If you play fantasy basketball, and you’re getting tired of focusing so much of your time on just trying to maximize games played each week, then this new setup might be for you.

It’s called Game Peak Mode, and it’s an alternative way to compete in fantasy hoops, and it is uniquely different from the old ways of competing in your weekly fantasy matchups.

Game Peak is a unique scoring format where your biggest decisions are now also based on how your opponent is doing on any given day, and provides other features that further resemble the real NBA.  This includes a heavier reliance on your superstars carrying your team on their shoulders, while also commanding you to utilize your bench players at just the right time to guarantee victory.

This mode also generates an incredible sense of ownership in determining how your final scores play out.  The risk/reward setup has proven to be effective.

But as mentioned above, a big benefit to this setup is you no longer need to rely so much on daily player streaming for increased game volume.  In a typical points format, it seems like whichever team can load up on the most games played would have a major edge in a matchup.  But with Game Peak, both teams use the exact same number of games in their final score.

BECAUSE:

Game Peak Mode only counts one game per starter each week, while still allowing you to set a full starting lineup each and every day. This may not the first to use the “one game per player” format, but I’m confident when I say this is different and better.

The structure is actually quite simple:  you set your starting lineups every day like normal.  THEN after those games are done each day, you are prompted to go back and act on each of those scores by either keeping it or tossing it out.  If you decide to keep a player’s score, you’re essentially locking it in to your team score for the week.  However this also means that you would no longer start that player for the remainder of the week (since you can only use one score per player).  Instead, you continue to fill your starting lineup with the other remaining players on your roster.

As you make your way through the week, your team score will fill up with locked-in player scores.  If you run with 10 starters each week, you would lock in 10 scores.  And you’ve got seven days to do it.  So sometimes you may have all your scores locked in by Thursday or Friday, and sometimes you may not have any locked until midweek.  And that’s okay.  As long as you still have starting spots left to lock in, you can continue to fill your starting lineup through Sunday.  Observing your opponent and seeing what scores they’ve locked in so far will also cause some important decisions on your part (more on that below).

HERE’S AN EXAMPLE: 

Zion gets you a line of 22/10/5/1/1 on Monday.  If you want to lock Zion in for that score for your team, you also risk losing out on a potentially better performance by him in one of his other three remaining games that week.  If you choose to toss it out, you may get a better game from him, but you also may end up having to settle for a worse game by Sunday night.  So it is truly on you as the owner each day to figure out when to throw out a score and when to lock in a score.

In trial runs using this setup, there were times when I would lock in someone like Harden when he only had one game left in the week, and then see him go off for 50 fantasy points in that final game.  But on the flip side, there would be mediocre games that I would end up hesitantly locking in for certain players, and ultimately being glad I did because they only performed worse by Sunday.  It all comes down to what kind of chances you want to take as your team’s decision maker.

Game Peak also moves the game a bit closer to the typical fantasy football format, not only with using just one score per player for the week, but in roster makeup: utilizing your full roster in a more efficient way by encouraging you to draft those “handcuff” players to cover for injuries. Capela is your top Center? Supplement that by drafting Okongwu for those games when Capela is out.  Like in football, this strategy lessens the impact of injuries or the dreaded “load management” with your star players.

Other strategies come into play as well:

• Do you save your free agent adds for the end of the week to ensure a full starting lineup on Saturday and Sunday to increase your odds of getting that last solid score?  
• Do you lock in a bunch of slightly above average scores early to put the pressure on your opponent?  
• If your opponent is beating you AND has more spots left to fill, do you play it safe by locking in a decent score or do you wait for that longshot chance of seeing a monster score later in order to come from behind and get the W?

Game Peak Mode adds a completely different element to how fantasy hoops is played.  

I can’t stress it enough; this format will put an end to the imbalance of individual player schedules.  No more will you have to worry about your opponent having eight more games than you during the week you face off.  Ultimately it turns the game into less about who can stream in more volume and more about who can make the better game-to-game decisions with their current rosters.  Working the waiver wire is still a part of the game (especially late in the week), but now it’s not as vital.

You’ll discover how fun it is to see the different strategic decisions play out by the end of each week, and how much more engaging it is for you to make choices and manage your squad on a daily basis.  And my hope is that this will eventually become another generally accepted way to play fantasy hoops in the future.