The fantasy basketball season for 2017-18 may have ended about three months ago, so I’m kind of late to look back at the season that was.  Nevertheless, it’s better late than never, and I can use what I learned when I prepare for next season come Fall.

I did a draft review and mid-season review which you can also read about, so I won’t rehash all those details here.  In a nutshell, this was a 10-team, head-to-head 9-category league with an auction draft.  I tried a new draft approach which avoided drafting over-priced stars and focused on value players.

It’s hard to tell just how effective this strategy was, but it seemed to work pretty well at the beginning of the season.  Eventually, though, I was hit by a string of injuries to more players than I could bear with, so I struggled.  On top of that, my single most expensive player, Kawhi Leonard, ended up being one of the biggest busts of my fantasy career.  He cost me $49 (about 25% of my auction budget) but played in only nine games all season.  In addition, I regrettably spent $17 (8.5% of budget) on Isaiah Thomas, who began the first half of the season on IR.  When he finally did resume playing, he only appeared in 32 games and posted slightly above average numbers.

The Results

I ended up the season on pace with where I was in the middle of the season.  My record was 94-85-1 (.525), which was good enough for sixth place in my league, so I captured the last playoff spot in the league.  I was pleasantly able to knock off the third seed in the quarterfinals before losing my semi-final match to the second seed.  I also lost in the third place match, which gave me a fourth place finish at season’s end.

My team

Reviewing my team at season’s end, I see that I had only one player in the top 25.  That alone probably explains my lack of chops in the fantasy playoffs.  I did have six players in the top 50, and 12 in the top 100, so even if I lacked stars, my team was fairly deep.

Of my top 12 players, seven of them performed better than their preseason ranking, and five of them performed worse.  One of the key ways to achieve fantasy success is by drafting players who outperform their preseason ranking.