This can’t be stressed enough. For as good as some players are touted to be in fantasy basketball their stat arrangements aren’t a ‘one size fits all’ investment. Outside of names like Kevin Durant, LeBron James, and a few others, the effectiveness of having certain gents on your roster is wholly dependent on the ebb and flow of circumstance.
Take Milwaukee Buck O.J. Mayo.
The man remains one of the better shooting guard options out there but his roster worthiness just doesn’t hold up across certain formats.
In a little experiment conducted by XN Sports, Mayo was drafted across three different ESPN scoring types. The three were pretty much chosen at random.
The first is a public Rotisserie with a four-person limit on the center position, consisting of 16 owners, scoring points/steals/rebounds/blocks/assists/three-pointers made/field-goal percentage/free-throw percentage, with no trade limits, no keepers, and no limits on waiver acquisitions.
The second’s a Head to Head Points format also with a four-center max, consisting of 10 owners, and scoring everything above except three-pointers made in addition to a -1 for any turnovers, field goals attempted, and free throws attempted. It includes no keepers, no limits on trades, but does include a seven-player waiver acquisition limit as matchups are for seven days.
Finally, the third (and probably the most fun) is a Head to Head Each Category type that comes with the standard four-center limit, consists of 10 teams, scores the same stats as the first league listed, and has a similar no keepers/no limits on trades/sever-player waiver acquisition threshold for every seven-game matchup as league No. 2.
Since the NBA started, Mayo has been scrapped from leagues 2 and 3. Especially in league No. 2, where his bad shooting percentages negated his excellent posting of various stats, he just wasn’t worth having on board. In league No. 3, the Head to Head Each Category, too much specialization was required to take him as he’s more of an inconsistent jack-of-all-trades than a specialist. On a very well-rounded team, then, he was hurting more than he was helping.
His position isn’t exactly fortified in league No. 1 but he contributes enough on a well-balanced roster to make up for his downfalls.
The lesson in all of this is simple: drafting shouldn’t be approached with a cookie-cutter mentality. Even if it is, there’s always room for changes along the way. With some patience, an open mind, and the ability to recognize trends instead of following them, it’s easy to pick players according to what leagues will bring to them and not the other way around.
