How to Start a Fantasy Basketball League

Determine how you would like the league to be run. Most fantasy basketball leagues are run via online services, such as Yahoo! or ESPN. These services are advantageous because the stats and scoring are updated in real-time. If you choose to operate your league manually, make sure you have the time and the resources to do it.

Choose the stat categories you are going to use in your league. Some fantasy basketball leagues use as few as three categories--points, rebounds and assists. Others use as many as nine, adding blocks, steals, field goal percentage, free throw percentage, three-point field goals and turnovers. You can customize your league to whatever stats you want to use.

Decide if you are going to use the Rotisserie scoring system for your fantasy basketball league. In Rotisserie scoring, each team accumulates points based on how they rank among the other teams in the league in certain categories, and the team with the most points at the end of the season wins.

Establish which type of Head-to-Head scoring you are going to use if you do not want to use Rotisserie. In Head-to-Head, teams match up against other teams each week. You can use an accumulation of total points to determine weekly winners, or have the teams battle each other in individual categories for wins. In fantasy basketball leagues that use Head-to-Head scoring, there is usually a form of playoffs at the end of the season to determine the league winner.

Settle on a draft type. The most common draft type in fantasy basketball is a serpentine draft, where teams are chosen to pick in a random order and they each take turns picking a player until all the rosters are full. It is called a serpentine draft because the draft order snakes around so that the person who chooses first in the first round picks last in the second round, and so on. Another option is conducting an auction draft, where each team is given a certain amount of money with which to bid on players, auction style.

Finalize the other aspects of your league, such as waiver rules, playoff structure and whether you want to have and entry fee and a cash prize for the winner. You can also choose if you want your league to reflect only the current season or if you want a keeper league, in which teams play for several seasons with the same players.

Invite friends to join your league. Since the NBA season begins in the first week of November, you need to makes sure you invite friends well in advance so you have time to fill up the league with good members. Use Labor Day as a starting point for looking for people to join.