I hate the NBA and hate to watch NBA basketball, but I love to play Fantasy Basketball which Dale got me into 3 years ago. I love it because of the Moneyball like effect in the statistics that can be optimized.
It's funny that at times I don't even know the players on my team, and get surprised when I see them and think they don't look like guys who could play that well.
1. The graph below shows how you would expect to draft a team vs some chosen rankings system, that rates the top players versus the average players. The goal is to get as many above average players on your team as possible.
2. However, when you look at the player value ratings (a mathmatical calculation I do to rate each player vs an average player) the Yahoo Rankings show a wide spread vs the exact data they used to make those rankings.
3. The top half of that spread are players who are underrated versus the rankings, the players on the bottom half are overrated versus the rankings. I try to use this to my advantage to get as many underrated players as possible.
The Red circles are players I kept from last years team and the Blue circles are the players I drafted this year (mostly underrated).
4. Despite taking over a very bad team, I have slowly improved my team year after year from 10th place in the Regular Season to 1st last year. (Billy Beane and I agree 1 week Playoffs are a little bit of a crap shoot that can't be predicted).
The best compliment I got last year was someone in the league said: "It's surprising how good the team is, when no one on the roster scares you."
5. Those are the basics, but to get to intermediate team management I focus on the leverage plots of each statistical category.
The Blue line is the plot of Points scored. It shows the very best player will only score 2 times as many points as the average player. Therefore, you would need 4 or 5 of the top scorers to be sure you could beat any other team any given week.
The Pink line shows the same plot for Blocks. A less sexy category, but the best players can get 5 times as many blocks as the average player. Therefore, if you have 2 of the top blockers in the league you should be able to win blocks every week.
Sadly, the season just started and my favorite part is already over.
Luckily, I use the same approach for Baseball which is only 6 months away.
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