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On late Monday morning, the NBA G League announced that they’ve launched their first-ever fantasy basketball service for the upcoming 2016-17 season. Known as NBA G League Fantasy, were able to select five prospects each week to play in that competition. Unlike most fantasy leagues, position isn’t an issue when you pick your prospects every week. That gives you an opportunity to play five guards or five centers if you really want to.
While D-League Digest (now 2 Ways and 10 Days) had a similar idea last year with the Call-Up Challenge, this is the first time that the actual league itself is hosting a place that allows fans to play fantasy hoops.
Those players range from standard G Leaguers, guys on two-way deals and even some NBA prospects that can get assigned to the G League. To help deter fans from overloading on assignees and/or two-way prospects, NBA G League fantasy instilled a “star” system where you get a budget of 10 stars to use to make a 5-man lineup. NBA prospects assigned to the G League are worth 3 stars, two-way players are worth two stars and standard G Leaguers are worth one star.
That value can change during the season if one of their players change situations. For example, two-way prospects get signed to a regular NBA contract see their value to upgraded to 3 stars. However, NBA prospects would see their value decrease from three to one star if they get cut from their squad and then sign a G League contract
In regards to the scoring, the G League fantasy service essentially follows system as their NBA counterpart. That system goes as follows:
Points: 1
Rebounds: 1.2
Assists: 1.5
Steals: 3
Blocks: 3
Turnovers: -1
What separates G League Fantasy from the rest is how a fan can get awarded beautifully if your prospect(s) get called up to the NBA. Once one of your players get called up, you get awarded 25 points. The gifts keep coming as fantasy players get awarded a bonus of 5 points per game for every time that that call-up sets onto an NBA floor.
For example, if Trey Burke gets called up and is in a starting lineup than you’d get an extra 5 points that comes in addition to what they get if they just play in an NBA game. Last but certainly not least, your points double for every accomplishment that your call-up gets when they’re playing NBA ball. So for every point that the prospect gets in an NBA game, you’d get award 2 fantasy points.
To celebrate the introduction of G League fantasy hoops, Ridiculous Upside has opened multiple leagues which would allow you to play against yours truly. In the hour that the service was announced, we launched the “Ridiculous Upside Official League”. However, that league quickly filled up as each of the 16 spots filled up in a matter of just four hours. In response to that, we’ve opened up two more leagues which includes: Buddies of Ridiculous Upside & Ridiculous Upside’s Homies. Each of the new leagues has 20 spots so make sure to sign up as soon as possible.
While the G League Fantasy service has a plethora of great prizes in store for winning players, we’ll be announcing our own gifts for Ridiculous Upside fantasy players in a later date. Until then, make sure to sign up to one of our two available leagues and have fun playing G League fantasy hoops!