The 10 Commandments of Best Ball
Player values change every week. ADP shifts every day. The market evolves every season. Yet the principles behind a winning process remain remarkably consistent. Every summer the fantasy community obsesses over rankings, projections, sleepers, fades, and ADP movement. Those things matter. But they're also temporary. The names change every year. The process doesn't. After thousands of drafts across multiple sports and years spent studying tournament strategy, these are the principles that have become second nature whenever I'm on the clock. I. Draft to Win the Tournament Most drafters subconsciously build teams that make them feel comfortable. They avoid players who could fail. They avoid uncomfortable stacks. They avoid uncertainty. They leave the draft feeling "solid." Unfortunately, solid rarely wins a tournament. Tournament best ball has an extremely top-heavy payout structure. Finishing 1,200th is often financially much closer to finishing 120,000th than it is to finishing first. That changes everything. Every pick should be evaluated through one question: Does this increase my chances of building the best team in the tournament? If the pick does not increase my chances to building a great team, I look elsewhere. II. Build a Team, Not a Collection of Players Fantasy football isn't won by accumulating the highest-ranked players. It's won by constructing a roster whose pieces fit together. Every selection changes the value of future selections. Quarterbacks influence receivers. Running back allocations affect roster flexibility. Bye weeks matter. Stacks matter. Playoff schedules matter. Positional structure matters. Think of the draft…
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