Staggered Scoring Settings for Fantasy Basketball

This post will be a little different from my normal posts, but I thought I'd take a few minutes to explain custom scoring settings that I like to use for fantasy basketball.  I don't necessarily like the way ESPN scores; I think it's a little too easy.  I find it hard to enjoy a league where points, assists, rebounds, steals, and blocks are all equally worth 1 point.  It's much harder to get a block than a point, which is why league-leading Anthony Davis averaged 2.82 BPG as opposed to Kevin Durant's 32.0 PPG last season.  Logically speaking, I believe a block is worth more than a scored point.  So here's how I would lay it out:

Category	Scoring
Points	0.5
Assists	2.0
Rebounds	2.0
Steals	3.0
Blocks	3.0
Turnovers	-3.0
Field Goals Made	1.0
Field Goals Attempted	-0.5
Three Pointers Made	2.75
Three Pointers Attempted	-0.75
Free Throws Made	1.0
Free Throws Attempted	-.75
Triple-Doubles	10

So as you can tell, this scoring system is very efficiency-based, which basketball actually is.  The point of playing fantasy sports is drafting as close of a real team as possible, and here you have a plausible scoring system. You could always throw in double-doubles if you like, but I find that double-doubles really only benefit the big men as it is much easier for them to grab 10 rebounds than it is for guards to dish out 10 assists.

Efficiency:

For every made 2-point shot, you receive 1 full point from the scoring in addition to another half of a point from the (Made Field Goal-Attempted Field Goal) category.  For every 3-pointer made, you receive 1.5 points from the scoring in addition to 2 more points from the (Three Pointers Made-Three Pointers Attempted) category.  This obviously offers you higher reward for the three-pointers, but likewise, in basketball you get a higher reward for making three-pointers.  Higher risk (-.75 points for missing as opposed to -.5 points) offers higher reward (3.5 points as opposed to 1.5).  Very similar are the free throws.  Free throws are a given, wide open shot in basketball.  Players stand 15 feet away from the hoop centered with the basket and are asked to take a shot.  They're professionals, which should make this fairly easy, which is why making a free throw will net you only .25 points, but missing one will deduct .75 points.  (This also coincidentally makes it more fair for big men, because as you'll see, big men have potential for very high scoring.)

"Front Page" Stats:

I call points, assists, rebounds, blocks, steals, and turnovers front page stats because these are the big numbers you see headlining the Sports section of any newspaper most the time.  Occasionally, you'll see a shooting percentage, but usually you'll see "Kevin Durant's 51 and 12 Power Thunder Past Toronto," and not "Kevin Durant's 51 on 15-32 Shooting Power Thunder Past Toronto."  Kind of a mouthful, huh?

So anyway, points are self-explanatory.  You get half a fantasy point for each point - 1 full point for a made 2-pointer and 1.5 points for a made 3-pointer.  Next, the assists and rebounds worth 2 points each are designated as a second or even first option for most guards and big men, respectively.  In addition to scoring, you expect your guards to "playmake" and your big men to rebound, making this an important stat that is harder to obtain than scoring. Thirdly, you expect your guards to get steals and your big men to block shots.  Steals and blocks are even more rare than assists and rebounds, which is why they are appropriately awarded 3 points for each.  On a good game, a player can record 3 steals or blocks, which would award you 9 fantasy points instead of standard scoring's 3; on an average game, a player can score 15 points, which would award you approximately 7.5 fantasy points instead of standard scoring's 15.  You see how this makes more sense?

And then of course to make things fun, you've got to reward the Joakim Noah's of the league by giving them 10 more points for a triple-double in any three categories.

In basketball, you expect your guards to:

1. Score
2. Pass/Assist
3. Steal
4. Make Three-Pointers

You expect your big men to:

1. Score
2. Rebound
3. Block Shots
4. Score Efficiently 

Negative turnover points are sort of in there as a fail-safe for guards, whereas free-throw efficiency does the same thing for big men.  You could have Andre Drummond go for 22 points and 18 rebounds, a fantastic fantasy game, but if he goes 3-11 from the free throw line, he's lost you about 6 points right there.  Likewise, if Curry lights up the Garden for 54 points and 11 threes, but has 4 turnovers, that just lost you 12 points.  (Okay fine, Curry was a bad example, but you can see how 4 turnovers could hurt you even on a game-of-the-year.)

One last thing I forgot to mention is that this scoring system puts tremendous emphasis on all-around players, because those players can fill stat sheets and get points across the board.  Obviously your bigs rebound and guards assist, so that kind of leaves the 2-guard and 3-guard somewhere in the middle and irrelevant in fantasy leagues, but with the staggered scoring system, the middlemen can have opportunities for higher fantasy points because they can steal AND block, assist AND rebound.  Just a little result of this scoring system that I find helpful!

So I hope you give this scoring system a try, or at least some rendition of it, because I think just about any scoring system is better than one where everything counts for either 1 or -1 points.

But if you want to get cute with it, check out this next post on utilizing every fantasy category:
http://fantasybasketballforum.blogspot.de/2014/08/utilizing-all-scoring-categories-in.html