fantasyblacksmithNBA

Punt Strategies in 9-Category Fantasy Basketball, Explained

What punting means

In a head-to-head 9-category league you compete in nine statistical categories every week: points, rebounds, assists, steals, blocks, three-pointers made, turnovers, field goal percentage and free throw percentage. You win the matchup by winning more than half of them, so five of the nine is enough.

Punting means deliberately giving up one or two of those categories from the start of the draft. You stop spending draft capital on them and accept losing them most weeks, in exchange for building a team that wins the remaining categories by a wide margin.

Why giving up a category can win you more matchups

Player skills come in packages. The tall rebounders and shot-blockers who dominate rebounds, blocks and field goal percentage are often poor free throw shooters, and they rarely produce assists or three-pointers. Elite playmaking guards tend to produce assists, steals and threes, but also turnovers.

On a balanced team those weaknesses cancel out part of each player's strengths. If you have already conceded a category, a player's weakness in it costs you nothing, so a player who is excellent elsewhere becomes more valuable to you than to everyone else drafting for balance. That gap between what a player is worth to you and what the rest of the draft thinks he is worth is the whole edge.

The most common punt builds

  • Punt free throw percentage: build around high-volume big men who rebound, block shots and shoot well from the field. Their poor free throw shooting stops mattering, and rebounds, blocks and field goal percentage become strengths.
  • Punt assists, and often steals: a big-man build that leans on rebounds, blocks and field goal percentage, with low turnovers as a bonus, since players who rarely handle the ball rarely give it away.
  • Punt field goal percentage: lets you draft high-volume guards and wings who score a lot and shoot threes at modest efficiency, while you chase assists, steals, three-pointers and free throw percentage.
  • Punt turnovers: lets you load up on high-usage playmakers whose turnovers come with their assists and points. It pairs naturally with strong assist and scoring totals.
  • Punt blocks or three-pointers: less common, and best suited to teams that find a lot of value in players who produce little in the punted category.

The risks

Every punt makes the math harder. With nine categories and a majority needed, a team that punts one category must win five of the remaining eight, and a team that punts two must win five of the remaining seven. That is why most successful builds punt one or two categories and rarely more.

Punting also concentrates risk. A build that depends on a handful of specialists is hit harder by injuries, because there are fewer replacement-level players who help in the categories you care about. And you will lose the punted categories nearly every week no matter how well you manage your lineup, so the rest of your roster has to be reliably strong.

When to commit to a punt

Do not pick a punt before the draft starts. A stronger approach is to take the best players available with your first few picks, then look at what your team actually looks like. After about three picks the shape of your roster usually points toward one or two builds that fit it naturally, and the players still available tell you which builds are well supplied and which have been picked over.

Remember that punting is mainly a head-to-head idea. In a rotisserie league you are ranked on season-long totals in every category, and conceding one entirely costs you ranking points every day of the season, so the logic is different and far less common.

How Fantasy Blacksmith helps

By default the Draft Companion's strategy panel holds off for your first three picks, then recommends the punt build that best matches the roster you have assembled and ranks the available players by how well they fit it. If you already know the build you want, you can commit to a strategy from the first pick instead, though in testing waiting three picks has been slightly better on average. You can switch to any other strategy at any time, rank the list by average draft position instead, or turn the system off entirely.

Two safeguards keep a build from going lopsided. A position-balance setting marks down positions that are easy to replace later, because a center is worth less to you if the next center available is nearly as good, and it nudges picks toward the positions you are short on. And if your team drifts below average in a category the strategy wants, the weight on that category rises until the gap closes, so a build does not quietly end up with no scorers. Position balance has Off, Light and Strong settings.

More guides