Which position in fantasy basketball is the most important and therefore holds the keys to victory? I have sat here staring at my laptop for the past 20 minutes or so, pondering this question. It’s a crucial one, no doubt. Fantasy Basketball is a game that requires skill, luck, determination, and intuition in order to win. But knowing which position can unlock the secret to fantasy success certainly doesn’t hurt either. So which one is it? Well, a good place to start our journey is at the beginning. Let’s break down the contenders:
Point Guard: This is the obvious choice. With many leagues only requiring one center, most fantasy experts will confidently tell you that point guard is the most important position. And who can blame them? Point guards typically contribute in 5 categories, getting steals, points, threes, free throw percentage, and assists. The last category is what makes point guards the favorite for the title of “Most Important”. With a few exceptions, point guards are your only options for assists, which means that any team looking to win has to have at least a couple of decent point guards on the team. But let’s not give the belt away just yet, not when there are other positions left to consider.
Top Options: Gilbert Arenas, Steven Nash, Jason Kidd, Chris Paul, Deron Williams, Chauncey Billups
Shooting Guard: Wow, we jump from the favorite to the underdog. Shooting guards often get stuck with the label of “least important” because they are plentiful. If you don’t grab a solid shooting guard in the first five rounds of your draft chances are that there will still be some quality options left. The same can’t be said for scarce positions like point guard and center. But that doesn’t mean that the shooting guard position isn’t valuable. Select the right one and you may find yourself with a 6 category producer whose versatility will serve as the backbone of your team all season long. In particular, roto leagues are all about finding those players who contribute across as many categories as possible, and shooting guards have a real knack for doing this. It’s no coincidence that the best player in fantasy basketball last season was a shooting guard.
Top Options: Kobe Bryant, Andre Iguodala, Dwyane Wade, Allen Iverson, Joe Johnson, Tracy McGrady, Vince Carter, Ray Allen
Small Forward: Small Forwards are the glue guys for your team, getting you a decent amount of tough to find stats like blocks, steals, and threes. Small Forwards tend to get overshadowed by the flashier (and more versatile) Shooting Guards, but that doesn’t necessarily make them less valuable. A good small forward can power your team just as easily as any other position, particularly with the athleticism that guys like Lebron James and Shawn Marion bring to the court. You can find solid small forward options late in the draft, but don’t wait too long and underestimate the impact that a good small forward can have on your team.
Top Options: Shawn Marion, LeBron James, Josh Smith, Carmelo Anthony, Paul Pierce, Caron Butler, Rashard Lewis
Power Forward: In the modern NBA the power forward position has evolved more than any other. Just about gone are the slow, lumbering power forwards who can’t shoot outside of 10 feet. In their place are a slew of quick, athletic players who can step out and shoot jumpers just as well as they can post up in the paint. This is great news for fantasy owners, as the skills that the new breed of power forwards have only make them even more valuable as fantasy contributors. Power forwards are typically looked to for Field goal percentage, rebounds, points, and the rarest of stats, blocks. Due to the lack of quality centers most owners wind up looking to their power forwards to pick up some of the slack in providing those crucial big man stats, so going into a season without a good one can be a recipe for disaster.
Top Options: Kevin Garnett, Dirk Nowitki, Tim Duncan, Chris Bosh, Carlos Boozer, Jermaine O’Neal
Center: Finally, to the rarest position in basketball. True centers are a dying breed, with many fantasy owners (and real life owners) having to overpay in order to get an oftentimes under-skilled big man on their squad. In fact, quality centers are so rare that many NBA teams are running without a true center, instead using more skilled players and playing small ball. After all, who can forget Al Harrington starting at center for the Warriors?
One has to think that this scarcity gives centers a big advantage when it comes to the race for the “Most Important” title. However, it also has to be taken into consideration that most owners also have strategies in place to deal with not having a top option at the center spot. Personally, I have gone as far as placing an injured player in my center spot so that I don’t waste games on a player like Brendan Haywood when there are much more solid options out there at other positions. So does scarcity automatically make center the winner here? Read on to find out…
Top Options:
As I mentioned at the beginning of this blog, I spent a good deal of time thinking about which position is truly the most important. After giving it a lot of thought and looking over past seasons of fantasy basketball I decided that I could make a solid argument for each one of the 5 positions to be the “most important”.
That’s was then that I came to realize that there is no “correct” answer to this question. There is no “most important” position. Why? Because fantasy basketball isn’t about the positions, it’s about the stats! It doesn’t matter what position is providing those stats. An assist from a center counts just as much as an assist from a point guard. Yes, positional eligibility has to be taken into consideration because you have to fill the spots on your roster, but you can’t just make a blanket statement saying that position x is more important than position y. There is no magic formula for fantasy success that says you will win if you have x amount of point guards or x amount of centers. Sorry, but that’s not what the game is about.
It all goes back to the whole “no I in team” concept that your coaches used to tell you about when you were a kid. There is no one player or one position that does everything. Each player on your fantasy team will have weaknesses that need to be made up for by other players, just like in real life. It’s all about the team effort, regardless of who provides what stats. For example, if you have a low assist but high FG point guard like Tony Parker, but make up for his deficiencies with a high assist forward like Lamar Odom your team as a whole will thrive. Is one position more important than the other? No, as long as all the stats are covered it doesn’t matter which position provides them.
Your ultimate goal should be having a roster that is strong in all 8 categories. Having a balanced team is what really matters and will determine how successful you are in the end. The many different ways to get that balance is part of what makes fantasy basketball such a fun game in the first place.
So which position holds the keys to victory? They all do, it’s just up to you to select the right combination of keys to unlock fantasy success.
Till next time...-unpossibl1 
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