In last year’s draft guide, I wrote tips and strategies for dynasty leagues. However, looking back, it ended up being more about establishing a dynasty league with some strategy mixed in.
This year, we’re assuming you already have a link, so we’ll prioritize tips on how to manage a link. Dynasty leagues can be a lot of fun if you win and even more fun if you lose (and have your own first round pick). However, building a true dynasty takes time and effort. Fortunately, there are many 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 definitely an important start.
Let’s dive into ten tips to help you create a dynasty:
Rate your league friends
Who do you play 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 are they all new to you? Do the league rules encourage managers to stick around?
Dynasty bonds are built to last forever, but that often doesn’t happen. Some links die out after 1-2 years. Some take a little longer. The best ones will last for decades. My home dynasty league continues into the sixth year, and I was able to rebuild and build a dynasty early. However, another dynastic link in which I was rebuilding 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 ties can be fun regardless, but gauging that early is important. If you think there’s a chance the league will fall apart within a few years, don’t lean too hard on a rebuild. Try to push to win championship and win money because you don’t know how many chances you will get. However, if you are confident that the bond will last more than five years, plan accordingly. You don’t want to be the person who gives up all their assets to win a championship and then can’t make it back to the playoffs because they have no moves to make.
Set team direction
It may not happen until you are 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 to tank just because you picked a young guy. Wemby is one of the best picks in draft leagues this year, so you should try to build a winner around him. He’s one of the unique picks where you can do whatever you want because he’s going to 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 probably makes more sense to draft other scoring players early and then look for prospects 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 lot of upside and might become a superstar this year, but that’s not guaranteed. It probably makes more sense to try to add other younger stars around him over the next few rounds; this way, after 3 years, you will have a group of stars entering their prime. Then, you can draft some solid rotation pieces in the later rounds so your team isn’t terrible (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 suitability
Drafting players that match draft leagues is essential, especially when throwing categories. You can draft an incredible team, but you won’t maximize their production if it’s a bad fit. Although the fitness of your team is still important, it can be addressed later. Draft the most valuable player available and determine what to do with them next.
This may seem contradictory to the last point, but they can work together. Drafting the best available player, even if they are older than the rest of your team, allows you to eventually trade that player to a rival team and maximize value, or do the same 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 shooting field goal percentage for the rest of your draft. Figure that out with trades later.
Every team is different
Dynasty rankings are difficult to use in fantasy basketball because each 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 beyond? retire? Tanking and competing team will value those players completely differently.
Use that to your advantage when trading instead of frustrating it. A tanking team might not want to give you a pick for Al Horford, but a contending team should have no problem making that deal to add some depth. Also, remember categories here. If a contending team is throwing 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 business solicitations, 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 much 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 every player differently, but if you can give a mini-sales pitch as to 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 have researched their team direction and building, it makes their life easier.
Delete bad offers or just send 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 talks. Don’t make someone else do the work to do business with you if they haven’t started the negotiations.
don’t worry I am guilty of all these things too. The main point I’m trying to convey is to work on developing good business relationships 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 is different from getting one in June. The same thing applies to players. It is necessary to take advantage of the time of year.
Everyone falls in love with different prospects when the draft comes out. 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 options, especially if you don’t love your options. It increases the value because administrators will not have to wait long to use the option. I’m not saying you should never use draft picks, but if you’re a contending team looking to add depth, trading 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 make a 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 more picks and young prospects to get an older star out of you. Don’t give them a discount. Make them pay the price to win. They are on the clock while you can be patient.
In theory, you can cycle between selling at the trade deadline and buying during the offseason to gain value consistently. Make sure you don’t lose 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 is driven off the land, the value decreases. Draft picks are wild cards that could be a team’s golden ticket to becoming a contender or launching a rebuild. Many managers may look at draft picks as something bad teams can get, 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. Getting their “late first round pick” could turn into 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 take away a good piece of a rebuilding team, you can’t trade them a 33-year-old stud. Having extra draft picks makes that easier.
Also, if you have extra picks and scout well, you can continue to recharge your dynasty by making good picks as they come along. 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 at the top, try and trade back to accumulate more options. That way, when the player you’re targeting comes up in next year’s draft, 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!
Jump on opportunities
With dynasty leagues being a year-round commitment, it’s fair to expect that your league won’t be 100% active all the time. 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 that your league partners won’t be paying as much attention in August.
There are times when a lot of trades will randomly start going down. Things can be quiet for two months, and then there happens to be six trades on Tuesday. Build the scale and get in on the action, especially if you’ve been waiting to make a move for a player. Doing trades is one of the most fun parts of dynasty leagues, so if other people are doing trades, everyone else will feel a little left out. This is a great opportunity to get value in trades, as some people will look to overpay just for the hype of making a trade. Just don’t be the one who falls victim to the moment and loses business badly.
Get your kids
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 no one believed in. As fun as it is 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 draft. ? Or were you the manager who drafted Jalen Brunson in 2018 and kept him around for years before he rose to the level he is now?
The point is, don’t worry about league perception about players you really believe in. If everyone else in your league has given up hope on a player, that doesn’t mean you have to either. Because if that player ends up becoming a star, you’ll look like a genius.
Follow these analysts
As I said at the beginning, you have to follow 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 some 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 their content. This is not 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: @pointmadeball
Mitch Casey: @ballboysfantasy
Harley Scotland: @harlos_
PMM: @pmmbasketball
TheAllRookiePodcast: @williamisbill
