented, I don’t think you needed to add Off.reb as a cat to balance out big man vs guard stas, since TOs disproportionately hurt the guards.

As for your site, I think it’s been doing a great job thus far. You obviously can’t please everyone using every format. I’d say just keep turnovers in mind, since a lot of leagues seem to use it (even though yours doesn’t).