Drafting against the clock? Run a mock draft against a room first, on the same board.

Field guide

A paper draft sheet built on your league's rules

A printed ranking only helps if it was built for the draft you are actually in. A list made for a ten-team points league will mislead you within a couple of rounds at a twelve-team, nine-category table that starts two centers. The categories you count, the ones you plan to concede, the number of managers and the center rule all push players up or down. Set them in the controls above and the sheet rebuilds to match: guard and forward columns on the first page, the center column and the overall order on the second, tier breaks marked in every column, and an empty box beside each name to tick off when he is taken.

On draft day, think in groups before ranks. Players inside one tier are close enough in value that roster fit should choose between them. The breaks are where patience gets expensive: if your pick comes up with one name left above a break, he is worth more than his number suggests, because the next player is a clear step down.

Read the rest

The number beside each name

Under 9-cat, 8-cat and roto the figure in the Value column is a z-score total. For every category still in play, the sheet measures how far the player's projected line stands from the typical player in the pool, in units of the pool's spread, then adds those distances up after removing any punted category and applying any weight you set. That makes very different players comparable: a defensive specialist worth two units in steals and one in blocks totals the same three as a sharpshooter worth three units in made threes, since in a category league no column is worth more than any other. Both shooting percentages are scaled by how many shots a player is projected to take from the floor and from the line, so a sixty-percent shooter who rarely shoots cannot outrank a busy scorer on accuracy alone, and turnovers are reversed, so a higher total is the better one in every column. Under Points the figure is a projected season total scored by the table you picked: makes and misses, which charges for every miss, or the six-stat table, which does not. The Ovr column on the far right gives his place on the full board, which shows at a glance whether the fourth center on the sheet is a top-twenty player or closer to sixtieth.

Weights for builds that lean rather than punt

Not every plan needs to give a category away. A manager who wants to dominate threes and assists while staying competitive elsewhere can weight those columns instead of striking the others. Each category in the picker accepts a weight from a quarter up to three times, and a weighted column counts that many times in the total. Doubling steals and blocks, for example, lifts the long, active defenders who fill both columns and nudges down scorers who contribute little on that end. Weights change the order more gently than a punt, mostly in the middle rounds, where values are tightly bunched. They also travel: the page address carries them, and the exported CSV marks each weighted column in its header, so a sheet you share or reopen later reflects the same build.

Combo players and how deep each column runs

Most players qualify at two positions, and the guard, forward and utility slots on a standard roster accept either one, so filing each player under a single label would hide half of what he offers. This sheet lists a player in every column he can fill: a PG/SG under guards, an SF/PF under forwards, a PF/C under both forwards and centers, with his positions printed beside his name. When he goes, tick him off in each column where he appears. Each column holds roughly one and a half times the starting slots a league of your size fills from that group. With twelve teams and two center slots, that means fifty-four guards, fifty-four forwards and thirty-six centers; with one center slot the center column shortens to eighteen. The overall order on the second page lists ten players per team, up to one hundred and twenty, split into two halves so it fits.

How the tier breaks are placed

Tiers are drawn separately inside each column. A new tier begins wherever the fall from one player to the next is three or more times the median fall across the rows within twenty places of it, subject to a fixed minimum of 0.12 on a category sheet and 40 points on a points sheet, which stops the flat lower end of a column breaking into scraps. Near the top, among the first twelve rows, a tier can be a single player, because the distance between the first pick and the second is exactly what you want to know. Further down, every tier holds at least three names. The tier row prints the size of the drop that ends it, so you can tell a steep cliff from a gentle step.

Why the center column empties first

In most of the roster the overlap between positions keeps scarcity mild, but centers are the exception. A twelve-team league that starts two centers needs twenty-four of them every night, and the supply of center-eligible players good enough to start is smaller than that. Rooms tend to notice all at once, so a run on bigs can clear the center column in a round or two, and the manager who waited is left choosing between a backup and an unplanned punt of rebounds and blocks. Start watching that column by the third or fourth round. Under a rule with one center slot the pressure eases, and the column on the sheet is shorter to match. The roster rule decides how deep each column runs; it does not change any player's z-scores.

One sheet per build you might use

A punt sheet is a different sheet, not the standard one with a column crossed out. Concede free-throw percentage and the centers who were mid-tier because of their foul shooting can jump a tier, the guards who were propping up a lineup at the line slide, and the middle rounds reshuffle far more than the first two. If you are torn between plans, print one sheet for each. A manager holding a balanced sheet and a punt-assists sheet can switch in the fourth round when the room takes the point guards early; a manager holding one sheet is stuck with it. The link button copies an address that holds the exact settings, so you can reopen and reprint either version on the morning of the draft.

Schedules, keepers and the late rounds

The values on the sheet cover a full season. Every club plays eighty-two games, but they arrive unevenly: some fantasy weeks bring a club four games, others two, and in a head-to-head league the weeks that matter most are the playoff weeks at the end of the season. When the gaps inside a late tier are small, let the schedule break the tie; the schedule planner shows which clubs are busy in those weeks. Mark every selection as it happens, whoever makes it, and by the ninth round a quick scan tells you which tiers still hold a live name. In a keeper league, strike the kept players before anyone picks; otherwise each column opens with names nobody can draft.

Where paper stops helping

Paper has no idea what you have already drafted. Holding three centers and a single guard in round five, you should skip past the best name in the center column, and nothing on the page will say so. Nor can it react to news once it leaves the printer: a sprained ankle, a scheduled rest night, a minutes cap for a player coming back from surgery. Each printed column shows the date of the newest projection behind it, and a sheet printed on draft morning will sit closer to the truth than one printed a week early. To have the tracking handled on screen instead, the mock draft room runs this same board against a full room. The Export CSV button saves this ordering as a plain spreadsheet file, including every position a player fills, his ADP, his games this week and a column per category; the method behind the values is explained on the methodology page.

Printable Fantasy Basketball Cheat Sheet