by Aj Brady

Created on: January 31, 2009   Last Updated: February 06, 2009

Fantasy sports are a terrific way to really get involved with sports you follow: getting to know players - who's in form and who's not?; getting to know which teams are dominant; and, getting aware of the trends that are teased out during a full-length season.

Fantasy basketball is no exception.

First of all, the most important thing is choosing a good fantasy basketball competition, with plenty of people involved and great prizes on offer.

When it comes to NBA basketball, the best competitions have generally been on ESPN.com, Yahoo! Sports and NBA.com, with many thousands of participants divided into mini-leagues comprising no more than 20 people.

This way, you get to gauge how you are going among your small group of people, and then also on the bigger stage, among the entire playing group on the website.

If you've some friends who are also interested, you could create your own private league, filled entirely with family and friends.

There are two main scoring systems in basketball fantasy leagues:

1) Rotisserie scoring systems, where after each game each individual statistic is tallied, such as number of rebounds, assists, points, etc; or, 2) Weekly aggregate scoring systems, a much simpler system, whereby a player's weekly points are all accumulated and then given out to players in fantasy leagues who have that particular player.

When joining a fantasy basketball league, you start off prior to the season with a designated draft in your league, where each player has a designated pick.

Sometimes you can have the option of the computer picking the players you get in your line-up, but, if possible, you should always try and do your own drafting, as there's a better chance of you building the team you want.

Naturally, as in everything, there's no way of knowing at the beginning of a season who's going to have a breakout season, who's going to struggle, who's going to get injured, etc.

The best way to ensure a chance of success is choosing starters on generally successful teams.

If you look at season 2007-08, the best teams were the Cleveland Cavaliers, Los Angeles Lakers and Boston Celtics.

If you packed your line-up with players from these three teams, well this season you'd be laughing.

Naturally, the financial salary cap in fantasy leagues, usually around the $100 million mark, will mean you cannot pick five All Stars in your starting line-up.

The key is picking the players who are "on the cheap" at the beginning of the season, but end up posting solid numbers throughout

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