Over the next few days, you will receive an email inviting you to join your respective league. Once you receive this email, please accept the invite ASAP and create your team name. It makes my job much easier in assigning the draft picks if all of the teams have been created in each league.

For those players playing in our leagues for the first time, we use a snake draft whereby it works in reverse order for each round. For example, with 12 team leagues, the person who gets pick one will then have to wait until the end of the second round (pick 24) for their next pick and then they have the first pick in the next round (e.g pick 25).

We have a roster of 13 positions (10 starting, 3 bench) and an IR spot. The positions are PG,SG,SF,PF,C,G,F and 3 utility positions.

It is important to note that you can trade draft picks before the draft. If you need assistance with requesting a trade of draft picks, just post something in the comments below and one of us regulars will answer your question.



<div>Onto the draft, the first game of the NBA season is on 30th of October (Wed morning our time). We need to hold the drafts before the week ending Friday 25th of October to enable all players not picked in the draft to clear waivers before the first game starts.

I have some good news about the timing of the drafts. Previously we have been locked into the times that ESPN have allowed, e.g it normally opened at 7.00am US time which meant we had to start the draft at 11.00pm if you held the draft during a weeknight.

This year, ESPN now has a 24hr option to run the draft which means we can hold the draft anytime we want (which is great for us).

Therefore I propose each league holds their draft sometime in the week starting Sunday the 21st of October and before Saturday 26th of October. You can hold your draft earlier than this if you want to but most players will want to see what happens in the preseason before holding the draft.

Please put forward your suggestions for the draft date for your league below and I will try and collate all the responses to come up with a suitable time for everyone.

Don't panic if you can't make the draft, you can always set up a pre draft list which means the system will automatically select the next available player from your list.

I do recommend everyone prepares a pre draft list beforehand in case the system crashes on the day or if there is a blackout.

I also recommend everyone try the mock drafts sometime before your live draft (especially the new players this year). It will give you a feel as to how the draft works.

Onto the important draft order, once everyone has accepted the invites to join their leagues, I will arrange for my wife to randomly select the draft order for each league as per last year.

Early next week I will create another blog advising of the draft order for each league and from that point you will be able to trade draft picks if you wish to do so.

Anyhow, if you have any questions on the draft or how to play ESPN fantasy basketball let us know below.

Finally, I would would like to thank Ant for all the hard work he has done over the preseason with setting up the leagues and inviting discussion on the scoring format.

EDIT - I should have the draft order done on the weekend.