What makes fantasy basketball different from fantasy football is its scoring categories. In football, you get points from each player to total one number for the week. In basketball (and baseball and hockey, usually), you can select categories for your league that your players compete in.

In a standard league, there are nine categories: Points, 3-Pointers Made, Rebounds, Assists, Steals, Blocks, FG%, FT%, and Turnovers.

As you would expect, some NBA players are good in some categories, but not so great in others. You don’t compile raw value like in football, but you actually try to build a team – one where your players work together to win specific categories. For example, basketballmonster.com, to rank the top-10 players through the first week-ish of games (through 11/6 games). Obviously with just one week of data, this will change throughout the season. Hopefully through these tables, however, you can start to get an idea of how to build your team to optimize victories in categories. I will update them weekly and give some commentary on which players to focus on.

Punting Points

Punting 3PM

Punting Rebounds

Punting Assists

Punting Steals

Punting Blocks

Punting FG%

Punting FT%

Punting Turnovers