I don't think it's basketball season right now, is it? I honestly don't know, but I kind of don't think so.
Leagues are drafting at this point for fantasy basketball, I would say the timing is not unusual.
In either 8 category or 9 category leagues, it's very difficult to balance ( points, rebounds, assists, blocks, 3 pointers made, free throws made, turnovers, free throw percentage, field goal percentage)
Turnovers usually works as a tax. The best NBA players handle the ball a lot, the more you handle the ball, the more you cough it up. Not unusual. Really not uncommon for the best overall team in any league, outstripping most other teams in the counting stats, to regularly lose turnovers. Free throw and field goal percentage tends to work as a tax.
Rudy Gobert will block a lot of shots, get some rebounds, and hopefully shoot a high percentage near the rim, but free throw percentage usually kills big men like him, again, operating as a tax.
Player scarcity is a problem too. There is a big drop in production from the Top 3 guys to the guys in the 9-12 range. But not so much from the 13 to 20 range and from like 25-35. Meaning if you get a top 3 pick, you've already gotten, in theory, a massive advantage. You'll get a guy like Stephen Curry, then swing around and get back to back picks. A guy picking 11th will be getting a player in entirely different tier, even in that first round, usually several tiers lower, then won't be able to catch up. I'm not saying it's a lock, but draft balance is hard to achieve.
Also there is a wing shortage. Small forwards and shooting guards, useful ones, are pretty scarce. If you are in any kind of league above the "standard" set up, you start to see a drain on mining the position. But if you stay to the standard league size roster, those Top tier guys start to show their weight.
Last week of the season for the NBA, teams randomly sit guys or shut them down, sometimes up to two weeks before the end of the season. Teams are either so far out of it, tanking or resting guys for the playoffs. In a pure head to head, easy for a lesser talented team to leapfrog ( if they have the worse roster, they have more disposable players for guys getting minutes, teams with better records and better players are more inclined to not randomly cut their guys who got them there. Many teams wait literally until 5 minutes before tip off to announce who is benched.
The closest I've seen to real balance is using an auction format, 13 cat system, blending shooting guard and small forward into a single type roster position, a dual head to head all play/roto scoring system and ending the fantasy season 3 weeks before the NBA season ends. But that would preclude using ESPN and Yahoo, which host most of the leagues out there.
I think the negative tradeoffs have turned off many former players and, in general, a lot of people probably would rather play fantasy baseball and football ( their seasons backend each other ) and concentrate on that.
