NBA Auction Strategy Part 3: H2H Rankings and Auction Values

This article is part of our NBA Draft Strategy series.

In an attempt to differentiate head-to-head rankings from the standard rotisserie rankings that most sites provide for both games, we've been promoting our suggested head-to-head rankings that stress punting field goal percentage, free throw percentage, and turnovers in standard 9-category head-to-head leagues.

The table at the bottom of this article displays our suggested head-to-head rankings, and these rankings account only for the six positive counting stats (points, rebounds, assists, steals, blocks, and three-pointers made) while punting field goal percentage, free throw percentage, and turnovers.

The reasoning behind building the rankings for head-to-head (H2H) off of the six positive counting stats is multi-layered, but the concepts are relatively simple.

Why Are H2H Leagues Different than Rotisserie Leagues?
In rotisserie leagues, you have to account for all the categories that you're competing in, because each category is worth the same value. In a 10-team rotisserie league, each category could give you as many as 10 points toward your total rotisserie score for the league, and the stats that you're collecting are the total stats of the entire season. That's a huge sample size.

In H2H leagues, you're only collecting stats for a one-week matchup. So, in a 9-category league, you only have to win five of the nine categories to win the matchup that week. That's the key difference between the rotisserie game and the H2H game. One of them is a full-season game, the other is a week-to-week game.

Through the three-to-four games a player has during a weekly H2H matchup, there's a greater possibility for variance in stats from week to week based on the player's efficiency, the minutes they play, and the number of games on their schedule.

Our suggested H2H rankings are an attempt to circumnavigate the variance of the percentages from week to week for a player, and our focus on only drafting with the six positive counting stats in our rankings is an attempt to build a strong foundation in those six stats that helps to insulate a team from the idiosyncrasies of injuries and weird schedule quirks throughout the season.

Why You Should Punt Turnovers in a Standard 9-Category H2H League?
This is relatively straightforward. The best players in fantasy have the ball in their hands more than anyone else, so they create more turnovers by default, making the use and tracking of turnovers in fantasy basketball counterintuitive to the purpose of all the other stats. Yahoo's standard leagues default to a 9-category setting that includes turnovers, while ESPN forgoes turnovers in their standard leagues and defaults to an 8-category setting.

There are lots of people out there who believe it's important to use turnovers in fantasy, and no one is right or wrong, but if you talk to most experts, they'll voice their disdain for the turnovers category as it obscures the rankings to an often unfair degree.

Why You Should Punt the Percentages in a Standard 9-Category H2H League?
We touched on this above, but the primary reason is due to the variance inherent in percentages in small sample sizes.

Over the course of three-to-four games in a given week, Dwight Howard might only shoot 45 percent from the field, but as long as he's getting 36 minutes per game, he should still collect the same number of rebounds and blocks that he is accustomed to collecting in 36 mpg. The concept is really that simple.

One other argument tied to punting percentages is the fact that percentages can influence the rankings greatly, and when the most important stats in H2H are the counting stats, it's counterintuitive to give the percentages the same weight in H2H rankings that you would in a set of rankings for rotisserie leagues.

In Part 2 of our Auction Strategy series, we pointed out that a player's ranking and auction value can be very different depending on your league settings (number of teams, roster spots, and scoring). To help gain an advantage on draft day, Parts 3-6 of this series will give you suggested auction values and snake draft rankings specific to Head-to-Head, Rotisserie, and Points Leagues:

Part 1:Why You Should Try An Auction Draft (Free!!)
Part 2:How Auction Values Are Calculated (Free!!)
Part 3:Head-to-Head Rankings and Auction Values (Free!!)
Part 4:9-Category Rotisserie Rankings and Auction Values (Subscriber Content)
Part 5:8-Category Rotisserie Rankings and Auction Values (Subscriber Content)
Part 6:Points Leagues Rankings and Auction Values (Subscriber Content)

All of the rankings and auction values are based off of the RotoWire Projections. They are calculated using the methodology described in Part 2 of the series.

The rankings and auction values provided in this article are for 12- and 10-team leagues. They are up to date as of 10/20/2014. If you would like rankings that are completely up to date, please use our new rankings tool.

Enjoy!

Head-to-Head Suggested 9-Cat Rankings and Auction Values
(w/ Punting of FG%, FT%, and TOs)