Heads Up! Your Guide for Head 2 Head Fantasy Basketball League Play

There are two primary formats for fantasy basketball leagues: rotisserie (roto) and head-to-head (H2H). Fantasy purists prefer roto where team statistics are counted in total over the course of the entire season. End-of-year category rankings determine the overall winner. Roto is a marathon. Me? I’m a H2H guy. H2H is a series of sprints. Each week is a different matchup with others in your league across your respective team totals in each statistical category. Your category wins determine the weekly winner. More importantly, points are totaled each week to determine regular season standings, which are ultimately used to seed playoff matchups.

The advantages of H2H include a more dynamic league because weekly matchups require attention. H2H also allows for more movement within season standings. A bad week or two can doom a roto season. In H2H the performance is contained in that week so season comebacks occur more frequently than roto. Each week is a new set of categories to be won or lost and each counts as one regardless of margin, win or lose by 1 or by 100. This means huge statistical weeks only earn you the same as a marginal one. I say it’s more fair because it contains statistical variances and outlier performances to a single week. H2H also promotes (in theory) a more active trade market since matchups are more critical than season-long performance. Lastly, there are no playoffs in roto.

H2H Basics

H2H team rosters are set up the same as roto leagues by positions, bench, rules, etc., and likewise use a similar format for the nine most commonly used categories (aka 9-cat): Points, Three-Pointers Made, Rebounds, Assists, Steals, Blocks, Turnovers, Free Throw%, and Field Goal%. Side note: can we change these stat names? Pretty sure no one younger than Hubie Brown calls the hoop a “goal”. And unless someone can point me to a basketball “field”, Field Goal is needlessly awkward. Free Throw%? Even Ben Wallace wouldn’t call it a “throw.” Modernize or die, people.

H2H leagues allow either weekly or daily lineup changes, but categories are totaled over the week in either case for each matchup. Matchups are determined by the team that accumulates the highest total or percentage in each category, except for turnovers which count lowest. In a 9-cat weekly competition, either team counts a category win or loss towards its season record.

The key is to maximize the number of wins each week while maintaining strengths week to week. Here’s how.

Team Construction

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