by Kyle Ellison

Created on: June 15, 2008   Last Updated: July 13, 2009

My girlfriend says I am obsessed. She says I have no life. She says that my friends and I lead a sad, pathetic, miserable existence of sitting around each day and endlessly scrutinizing, analyzing, internalizing, living, tasting, and breathing all that is fantasy basketball. Reading and studying every box score like the living will of a wealthy great-uncle. Noticing trends of who is hot, and why, and when they are going to fall. She's right though. And I don't care. She can have Grey's Anatomy and Oprah-I just want to know how many assists Jordan Farmar got in this evening's game.

In order to succeed at fantasy basketball, you have to let it consume you. Submit. When you wake in the morning, instead of deciding between Raisin Bran or Rice Chex, you instead need to be thinking if Ricky Davis or Udonis Haslem is going to see more action now that D. Wade is out with injury. You need to participate in a private league where you are familiar with all the members of your league-say your old college roommates-so that your every waking moment is slanted towards exercising your alpha male dominance through a twisted and perverted knowledge of stats put up by men inarguably much larger than yourself. In order to dominate at fantasy basketball, you have to let it dominate you.

Now that that is out of the way, it leaves us with the nuts and bolts of the actual situation: how to actually go about winning. First of all, specific attention must be paid to the first 5 rounds of the draft. These are going to be your players, your men, your reason you wake up in the morning. You need a strong point guard (think Nash, Paul, Iverson here) backed up by either a strong power forward or center (Ming, Garnett, Dwight Howard, anyone but Darius Miles, etc.) Your point guards are going to be solid in categories such as points, assists, 3's, steals, and free throw and field goal percentages. Downside, however, is that if you are in a league that counts turnovers, these guys are going to rack those up against you as well. Your centers and power forwards are going to collect your rebounds and blocks, but will most likely drag down your free throw percentage seeing as they are 7 ft. behemoths with as much finesse as a steamtrain. Too many guards, you're gonna lose boards and blocks every time. Too many big men and you're going to struggle for assists, steals, 3's, and percentages. Therefore, when selecting your top 5 draft picks it is wise to stagger the positions for a well-rounded

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