While drafts help set the building blocks of your fantasy basketball season, the house still needs to be built. Unlike in other fantasy sports, in basketball, you can’t draft and then fall asleep on your teams. The 82-game stretch for your players begins and there are certain of areas of focus you’ll need to be aware of. As much as this is a draft guide, it’s also a guide for you to use throughout the season. Keep it by your side and learn how to be a coach.

1) PLAYING TIME OVER POINTS:

A player’s production is the major area of focus when deciding who to put in your lineups each game. What happens when a player is a liability in the fourth quarter and doesn’t see the court late in games? Playing time must be watched. Consistent impact players should be playing over 20-25 minutes per game. Scoring is not the top priority, especially when watching those second tier players. A player needs to be on the court in order to produce. NBA Coaches don’t care about your fantasy teams. Whatever rotation of players who’re showing the best results on a game-by-game basis will play more. There are plenty of times that a team’s second unit will decrease the deficit and coaches will keep their starters on the bench with the more success they see from that second unit. There are a lot of change-of-pace off the bench scorers to watch out for when it comes to playing time. Jamal Crawford is a perfect example of a player who’s main job is to score, but may not always get the playing time. The Timberwolves have a bunch of good defenders and it’s redundant if the ‘Wolves are scoring but not stopping the bleeding on the other end. This could keep Crawford limited in games versus stronger defenses. While the scoring (especially in volume) is hard to look past, make sure you check how many minutes he’s getting and not just for the season, but month by month or even week by week. That gives you a true indication how much a team is invested into that player.

2) DEFENSE WINS NBA AND FANTASY CHAMPIONSHIPS:

As implied above, players who show a consistent commitment to defense will get more playing time. When looking at which players to pick up, statistical averages such as six rebounds, one steal and one block (along with 20 minutes per game short or long term) are good signs of solid defensive production and rotation commitment. Michael Kidd-Gilchrist is not a flashy scorer and his stats don’t always stand out. He will likely be a constant short-term waiver wire option, but if you look past the shooting, he helps in three categories. He’s a strong perimeter defender who’s disciplined not to go for the fake. MKG can still see a lot of minutes and is a solid balance player for your lineups because of how much he helps with rebounds, steals and blocks. If a player is swatting at least one shot or swiping at least one ball, his Coach will absolutely notice. In today’s NBA, teams aren’t as tough and rugged as they were 20 years ago. There’s a lot more of a commitment to offensive scorers (especially shoot-first Point Guards). The Jazz and Spurs were the only two teams who didn’t give up at least 100 points per game. Solid perimeter defenders are few and far between and teams will look to prioritize them into the rotation just to defend the perimeter. Look for short-term good defensive statistics when looking to pick up a player.

3) PATIENCE IS A VIRTUE, ESPECIALLY AT THE BEGINNING OF THE SEASON:

Believe it or not, camp and preseason isn’t enough time for new-looking teams to gel. If you see certain projections on players or have your own expectations for players that they aren’t meeting right away, be patient! Players in new situations need at least a month to find their rhythm. There’s a lot more that goes into a player in a new situation beyond execution of statistics. They need to learn spacing on the court, placement of themselves at the start and finish of called plays and especially in game, where the opposition’s defense collapses. Some defenses trap on the perimeter and others wait until the ball is pushed inside from the free-throw line to under the basket. The bottom line is that it takes teams especially those new “Super Teams” a bit of time to get used to their new situation. If you draft Carmelo Anthony and he’s not scoring 20 points a game for the first week or two of the season, don’t panic! Know that Anthony’s role will be scoring dominant and he’ll get into rhythm just like Isaiah Thomas will have to do in Cleveland (when or if he plays this season). Wait at least a month, two for stronger/more productive players. Don’t sell players too low after a few weeks of struggling. It’s a long season, injuries occur and rotations change regularly. Pre-season should not be the main source when analyzing players. Preseason helps set the rotation and high impact players (even on new teams) are not judged as harshly. They already made the rotation. Pre-season is to focus on the back end of a team’s rotation. Don’t get trapped!

4) POSITION ELIGIBILITY IS A DIFFERENCE MAKER:

Lineup news comes out daily throughout the season. Fantasy Alarm does a great job in making sure YOU get up to date information on players, NBA rotations and injury news. Use Fantasy Alarm’s NBA tools to stay ahead of the game. If you start seeing consistency in a player, who doesn’t normally play a certain position, begin to get a ton of time early at that unique position for him, that’s the time to pick up the player. Once he plays a certain amount of games at the unique position consistently, the spotlight will appear on that player, the NBA and Fantasy Analysts will be writing about that player, and he’ll either be already scooped up, or weekly add/drop leagues, it’ll cost you a pretty penny to add that player off of waivers. The Nuggets suffered a decent amount of injuries and rotation inconsistency last season. Wilson Chandler (a Guard/Forward) became eligible on different fantasy sports websites as a Power Forward and despite all of the lack of consistency we saw in Denver last season, one thing became apparent and that was as long as he was healthy, Wilson Chandler was getting minutes at one of three positions on the court. He even showed as the off-guard he could handle ball-handling responsibilities. Those who added Chandler early benefitted later on because not only did he produce in multiple categories, but he played multiple positions on an frequently injured team thus you had more flexibility in your lineup when setting it. Flex options are key when looking for balance in your fantasy football lineups, especially those who can flex to three or more positions and help out in multiple categories (at least a little bit in each) will help protect your team incase injuries happen and keep the production flowing.

5) POOR FREE THROW PERCENTAGE IS A FULL-TEAM STRUGGLE:

There are many players, especially Centers, who shoot poorly from the free-throw line. Fantasy players often place the blame on one player being the reason they are ranked last in free-throw shooting percentage and that’s just not true. You should absolute invest in players like Andre Drummond and DeAndre Jordan because of how much they help you in other categories. You can find consistent free-throw shooters that shoot at least 75-80 percent from the free-throw line on waivers to balance that out. I don’t recommend you construct a team full of horrible free-throw shooters unless you’re all in on punting the category. One or two bad free-throw shooters won’t crush your percentage. Again, the key is balance and you should look to get players (maybe bench players for your teams) who shoot well from the free-throw line so you can protect your team and the category from plummeting. When constructing your rosters and even throughout the season, look at short-term free-throw shooting from a month’s or two-week standpoint to find those better shooters to counter-balance the poorer ones on your team. Address the category and your team as a whole when it comes to free-throw shooting. The poor free-throw shooter on your team could be helping you dominate other categories and he may not be worth getting rid of just because he struggles shooting from the line. While it may not make much sense why the most frequently hacked players struggle from the free-throw line, a team winning or losing the game because of it is not our concern. Our concern is whether or not our teams have enough to cancel out the one or two poor free-throw shooters and keep our percentages steady.