9-Cat Draft Lab

With a league connected, the Draft Lab opens on its size, its categories and its roster slots. You can change any of them, or plan without a league; the rounds follow the roster, one per slot. Set your draft slot and it works out your pick in every round of a snake draft; if you traded a pick, type the overall pick you hold in that round instead.

Each round lists the eleven available players closest to your pick — widen it to 21, 41 or 81 with Players around your pick — in average draft position order, from Yahoo or ESPN. Rank is where Fantasy Edge’s own projection puts each of them, so a player going later than his rank stands out. Players you have picked in other rounds are left out. Mark a player Taken when another team drafts him and the next one out takes his place. A dotted line marks the player whose ADP is closest to your pick, labelled with its number. Click any column to sort the list by it.

Point at a player, or click him, and the chart shows your team now and your team with him in every category, measured from the target, with the change he makes. Clicking a player also opens a row under him with the change in each category and a button to pick him. Looking never picks: only Pick does.

Show switches the tables between V values, each category’s value in the model, and the projected stats themselves: points, threes, rebounds and the rest per game, and FG% and FT%. Your team’s projected line adds the counting stats up and works out its FG% and FT% from its makes and attempts. Colours, punts and the chart always follow the values.

To date compares your team with the same number of typical players from the top of the draft: after three picks, three times the median of the top 36 players in a 12-team league. Round by round instead adds up, for each round you have picked in, the median of the players expected around that round: its picks, the next pick and two places either side. A higher percentile makes the target harder.

Bottom line, above the board, sums up the picks so far: the two categories furthest below the target as punts to consider (turnovers never are), the two furthest above it, and each starter slot still open with how many players who fit it are expected around your next two picks — fewer than three per slot is marked as a risk. Punt a category and the lists rank by Punt value, which is Value without it, the same formula Rankings uses. Your whole team, every pick with its lineup slot, sits under the list, with its total and its gap to the target. Remove a pick with the × beside it in Your picks, the team table or the lineup, or clear them all with Reset team at the top of Your picks.

A 9-category league scores nine stats: points, three-pointers made, rebounds, assists, steals, blocks, field goal percentage, free throw percentage and turnovers, where fewer is better. The Draft Lab measures your team in each of them after every pick. With a connected league that scores fewer of them, it drafts on that league’s own categories.

Punting means giving up on one or two categories on purpose, to be stronger in all the others. After every pick, the Draft Lab suggests the two categories your team is furthest below the target in, never turnovers. Punt one and the player lists rank by Punt value, which is a player’s Value without that category.

ADP, average draft position, is where a player has been taken on average in real drafts. The Draft Lab lists players in Yahoo or ESPN ADP order, so the players shown at each of your picks are the ones likely to still be there.

Open your round to see the players likely still available, with each player’s rank in our projection beside his ADP: a player ranked well above where he is being drafted is good value. Click one to see what he would change in your team in every category before you pick him.

By average draft position on Yahoo or ESPN, whichever you choose, so each round shows who is likely still there at your pick. Players no draft takes come after every drafted player, in order of Value. Past about pick 136, ESPN’s ADP bunches up for players most leagues leave undrafted, so from there the ESPN order follows the share of leagues that roster each player. Rank, beside it, is Fantasy Edge’s own projection.

Yes. Choose No league and set the teams, your slot, the rounds, the roster slots and the categories yourself. A connected points league cannot be chosen, because the Draft Lab ranks categories.