The draft times are as follows:

Premier League - Monday 29th October at 11.00pm (AEDT)

Division One - Sunday 28th October at 3.00pm (AEDT)

Division Two – Sunday 28th October at 10.00am (AEDT)

If you can’t make it to your draft at that time, please set up your pre draft list so that you can draft the players that you want who are available at the time of your pick.

As we are holding the drafts so close to the commencement of the season, there is no room to move in regards to holding another draft in case no one turns up to the original draft. Therefore the onus is on everyone to attend their draft at the times listed above or set up their pre draft list.

Please read over the break:

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If you have any questions on the draft or anything, please post them in the comments below:

Also, you can post your predictions for the season, e.g NBA champ, Eastern Conference champ, Western Conference Champ and MVP.

Finally as some people may be playing ESPN fantasy basketball for the first time, please refer to the following overview that Anthak created last year.

We each have 14 roster spots – 10 starters, 3 bench and 1 IR. On each and every day, it is only your 10 starters that can actually contribute to your total team score, so even if your bench players are playing games, their scores will not be added to your teams total. It is therefore in your best interest to move all of your players who have games on, into the 10 starters spots. Moreover, some days you will have more than 10, so use your discretion to pick which 10 you want in scoring positions.

A really handy feature regarding this, is that you can adjust your roster in advance. Each day, your roster will lock at the beginning of the first NBA game on that day, so you must ensure that you have it set before then (including FA pickups etc). BUT, you do not have to get on every day to do it… On your team homepage, underneath your team’s logo, you will see the text “Set Your Lineup” with a series of dates along side it – You can click on any of those dates and set your lineup for that particular date! Just make sure you hit one of the yellow “SUBMIT” buttons (They become yellow once a roster adjustment is made) before you move off the page. You can go through and set up the whole season in advance if you want to, but you probably wouldnt as your players will undoubtedly change throughout the year, but its definitely a great idea to set a few dates in advance in case you cant get on for some reason, and it would also be ideal if you are going on holiday or something where you know in advance that you wouldnt be able to get on to make changes… etc etc I know you get the idea .

On ESPN there are the main tabs across the top of the page – “League”, “My Team”, “Players” etc, and just below there is a list of pages you can access which are relevant to the particular tab you are in/on. When in the “My Team” tab, there are 9 different options which are all really helpful and mostly fairly self explanatory. The one of those that I would like to discuss first is the “Trading Block” as it is extremely helpful. In here, you can Edit Your (own) Trading Block so that others can see if you are chasing a particular position or, on the other side, have a certain position/s that you have in excess. You can even list certain players that are “untouchable” or “on the block” – meaning if you want to particularly keep the player(s) or get rid of them, respectively. Once set up, the Trading Block is a great place to go if you feel the need for a trade, and it works best if everyone sets their own one up, and updates it regularly.

While on trading, there are a few ways that I propose trades, and there are others too. One easy place to do it from is the Trading Block where underneath each teams data, there are two buttons – “Propose Trade” and “Email Owner” – which are both self explanatory. You can also do it from a teams home page that you want to deal with – on the right of the main tabs I spoke about earlier, there is a drop down list of all the teams in your league (click on the team you want and you will go to their home page) – where there is a “Propose Trade” option just underneath the main tabs. And another great place to trade from is in the “Players” tab, which I will discuss more in a moment. But firstly, once in the mode of proposing a trade, it is really easy and straight forward.
The “Players” tab… You can do a lot from here, and its definitely worth playing around with to get an understanding of what it is capable of. Its quite similar to the TS Stats Page so Im sure you will all be able to work it out. But one thing I want to bring your attention to, is that the “Points” column (both TOT &amp; AVG) are based on our own scoring system. This is accurate when looking at stats from the current season (when we can) and also from last season; however, it is not completely accurate when looking at the “2012 Projections” as they do not include all of the stats that we have points allocated to, such as Double Doubles and Triple Doubles etc. Also, whenever you click on a player’s name, the PRK (Position Rank) and AVG are also based on our current scoring system.

Also in the “Players” tab, I want to point out the “Status” column, where under the “Type” heading you can see which (fantasy) team the player plays for, or if they are a FA or on Waivers. If they are on your own team they will have a round red button under the “Action” heading that allows you to drop that player if you want. If they are on another team, they will have a blue ‘double arrow’ button that allows you to propose a trade for that player. If they are a FA, they will have a green “+” button that allows you to sign them onto your roster. and if the are on Waivers, under the Type heading it will say WA and have the day that they become a FA in brackets (Almost all players are on Waivers for 2 days after being dropped. The exception is if they are dropped the same day as they were signed i think), and then under the Action heading, they will have a yellow “+” button that allows you to hypothetically sign them… If you are the only person that does this while that player is on waivers, then you will get them as soon as they become a FA, but if there is more than one person wanting them, then the person who is highest on the Waiver Order will get them. The Waiver Order was first set up in reverse draft order, and if you sign a player of waivers you move to last place on the list.

A new feature for our TS leagues this year is the IR spot. For those that are unaware, this allows you to move an injured player from your primary roster to the IR spot, and when they are healthy again you can move them back. The player must be classed as O(ut) by ESPN as distinct from DTD (Day To Day) and something to keep in mind is that you cannot drop a player from the IR position, so you must be able to clear a roster spot to activate them again. To move a player to the IR position from your primary roster, or vice versa, you need to click on “Manage IR” which can be found just beneath the main tabs on your team’s homepage.

One last thing that I would like to mention is the Fantasy Cast. This is where the live fantasy stats are posted while the games are being played. Fantasy Cast is one of the best parts of the game as you can track your scores against your opponent and it all happens in real time.