Daily vs Weekly / Buy Low – Sell High
The decision of making a Fantasy basketball league daily or weekly is sometimes decided by the flip of a coin and some important things are often looked over. My experience in both has educated me on a few key differences that everyone should be aware of. Initially, the reason to go with a daily league is because GMs want something to do each night and this style definitely supports that, however, there are some crucial things that you all should know if you are going with a daily league, rather than a weekly league:
1. Injuries don’t have less of an impact, they actually have more. Look at it this way, if you have Richard Hamilton go down with a 3 week injury in a weekly league, you would suffer for the first week and then plug your best bench player into his spot for the following two. This means that on the whole your team was handicapped about 60pts, 13 ass, and 15 rebs for the first week, but after that you are only being handicapped those totals MINUS the totals that your bench player is now contributing. In a daily league, there are no such thing as bench players, because every player is in the lineup for almost every game they play, and so instead of being able to soften the injury blow…. you now have a roster spot getting you 0s in all categories for as many weeks as that person is out. The real catch is that you obviously are not going to drop a good player, so the only option is to hope that your team can now make up for the 60pts, 15 rebs, 13 ass, 6 stls and good pcts, and that just is not likely in most cases.
2. Depth, depth, depth. This one is very simple. In a weekly league, generally speaking your top 5 players do a lot of the work for you and if they all out perform the opponents top 5, then you have a good chance of winning. In a daily league, you need to have your bottom 5 out perform the other teams bottom 5 EQUALLY as much as you want your stars to perform. This is simply because of the number of total player games being played. In a weekly league if you have 10 roster spots (and 4 bench) and everyone has 3 games a week, then thats’s 30 games. Your top 5 players makeup 15 of those 30 games (obviously very significant). In daily, if you have 10 roster spots (and 4 bench), you will probably total around 40 games, which means that your stars impact on the final outcome has gone down, and the impact of your bottom 5 has obviously gone way up. Tip: In daily leagues, do not be scared to trade a star for 3 or 4 good starters. 9 out of 10 times your team will be getting better.
3. Deciding Factors: You need to decide what is important to you. Do you want to be in a league that reflects what is important in a real sport, or are you in it just to have something to do, as often as you can??? Both styles have pros and cons, and each individual is going to value things differently. Personally, I would rather be in a league where the stars have a little more impact and where the bad luck of injuries can’t handicap you for an extended period of time. I do see the value in being able to make lineup changes everyday though as it will keep the interest in your league high at all times.
Make sure you take all things into account when deciding.
Onto some advice:
Buy-Low – Corey Maggette
The Clippers are an interesting team this year after suffering so many serious injuries. With guys like Brand and Livngston out for extended periods of time, and now injuries to their back court in Cassell and Mobley, someone is going to reap the fantasy rewards. That man is Coret Maggette. The ball will go through Maggette nearly every time the Clippers cross half, and having Kaman as a (re-)breakout low-post player is only opening things up for Maggette even more. Kaman provides the presence without the ball demands, and that is a formula for some big games for Maggette. Since coming back in late November hes yet to score under 20. Look for that to continue.
Sell High – Danny Granger
Granger has been a stud so far this year and my recommendation to trade him now does not mean I think he is going to tank it from here. It just means that with the extremely gradual return of Jermaine O’Neal to the lineup, there just are not going to be as many plays run for him or as many rebounds available. The only way his productions stays where it is, is if the Pacers somehow start blowing teams out and becoming a contender, OR if O’Neal goes down with another injury. I wouldn’t bank on either but I will also say that I never trust O’Neal to stay healthy. Point is that you can trade him straight up for a much safer stud right now. Go do it.
