Note: Since you can find some good links to fantasy basketball draft strategy here, I’ll try to focus on a few areas often overlooked.

Don't hate Devin Harris. Hate the Nets. (Marc Rasbury/Icon SMI)

Team schedule.  It might sound like the most boring part of playing fantasy basketball, but sometimes it makes a world of difference, especially in H2H leagues (note: this article is mainly intended for H2H players).  There are two crucial parts of team schedule:

a) How many times a team plays per week.

b) How many “Off-Days” a team plays.

As I was gearing up to write this, I came across a pretty great analysis of the former at Basketball Free For All via another site, FourPointPlay.  I was planning to do something similar but they’ve already done a great job analyzing the NBA schedule on a play-per-week basis.  So I’ll focus on the latter.

What exactly do I mean by Off-Days?  The days where almost every team gets a day off.  Your Thanksgivings, Christmases, and New Years, to name a few.  But there are always some teams playing on those days, and since they’re often big primetime TV days, the teams are usually the superstar-led ones, like the Cavaliers, Lakers, and Celtics.  But not always.

In H2H leagues it’s especially useful to own players on these teams (it doesn’t always have to be the superstar, mind you) because it often adds to your TOTAL GAME count for that week (assuming you don’t have a weekly cap on games).  Even if you do have a cap on games, when your best players play on these Off-Days, it frees you up to use your most efficient combination of players on the days where everyone seems to be playing.  Here’s an example:

Let’s say you’re in a H2H league with daily changes where you start 6 players each night: G, G, F, F, C, Util.  It’s the weekend and you’re in a tight race.  You have 8 players playing Saturday, but Sunday is one of these Off-Days and you only have one guy playing.  Meanwhile, your opponent has 6 players playing Sat, and 3 on Sun.  Even if you add-drop to get a couple players on Sun, the quality of your added players (both FA) will probably be subpar compared to your opponents’ regular starters.  (Plus, your opponent could always add-drop as well.)  Another way to look at it: You might have to sit your third-string G on Sat, someone like an Eric Gordon, while you start a FA like Jordan Farmar on Sun.  And of course, your opponent has Kobe going Sun, while he was able to start someone comparable to Gordon on Sat.

Sure, it’s a tidy scenario to help me make my point, but it’ll happen at least once or twice a year, and that could decide whether you make the fantasy playoffs or not.  And when it happens during the fantasy playoffs, it could decide whether or not you just wasted the previous 6 months of your life.

“That’s great, but how does it help me on draft day?”  Good question.  That’s why I’ve made a table highlighting the Off-Days schedule for every team in the league:

How to read the chart:

“4G” indicates an Off-Day where there are only 4 games on the schedule.  Boston has a “1″ under 4G from “Oct to Dec”, meaning the Celtics play on only one of those days in that time span.  However, they also play on 2 days where there only 3 games on the schedule from Oct to Dec.  From Jan to Mar 21 (the last day of the fantasy regular season in most H2H formats), Boston plays on 6 total Off-Days, including 3 days where there are only 2 games going on.  For the entire fantasy regular season, Boston plays on 9 total Off-Days.  During the fantasy playoffs, they play on 1 Off-Day during championship week.  Get it?

Some interesting observations:

• If you draft star players from Chicago or Denver, you’re going to be the guy laughing all the way to the bank on Sunday.  Not only do they play on several Off-Days during the regular season, but also during the fantasy playoffs (especially championship week).  You’re going to feel mighty good about yourself starting D-Rose, John Salmons, Carmelo, and Nene on these days while your opponents are scrambling for their FA backups — Renaldo Balkman, Anthony Carter, Aaron Gray, and whichever D-Leaguers make things interesting this year.

• Meanwhile, while you would still love to own guys like Devin Harris and Brook Lopez, their value takes a slight hit in H2H leagues because of the Nets’ hideous Off-Day schedule.  In fact, they don’t play on any days with 4 or less games on the schedule.  Zero.  So if you pick up sleepers like Courtney Lee or Yi Jianlian (one of my targeted sleepers in roto leagues), you might not be able to start them too often, as they mainly play on days where everyone else is playing too.  In fact, with all those blanks, NJ was kind enough to allow me to plug myself on my chart…
  

  The Hornets: NBA fantasy schedule FAIL (Middle Gray Studios/Flickr)

• This Off-Day schedule should help in making some difficult first-round decisions in particular.  While the fantasy gods have tried to level the playing field in the fantasy playoffs by giving both LeBron’s Cavs and CP3’s Hornets only 11 games (as opposed to 14 for HOU, MIL, OKC, SA, TOR, WAS), LeBron has the clearly favorable Off-Day schedule during the regular season.  In fact of the 14 days on the NBA calendar with only 2 games in action, the Cavs play on 8 of those days.  8 out of 14.  Meanwhile, there are 11 other teams that don’t play on any of those days.  (The Hornets play on 1.)  Although CP3 is statistically the most valuable player in the league, that’s enough for me to take LeBron H2H.  Although I’m sticking with CP3 in roto.

• Other first round decisions: The Lakers have a great regular season schedule as usual and a pretty good fantasy playoff.  That’s enough for me to pull the trigger on Kobe over Granger in the first round, even though I expect Granger to have the better fantasy year by averages.  However, I still like Kevin Durant over Kobe, not only because he’s a fantasy stud, but also because the Thunder have a sneaky good fantasy playoff schedule despite a mediocre regular season schedule.  (Now there’s just the matter of making the playoffs…)

• One other interesting note: Houston has traditionally enjoyed playing on several Off-Days in recent years.  But with Yao and T-Mac out, someone at the NBA scheduling office noticed.  They only play on 3 such days this year.

Beyond draft day, the Off-Days schedule should also help in targeting players for trades.  When used with the overall NBA schedule analyzer from Basketball Free For All, you can pinpoint the teams that play most often and on the most Off-Days to finish out the year.

Disclaimer:

I’m not saying you should load your team up with Bulls, Nuggets, and Spurs if you’re not getting great value for the round that you take them.  (You probably also shouldn’t have more than two players from any team for general scheduling purposes.)  However, when you’re making difficult decisions on draft day, use this schedule as a tiebreaker.  For instance, if you’re deciding between J.R. Smith or Eric Gordon in the middle rounds, I’d go with Smith based on DEN’s great schedule.  If you don’t clearly prefer Luol Deng or Thaddeus Young later, grab the Bull by the horns.  Just don’t blame me if Gordon or Young blow up this year.  Okay, blame me.

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