The advent of position-less basketball was sharp and immediate. Fantasy basketball wasn’t ready for it. The Phoenix Suns and Portland Trailblazers recently played and there was a sequence in the first half that highlighted just how ridiculous the game has become. Aron Baynes and Hassan Whiteside traded top-of-the-arc, three-point baskets like it was nothing.
Meanwhile, James Harden is out here taking the opening tip-off like it’s normal for shooting guards to be doing. Simply put, fantasy basketball wasn’t setup to handle just how fluid the game has become. Basically, all players do everything these days. Fantasy basketball, especially roto leagues, was design for specialization.
Sure, tall guys get more rebounds and point guards lead most teams in assists, but the distribution of stats is far more spread out than ten years ago. Back in the day, building a fantasy basketball team was about strategy. Are you going to forfeit some categories to excel in others? Can you collect enough secondary stats to push you ahead of the field?
That’s still possible to a certain extent today, but fantasy basketball would be far more challenging if you weren’t bound by positions which are increasingly meaningless on the court anyway.
Fantasy basketball drafts would become far more complex as some teams build an all-around team and others focus on specific categories. And how many times has some poor team began a draft only to realize, “Oh shit, I took three point guards with my first three picks.”
Instead of being forced to try and cobble a roster together or accept a low value trade, you could just sell out to dominating assists, steals, free throw percentage and a few other categories depending on who you grab. Go for 12 centers and just pulverize rebounds, blocks and field goal percentage and pray they get you just enough elsewhere to win the league.
Sure, it is possible to do this now, but the result isn’t the same. If your focus is on threes, steals and what not, maybe you’re forced to trot out PJ Tucker just because he is designated as a center. However, a guy like Markelle Fultz, who is waiver-wire fodder in traditional formats, but would be helpful on a guard-focused roster.
More importantly, abolishing roster positions in fantasy basketball recognizes the differences in the game today. It’s not like football or baseball, where positions remained clearly defined. If you blindly looked at NBA player stat comparisons, you likely wouldn’t have any idea what position they played based on the numbers. Check out our recent video if you don’t believe me.
Basketball isn’t about positions at this point in time, so why does it matter in fantasy basketball? Hell, almost every player is eligible for at least two positions anyway. It’s time for fantasy basketball to rid itself of the outdated yoke of positions and let me draft some junk team of only point guards.
