Last Updated on August 20, 2026 4:33 pm by Keston Paul | Published: August 20, 2026

Hello there. My name is Keston Paul and I am addicted to winning Points Leagues. I have been playing fantasy basketball points leagues for about a decade, and while I love some of the thinking and analysis that goes into category leagues, I still love points formats too.

The average fantasy analyst tends to repeat the same words in some fashion, “just take the best player” or the “guy who scores the most fantasy points,” and while that is the goal, you, the person reading this, likely know that those words don’t amount to much when that is what everyone is trying to do. It is a little reductive. You have to win on the margins and outsmart the rest of your league to find the “right combination” of the best fantasy-point scorers.

The Basics

Comb Through Your League Settings

If you are meticulous enough to be reading this article, I would assume that this isn’t an issue for you. However, I have seen way too many instances of fantasy managers not being familar with their league settings.

Here is a simple checklist of things you want to know:

• League Size (Number of Teams, Divisions?)
• Daily Lineup Changes or Weekly Lineup Changes
• Number of Roster Spots
• Positional Outlines or Limits
• Playoff Settings (Number of Teams, Start Date, Length of Matchups, etc.)
• Key Dates: Draft, Trade Deadline and a general idea of “ease of schedule”
• Draft Type: Snake, Auction, Live, Slow, etc.
• Player Acquisition System: Waivers, FAAB, etc.
• The Fantasy Point Scoring System***

And anything else you may deem relevant, of course. Knowing all of the above will impact your strategy. Most leagues will lean toward default settings, but some league managers will throw in a wrench somewhere with some custom settings.

Larger league? Depth matters more! Weekly changes? Your bench becomes a “stash zone” for extra upside, but remember, you also can’t switch out injury-prone players midweek.

What about roster variations? A league with more rigid allocations should make you lean toward multi-positional players more. For example, I have played in a points league that uses two each of the positions PG, SG, SF, PF and C in the starting lineup with one UTIL. It can be a bit annoying, but it is a positive challenge at the same time, and I have managed to win it the past two seasons, with one of my strategies being targeting players with multiple positions with the sole exception of the single-position player just being a significantly better producer. What use is one position, however, if you can’t always fit them in your lineup, right?

ESPN also has a default 4-center limit, which I always remove from my own leagues and encourage others to do so as well. A C-PF counting against that limit when a PF-C doesn’t can be frustrating, especially when some positions are just “wrong.” Anyway, if your league has that limit, be aware of the areas of the draft where you might get centers. You don’t want to have four centers and then a major sleeper is on the board 20 spots below their potential fantasy output.

The fewer teams in the playoffs, the more important stacking up wins in the regular season becomes. That, or if the top one or two teams get a first-round bye, that is also worth noting. A bye can be more powerful than you think, because you can use that week off to plan for the upcoming matchup.

When it comes to draft type, an auction draft can lead to significantly different roster types than a normal draft (Stars & Scrubs, Balanced, etc.), so again, you need to know all of these things. Don’t be surprised. Preparation wins.

Know Your Scoring System

CBS also has their own scoring system, and while I have never played fantasy on their platform, I believe their default is this:

• Points = 1
• Rebounds = 1
• Assists = 2
• Steals = 1
• Blocks = 1
• Turnovers = -1

I am not a fan of that scoring system, but what I will say is that lower-value scoring systems tend to help big men a bit because of rebounds. Getting an efficiency boost would help them more as well, but CBS might be balancing out that fact with the extra point for assists to help the offensive creators.

On ESPN, they include efficiency by a bit of a roundabout method, but the basic explanation is that you lose a point for missed FGs or missed FTs and you gain an extra point for a made FG. If your player hits a 3-pointer, you get three points + one point for a 3PM + one point for a FGM, totaling five fantasy points for a single play! ESPN also rewards extra fantasy points for defensive stats (bonjour, ça va?), so that helps to reward players who get those a bit as well. If you haven’t realized it already, the ESPN scoring format is my favorite. It isn’t perfect, but I don’t see why other scoring formats don’t include efficiency.

On Yahoo, the inefficient high-volume scorers get a bit of a boost since they are not penalized for missed shots. A player like Jalen Green or Paolo Banchero will get some extra love from the Yahoo default scoring.

High Score, the new format the Yahoo platform introduced last season, takes the statement that “points leagues favor offensive players” to a new level. The format was built to favor real-life stars with no punishments for inefficiencies and two fantasy points for an assist. In High Score, upside is everything because of the roster size, scoring system and the “single-best score per week” for each player in your starting lineup.

For custom scoring systems, you can try to apply similar logic. I have won back-to-back titles in a 20-team points league that uses a decimal scoring system so that the final scores are something more like real-life basketball scores. It is fun, and it lowers the value of pure points a bit, with balanced fantasy performers getting a bit of a boost. Of course, volume still matters, but knowing how to “crack the code” of a custom scoring system will give you an edge over others who may not be putting in that work.

Draft Strategy

Some people don’t take Points Leagues seriously, but this Strategy Guide does! Want more? You’ll need to have an Ethos 360, All-Sport or NBA FantasyPass membership. Click here to learn more and sign up!(opens in new tab) Premium Access Required

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