Draft the Stars

As soon as we receive your order form, we'll mail you a complete draft packet, including a list of all the NBA players. Players are listed by position, and include last year's Scoresheet Basketball point totals for every player. Both season totals and points per minute played will be included. We even include every player's age!

Most owners join alone, or in small groups, and are placed by us into full-size (12-team) leagues which draft by submitting player ranking lists to us. (If you have a group that wants to form your own league, then you can choose to either draft by mail or hold your own draft.) The following is a brief description of how a draft by mail works. A full description of how the draft is run, and complete rules for Scoresheet Basketball, will be included with the draft packet.

After you've had time to look over the NBA player lists included with the draft packet, you will fill out a ranking sheet and mail it to us. You'll rank the top players in the order you want them, listing players from different positions in whatever order you want, according to how valuable you think they will be in the coming season.

Using your list, and lists from the other owners in your league, we'll conduct your draft. (This is a real draft - Shaq can only be on one team in each league!) The draft order will be determined randomly, and whoever picks first in round one will pick last in round two, and so on. When your turn comes up, we'll give you the highest-ranked, undrafted player on your list, subject to our procedures for ensuring you get a balanced team. (We have roster-balancing procedures that automatically ensure that each owner will get a team with the correct number of players at every position. These procedures are explained in detail in the draft packet.) Each team will end up with a roster of 17 players, including 7 Guards, 7 Forwards and 3 Centers. When the draft is complete we'll mail you the results, complete rosters for each team in your league, and your fellow owner's phone numbers and addresses so that you can contact them regarding trades or other league matters. All trades will be monitored by Scoresheet for fairness!

Join Alone or with Friends

If you join alone, or with just a couple of friends, we will place you in a 12 team league with other individual owners, giving you a chance to compete against some of hoops biggest fans. If you join with a larger group of friends, you can form your own complete league. Your league can be of any size, though we do suggest having at least 6 teams, and at most 16. With a complete league, you can either hold your own in-person draft, or have us run a draft-by-mail for you.

Leagues we set up for individuals have 12 teams in each league. Each league consists of 2 conferences, with 6 teams in each conference. The top three finishers in each conference qualify for the playoffs, which are played during the last 4 weeks of the regular NBA season. (The Scoresheet Basketball playoffs go for 3 weeks - we no longer use the final week of the NBA regular season due to too many NBA teams resting their stars for the NBA playoffs.) Each conference winner gets a bye the first week, and the playoffs continue until an overall league champion is crowned. Engraved trophies are awarded to all league winners and certificates are given to each conference winner. The ONE league winner with the highest overall point total in ALL of Scoresheet Basketball will also win a year's free membership in all four Scoresheet sports: baseball, football, basketball and hockey.

You should submit your order form (by mail, phone, fax or e-mail it) by early October to make sure you have enough time to prepare for the draft. As soon as we receive your order, we'll send you a complete draft kit. (You can order your draft kit anytime through about October 20th, but the longer you wait the more you'll find yourself rushing to get your draft list ready in time.) Of course, if you are running your own draft, you can ignore these dates, but if you want your games to start the first week of the NBA season, you should hold your draft no later than the end of October. The sooner you join, the more time you'll have to prepare for the draft!

E-Mail Leagues

You can receive your weekly reports by postal mail, fax or e-mail. You can also choose to play in a league where everyone has e-mail access, and draft lists and results are all sent by e-mail. (Even if you are not in a league which drafts by e-mail you can choose to get your weekly results sent by e-mail.)