Building An Unconventional Juggernaut - A Story On Fantasy Basketball Draft Theory

Today, I'm going to do something a bit unique. Recently, I had a nice constructive argument with some other fantasy basketball players regarding team-building theory, centering around whether it is better to go into a draft with a strategy in mind (forcing a punt strategy), or staying open through your first few picks.

In leagues in which players aren't as strong, and don't understand punt concepts and how to draft a team, forcing a punt strategy will probably work just as well as staying open, but I strongly believe in a sharp league where most players know how to punt, staying open is the key to consistently drafting a good team, and it takes not only smart team building on your end, but understanding your opponents' strategies to anticipate their targets to end up with a team strong enough squad to contend for a title.

I'm going to go over my thought process in how my favorite team this season came together, a wire-to-wire first place team in a highly competitive keeper league where the first few picks looked like it could lead my draft to become a train-wreck, but finding an unconventional lane to move down ended up not only salvaging the draft, but building the most unlikely of juggernauts in the process.

Building An Unconventional Juggernaut

The Keepers

My keepers were pretty strong but I only kept 2 guys instead of the max 3. Those 2 keepers were Clint Capela at $4 and Otto Porter at $9. I had the option of keeping Thaddeus Young for $9 as well, which would have been solid value, but decided to send him back as I thought he was undervalued and I could get him for less than $9 if I wanted him for whatever strategy I ended up in. As you'll see, that was the correct decision.

With Capela and Porter as my keeper core, it leaves us very open to a multitude of different strategies. Punt FT% and punt assists would be the most likely ones I end up in but this core can strongly support punt 3s or punt points. A core featuring Capela and Porter will be very strong in FG%, turnovers and the defensive categories, and solid in rebounds, so I wouldn't punt any of those 4 categories, but the other 4 are fair game and it leaves us very versatile heading into the auction draft. Exactly where I want to be.

When Value Throws A Wrench In Your Plans

So I went into the draft thinking I'd would be open to punting FT%, assists, 3s or points with the most likely being FT% or assists. After bidding finished on 3 players, all of our plans got thrown out of whack! (We are Nut Kickers, the team name will become obvious later once you see who we drafted)

Well then. Remember how we went in thinking our punt options are versatile, with FT%, assists, 3s and points all being strong possibilities? We're starting off the draft with a guy who is awesome at all 4 of those categories. I went into the draft believing that James Harden was the #1 player in fantasy, and there was no way we were going to pass on him for $68 when he went in the $80s in other auctions I've seen. The value we gained from taking Harden here is almost equal to that of a really strong keeper (around ~$15 in surplus) so there was no way we could pass up on the Beard for this price.

Here's where the converging philosophies might cause a difference in how we drafted. If someone went into the draft ready to force a strategy (like if they were dead set on punting those categories),  then they would have passed on Harden here. I believe that it is absolutely wrong to pass up on this kind of value early in the draft, and you should warp your draft around that pick rather than stick with your pre-draft strategy. In a snake draft, if Harden fell to me at 5 or 6, I am 100% going to take him even if I went in thinking "I am punt assists/ft%", and I look at my second and third round picks and see how I can build around Harden. Having Harden at this price is a big reason why this all worked out, and opting not to take him for this price would have led me to a worse team than I ended up having for sure.

Sticking To My Guns

Here's where things start to get a little dicey. With the core of Harden, Porter and Capela, I wanted one more value buy for a big name before I settled into a strategy. I didn't want to commit to a lane to early, but at the same time I wanted to decide which direction I was going after acquiring my 4th player. At this point, my most realistic punt option was assists but I was open to punting blocks or FT% as well. As you can see from the results, the next guy I decided to grab was Draymond Green at $40, which was solid value for a guy who I love in fantasy for his defense. This put me firmly into punt FT%, as Draymond is strong in both blocks and out of position assists, the other two strategies I was considering at the time. Yes, we are a punt FT% team with James Harden. The dangerous thing is that I missed out on 2 value picks in Dwight and Drummond for that build because I (correctly) didn't want to commit too early.

Uh Oh

I snagged Nurk here, overpaying a bit as he fit the build and I thought he was undervalued at his normal price anyways (I was wrong about this, he has been somewhat disappointing this season), so I didn't get bid up too much to the point where I would have passed. At this point, I knew I wasn't the only punt FT% drafter at the table, as Clunker Stripe, the team that got Drummond for a steal at $16, also had Rudy Gobert as a keeper, and with Gobert, Whiteside, Howard and Drummond all off the table, the only big punt FT% guy left was DeAndre Jordan who I set my sights on as well as Elfrid Payton for my PG target.

Yeah.. there were bidding wars on both these guys and now I was worried I was going to be able to field a strong punt FT% team, as I missed out on all the traditional punt FT% guys. At this point, many drafts would end up falling into train wreck territory, but the good news here was that I identified there was one and only one other punt FT% team still here at this point, and my strategy shifted to waiting for that team to spend their money and/or roster spots to the point where I could get some value late.

The Waiting Game

After losing out on DeAndre, I waited until the other punt FT% team filled out their roster, and I ended up waiting till around the mid 70s. Now, I had the flexibility and the money to get value on whatever build appropriate guys still remained, and I got paid off in the mid 80s with this bounty:

Very good value for Adams and Thad (and decent for WCS although he has since been dropped), and locking in on a core of Harden/Capela/Porter/Draymond/Adams/Thad, at very good prices I was able to splurge late to help supplement cats I was missing out on (Jamal Murray for $14 for points/3s, Dennis Schroder for $18 for points/assists/steals). I also realized I wasn't even THAT bad at FT%, I navigated every pick after the 4th round disregarding FT%, and ended up with a team that was extremely strong in Points/3s/Steals/Blocks/FG%/Assists, reasonable in Reb/TO and only just mediocre in FT%.

The lesson here is that punting doesn't mean actively trying to lose a stat, it means putting together your team ignoring that stat and focusing elsewhere. Just because you miss out on the typical targets for punt builds, it doesn't mean you can't still successfully execute that strategy if you do it correctly and stick to good draft theory.

The Final Result

The end result is a really strange team, a punt FT% team that is actually not elite in Blocks and Reb like a normal punt FT% team, but rather in Assists, Steals and 3s, categories that punt FT% teams normally struggle with. My FT% ended up not even being punt level meaning I ended up winning FT% almost a third of my weeks, and the resulting team became the clear strongest in the league over the full season.

I supplemented the draft with a couple strong trades, buying low on Blake Griffin for Jusuf Nurkic during his injury, and making a win now move with a tanking team acquiring Kyrie Irving for Jamal Murray and $12 in future draft dollars, as well as grabbing Lauri Markkanen and Joe Ingles off waivers.

This is the team today, locked into a first seed going in to the playoffs next week, and one of the most fun teams I've ever had the pleasure of managing. At one point in the draft, we could have easily ended up with a train wreck if we didn't stick to draft theory, but we didn't. We built an unconventional juggernaut instead.

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