In last year’s draft guide, I wrote tips and strategies for dynasty leagues. However, looking back, it ended up being more about setting up a dynasty league with some strategy mixed in.
This year, we assume that you already have a league, so we’ll prioritize tips over how to run a league. Dynasty leagues can be a lot of fun if you’re winning and even more fun if you’re losing (and have your own first-round pick). However, building a true dynasty takes time and effort. Luckily, there are plenty of good dynasty analysts with blogs and podcasts to make the information easily accessible. It takes more than just good information to win in your league; it is undoubtedly an important start.
Let’s dive into ten tips to help you create a dynasty:
Evaluate your league mates
Who are you playing with? Are you playing with friends, or are you playing with a random group you found online? Are there managers you’ve played with, or is everyone new to you? Do the league rules incentivize managers to stick around?
Dynasty leagues are built to last forever, but that often isn’t the case. Some leagues die out after 1-2 years. Some take a bit longer. The best ones will last decades. My home dynasty league is going on year six, and I was able to rebuild early and build out a dynasty. However, a different dynasty league that I had been rebuilding in died out this summer. I had a nice young core and extra draft picks, but it didn’t matter because most of the league didn’t want to continue.
Dynasty leagues can be fun regardless, but evaluating that early is important. If you think there’s a chance that the league disbands within a few years, don’t lean too hard into a rebuild. Try to push to win a championship and make money since you don’t know how many opportunities you’ll get. However, if you’re confident the league will last more than five years, plan accordingly. You don’t want to be the person who gives up all of their assets to win a championship and then can’t get back to the playoffs because they’re out of moves to make.
Set a team direction
It may not happen until you’re on the clock, but choosing a direction for your team is essential. If you get the first pick, you should take Victor Wembanyama. You don’t have to try and tank just because you chose a young guy. Wemby is one of the top options in redraft leagues this year, so you should try to build a winner around him. He’s one of the unique options where you can do whatever you want since he will be elite for 15 years.
If you go with a player like Nikola Jokic early, it’s important to recognize what that means for your team. He’s about to turn 30, so your window is a little smaller. It likely makes more sense to draft other win-now players early on and then go for prospects with upside later in the draft. Maximize your window with your star player.
If you draft a younger player like Cade Cunningham in the first round, you may struggle to compete for a year or two. He has a ton of upside and may become a superstar this year, but that isn’t guaranteed. It likely makes more sense to try and add other younger stars around him over the next few rounds; that way, in 3 years, you’ll have a group of stars entering their prime. Then, you can draft a few solid rotation pieces in the later rounds so that your team isn’t awful (unless that’s your goal). Having a young core after the draft and then being able to add more stars in the rookie draft can create a dynasty quickly.
Draft for value over fit
Drafting players that fit together in redraft leagues is vital, especially when punting categories. You can draft an incredible team, but you won’t maximize their production if it’s a poor fit. While the fit of your team is still important, it can be addressed later. Draft the most valuable player available and determine what to do with them afterward.
This may seem contradictory to the last point, but they can work together. Drafting the best player available, even if they’re older than the rest of your team, allows you to eventually trade that player to a contending team and maximize the value, or do the same thing by drafting a younger prospect to a rebuilding team for a win-now piece.
The main point to take away from this is not to get caught up in how categories fit together. If you start your draft with Trae Young, don’t stress about punting field goal percentage for the rest of your draft. Figure that out through trades later on.
Every team is different
Dynasty rankings are difficult to use in fantasy basketball because every team will value players differently. How do you compare a 20-year-old who could be a top-50 player for a decade or be out of the league in three years to a 32-year-old who will give you top-75 production for four years and then retire? A tanking and a contending team will value those players quite differently.
Use that to your advantage when trading instead of getting frustrated by it. A tanking team may not want to give you a pick for Al Horford, but a contending team should have no issues making that deal to add some depth. Also, keep categories in mind here. If a contending team is punting assists, they may not be interested in Chris Paul, even if he is a win-now piece.
Don’t waste anyone’s time
When sending out feelers on trade requests, sending a low-ball offer to start a conversation is easy. Maybe you’ll get lucky, and they’ll even accept it. However, it’s far more likely that it doesn’t even get a response.
Instead, make fair offers! It seems like a crazy strategy, but sending a fair offer that benefits both sides and including a message explaining your thinking can work wonders. Every manager values each player differently, but if you can give a mini sales pitch on why it benefits both sides, it makes trade negotiations easier. Do the leg work early, which should pay off in the long run. If you show the other manager that you’ve researched their team direction and build, it makes their life easier.
Firing off bad offers or simply sending a message saying, “What’s the price?” on a player the other manager hasn’t said is available is an unproductive way to start trade negotiations. Don’t make someone else do the work to trade with you if they didn’t start the negotiations.
Don’t worry. I’m guilty of all of these things as well. The main point I’m trying to get across is to put in the work to develop good trade relations with the other managers in your league. It pays off in the long run.
Timing is everything when trading
Trying to trade for a draft pick in February differs from acquiring one in June. The same thing is true of players. It’s essential to take advantage of the time of year.
Everyone falls in love with different prospects when the draft comes up. Even during a “bad draft” last summer, managers were willing to pay the price to get their guy. This is a great time to trade away picks, especially if you don’t love your options. It increases the value because managers won’t have to wait long to use the pick. I’m not saying don’t ever use draft picks, but if you’re a contending team looking to add depth, trading away your pick is a viable strategy.
Conversely, your league’s trade deadline is a great time to acquire picks. Teams are looking to add pieces to push for a championship, and this is the last time they’ll be able to do it before the playoffs. To increase their odds of winning, managers may be open to trading away more picks and young prospects to pry an older star from you. Don’t give them a discount. Make them pay the price to win. They’re on the clock, while you can be patient.
Theoretically, you can cycle between selling at the trade deadline and buying during the offseason to gain value consistently. Make sure you don’t lose out on all that value by making a bad move.
Backstock draft picks
Draft picks are the currency of dynasty leagues. It’s like buying a car. Once it’s been driven off the lot, the value drops. Draft picks are wild cards that could be a team’s golden ticket to becoming a contender or launching a rebuild. Many managers may view draft picks as something bad teams can acquire, but true dynasties will always have extra draft picks. Things change quickly in the fantasy landscape, so that team that won the championship last year could be one of the worst teams in the league in 2-3 years. Acquiring their “late first-round pick” could become the top pick in your draft in a few seasons.
If teams are looking to enter a rebuild, they want picks. You may have a stacked team, but if you’re looking to pry a good piece away from a rebuilding team, you can’t trade them a 33-year-old stud. Having extra draft picks makes this easier.
Also, if you have extra picks and scout well, you can keep reloading your dynasty by making good picks when they come up. You don’t have to trade them, but having the freedom to make whatever move you want is important. If you don’t like the options when you’re up, try and trade back to accumulate more picks. That way, when the player you’re targeting in next year’s draft comes up, you can cash in your extra picks to move up and get your guy. Draft picks give you the ability to make moves. We know the players, but the draft picks could be anything!
Pounce on opportunities
With dynasty leagues being a year-round commitment, it is fair to expect that your league won’t be 100% active at all times. Of course, everyone is locked in around the trade deadline, the draft, and the start of the season. However, that doesn’t mean everyone is looking to make trades in January, and I can almost guarantee your league-mates won’t be paying as much attention in August.
There are times when a bunch of trades will randomly start going down. Things may be quiet for two months, and then on a random Tuesday, six trades happen. Build off the hype and get in on the action, especially if you’ve been waiting to make a move for a player. Making trades is one of the most fun parts of dynasty leagues, so if other people are making trades, everyone else will feel a bit left out. This is an excellent opportunity to get value in trades since some people will be looking to overpay just for the hype of making a trade. Just don’t be the one that falls victim to the moment and loses a trade badly.
Get your guys
If you want to get the most out of your experience in a dynasty league, you need to get your guys. There is no better feeling than being right about a player nobody believed in. As fun as it may be to have Victor Wembanyama on your team for 15 years, what if you were the guy who drafted Vince Williams Jr. late in your 2022 rookie draft? Or were you the manager who drafted Jalen Brunson in 2018 and held onto him for years before he ascended to the level that he is now?
The point is, don’t worry about league perception regarding players you genuinely believe in. If everyone else in your league has given up hope on a player, that doesn’t mean you have to as well. Because if that player ends up becoming a star, you’re going to look like a genius.
Follow these analysts
As I said at the beginning, you need to keep up with dynasty analysts. Many incredible minds host podcasts, keep updated rankings or make social media posts. I can’t include every content creator, but here are a few dynasty analysts worth checking out. I’ll include their name and X account (in no particular order), which should be enough information for you to find all of their content. This isn’t every dynasty analyst, but I tried to include as many as possible.
Matt Lawson: @NBADynastyADP on X
Angle Fantasy Basketball: @anglefantasybb
Rhett Bauer: @rhett_bauer
NBA Dynasty Prospects: @UpsideNBA
Mark C: @MACAttack145
Jason: @DBCJason
DynastyHoopsHQ: @DynastyHoopsHQ
Joseph Mamone: @josephmamone
Dizzle Dynasty Sports: @DizzleDynasty
Josh Lloyd: @redrock_bball
Point Made Basketball: @pointmadebball
Mitch Casey: @ballboysfantasy
Harley Scotland: @harlos_
PMM: @pmmbasketball
TheAllRookiePodcast: @williamisbill
