The awesomeness that is draft season is in the books. The season is just beginning and you’re loving your team’s potential. You’re energized by every game that is on, checking all the box scores (but if you don’t have time to track the box scores, have no fear Sam’s weekly box score browsing column does it for you) and setting your lineup for the next day. Let’s jump right in to this and discuss what is needed to give yourself the best chance to hoist your league’s championship belt in the air at seasons end.

First, before you even continue on with your reading, stop and ask yourself: do you really want this? Of course you want to win to have all the bragging rights and/or cash prize, but do you want it bad enough to go through pain and suffering to get it? Most or all will answer “yes,” but I’m sure some of you can’t say that you’ve never given up on a fantasy team before. Make a vow to yourself right now, repeat after me, “I will do everything in my power to win my fantasy hoops league. When I’m mentally drained, I will push through. When I lose a key player due to injury, I will fight on. When my girlfriend/wife complains, I will sleep contently in that dog house. I will not be denied, I will be victorious.” Now, let’s get it.

1) Setting your lineups – “Wow, Zack, thanks a lot, man. I had no clue that I needed to set my lineup to win…” Think that or not, it’s a HUGE reason that a lot of fantasy owners will lose this season. Right now, sure it’s no problem, but this is the point in the season where everyone is still fresh and motivated. It’s a long grueling NBA season and those in daily lineup leagues will have to set their lineups for 138 straight days just to make it to the start of the league’s playoffs. Ideally you’ll play another two to four weeks in the playoffs, and love hoops or not, that’s a helluva grind just to get there. In football leagues it’s a long season as well but you really only have to check or edit your lineup once or twice a week and it just doesn’t come across as mentally wearing.

There are tactics to making it not seem as brutal on your mind, but regardless it’s still something you have to be 100% dedicated to from day one. Even if you’re in a daily lineup league, treat it like a weekly league. What I mean there is to set your lineup(s) for the entire week on Sunday nights or Monday mornings. Set an alarm on your phone to remind you at a certain time to set them fully and then set another reminder for Monday afternoon just in case you never got around to it. By setting everything at the start of the week, you only view it as a one day task not a daily chore. Sure, you can look back everyday and make swaps when you have time but at least you know that if you have a busy day mid-week, no matter what, your lineup is at least set.

If you’re in a weekly league, it can’t even be put into words how critical getting your lineup set every single week is. I’d always do these on Sunday nights because there’s those one or two weeks that there’s early Monday games and if you don’t have them set by then you’re screwed. Do it early and tweak it as needed up until the first game. One week of starting a two game Kelly Olynyk over a four game Gorgui Dieng can cost you a lot of ground if it’s a roto league or cost you one to two categories in a H2H.

2) Dominate the wire – You should always be monitoring box scores and checking out my weekly waiver wire column (every Saturday). Yes, it’s early in the season so dropping a player you just drafted isn’t always easy but if a big injury or rotation change occurs that hands a free agent big opportunity, don’t be scared to pull the trigger. In most cases fantasy production is more about opportunity than potential. Yes, Gerald Green may be a much better player overall than Mike Dunleavy, but Green is stuck battling for backup SG/SF minutes while Dunleavy will start at SF for the Bulls and get added time while Jimmy Butler is sidelined thus making Dunleavy the better fantasy asset right now (not saying either should be owned, just an example).

If you’re not sure if you should drop player X for player Y, hit me up on Twitter (see #4) and I’ll give you my opinion on the move. Don’t make any hasty decisions like cutting Giannis because he doesn’t dominate the first week for Donald Sloan who is playing well in Geroge Hill’s absence. Sloan’s value is only high until Hill returns in a couple weeks, so he’s only a short term consideration, not one you should give up a season long producer for. Just keep yourself informed on the latest news and own the waiver wire. If you don’t have the most transactions at the end of the season, you either had an unstoppable team from the get-go or you weren’t working hard enough.

As far as your waiver priority goes, be very picky how you use it. Don’t just use it on the first player of relevance that you see dropped. If someone drops a guy like Rodney Stuckey even though he’s putting up top-110 production, don’t give it up. Let the others use their priority on players of that level. You can find players like that all season long who aren’t on waivers, don’t overreact. Wait until another owner makes a big mistake by dropping Markieff Morris because he had a rough first week or so to replace him with some trendy temporary add. That’s the ones you are waiting to pounce on. Check who was dropped in your league EVERYDAY. Most wont monitor it that closely but if you don’t look for two days you may not know that somebody dropped Jose Calderon for Shane Larkin after the first week and your foes may steal him. Don’t miss anything.

3) Twitter is king – No longer will you find the most recent news on SportsCenter. If you hear about Julius Randle‘s broken leg on TV then you’re likely too late to make the corresponding move. It’s a new era in sports reporting and when a reporter is informed of some breaking news, they don’t write a whole article or go on TV to talk about it first, they whip out their phone and go straight to Twitter. Twitter has basically become a reporter’s hot spot for calling “dibs” on breaking news. If they say the news there first then every reporter who says it after them has to mention them as the one who broke the story.

I don’t know about you, but I always want the latest news in my hand the moment it happens. I’d hate to know the actual number of times that I refresh Twitter per day. Judge me if you wish but if you’re in a league with me, or someone like me, when you see a trade happened that opens up a door for a fantasy breakout star and run to your wire, you’ll already know he’s gone. By mid-season you should have your league mates feeling that checking the wire is pointless because they know you already made the big move.

Be the first to know everything by following the best NBA reporters, fantasy analysts and team beat writers. Combined you will have all the NBA and fantasy info you could ever dream of at your fingertips. It’s a wonderful thing. Don’t think you’re too cool for Twitter.

4) Never settle – If you own the wire like I stated above then you should always feel confident that you can improve your team throughout the season that way. If you know you can find production there, then you should always be willing to do “happy hour deals” which are two-for-one trades where you give the two. There’s always room to upgrade even if it’s slight. If you pair a solid player like Tobias Harris with a lower guy on your team who has been good recently — maybe a hot waiver addition you grabbed — and can upgrade Tobias, that’s perfect.

The average fantasy owner overreacts to the recent trends and fails to realize that some players value is only temporary. Trading an always good but really trendy guy like Tobias with a Donald Sloan or Tony Wroten (if they start out well because of added opportunity due to a starter being injured) for Batum, Hayward or better… beautiful. They’re seeing two players stats > their one players stats. They likely aren’t factoring in who they’ll drop to take on those two. Plus, you now have an open spot on your roster to add another wire target or to stream with. Never settle for what you have, see the trends and try to make a move before the trend ends. Always be looking for potential trade partners.

A team in the league loses a key big man for a long stint and now lacks in boards? Swoop in and try to capitalize on their moment of weakness. Offer a decent big man + another just mid-level add for yourself a nice upgrade. Have no mercy on your competition. When you see them in a tough spot, act as if you’re there to help but know you’re really injecting more venom into their rotting corpse. Find the buy low candidates and trade for them before they turn back into the fantasy stud you know they’ll soon return to.

5) Stream, stream and more stream – “Streaming” is the term used for when you add a player from the wire daily to get a full week of stats from a roster spot. If you’re in a daily lineups league, you should really have a roster spot that is dedicated strictly to streaming, especially if there’s not a weekly transactions limit. If there is a limit, you usually still can stream well the days that you don’t have a full lineup.

Having Enes Kanter as the last guy on your roster is fine, but having the top guy off of the waiver wire for 6-7 days a week is even better. Kanter can put up his 12 points, 6.5 rebounds and not much else 3-4 times a week, but you can likely get close to double that production if you stream it well. Plain and simple, the more stats you can accumulate over the week, the better. I’ve seen a team with eight good players stream five roster spots and advance to the finals with a team that had no business being there. Hustle hard.

6) Have patience – If one of your top players is going to miss a chunk of time, don’t make a rash decision and cut them (unless it’s playoff time or you’re in must win mode and that roster spot is crucial.) You may have a tougher time in H2H matchups or lose a little ground in roto leagues, but when you get that player back they’re likely going to deliver you more than what you dropped them for. If you have a player you thought would breakout, like a Giannis-type, and they’re off to a really poor start. Try to just bench them for a good stint until they either turn it around or it becomes obvious that they’re just not going to be what you had hoped. It’s better to hold on a little too long than to cut the rip cord too early and one of your league mates cash in on your mistake.

Also, don’t lose your mind if your team loses badly in H2H or sits low in the standings after the first couple of weeks. Don’t assume that you must make a big change right away. Maybe you just happened to land a few slow starters and they’re about to revive your team. Just stay focused on improving the lesser parts of your team and hope that the rest works out. I’ve started a league way in the dumps and come back to win in dominant fashion. If a couple of months go by and you’re still sinking, then you can start throwing grenades. wooooosahhhhh!

7) Awake the dead – If there’s a team that has stopped setting their lineup and making adds, etc.. they don’t know or care that they’re hurting your chances by doing so. If you have a team full of non-drop worthy players and there’s a few players on the wire that need to be rostered and you don’t want your competition to add them, get dirty. Email the inactive team and tell them they’re hurting the league and player X, Y and Z are on the wire and they should add them “for the good of the league.” Now sure, maybe this somewhat backfires and you have a player get injured and now that player you could have added is gone, but better them be on an irrelevant team than another top team.

Now, I do not in any way shape or form condone corruption. The above is not corruption, it’s you trying to get an owner active hoping some waiver adds spark their interest again. Asking that owner to give you a trade where they lose horribly just because they’re done and you’re still going, is corruption. If you can get them to make waiver moves and set their lineup, awesome, but don’t cross that other line. Even if they agree to it and it would double your chances of winning, it’s just poor etiquette and it’s a really bad look.

If you’re the LM make their be incentive for teams to keep playing even when they’re out of the playoff picture. Make it where the winner of the consolation bracket gets 1st pick next season or their money back or something like that. Anything you can do to keep everyone as active as possible for the good of the league.

This next one may seem like an eye roller but if you want to be able to stay dedicated to winning all season, this one is big.

8) Keeping your lady happy – I know, I know. Single guys be like “Man, I’d never let my girl stop me from being glued to my fantasy sports!” then they get a girl and that changes real quick OR they’re blind to why they can’t keep a girl around. No matter how many times you tell the woman in your life “Shouldn’t you be happy that fantasy sports is my hobby, not drugs or some other ridiculousness?!” it’s never going to get the reply you’re hoping for. It’s like your best friend who asks to hang out all the time to the extent that your girl builds a resentment to them and leaves you in that tough middle spot we all hate. Fantasy sports is that friend and always gets your attention, your female is jealous of the time you spend with fantasy and not with her. “How can you remember to set your lineups everyday but you can’t remember to pick up bread from the store like I asked?” Yeah, we’ve all been asked that question and we’ve all felt bad and irritated at ourselves for having one track minds.

There’s a middle ground that you have to find to both keep both your teams top notch and to your woman happy. Sit down with them and explain how much fun you have playing fantasy sports and that if you stay focused and do well, you can win cash for your efforts. Also, tell them that you want to keep them happy and ask her needs. Likely she will say that she doesn’t mind you playing fantasy, she just wants your attention when it’s you and her. Here’s some compromise that you have to meet:

A) If you’re on a date night, keep the phone in your pocket. Nothing that is happening in those games is controllable once they’ve begun. You don’t need to know your teams live stats on a Saturday night, you can see the final box scores after you get home. I know you’re obsessed with Twitter and seeing tidbits from your favorite fantasy analysts, but we do that everyday, Twitter will still be awesome after date night. You’re not missing anything different than any other night. Date night have one focus, her. When she gets on her phone, don’t see that as a chance for you to check out what Anthony Davis is up to so far, just sit there and keep the conversations going. These nights are what your relationship needs and also earns you more leeway at other times when fantasy is requiring more attention.

B) If she asks you to do something later that day, don’t let your brain over-thinking a trade offer you received make you forget to do what she asked. Don’t take the chance, set a reminder on your phone so that when you get off work you get that notification and protect you from your own stupid self.

C) Just be thoughtful. Whether you think it’s a big deal or not they just dealt with back-to-back draft seasons. A month of fantasy football drafts and two months later a month of basketball drafts. Get her some flowers to say sorry for all the time I had to dedicate to draft prep and drafts over the past months, thanks for not killing me. Make sure she knows you know you have an obsession and that you’re aware it effects her.

OK, Dr. Phil session over. I know it may seem like obvious stuff but if you wan’t to be on your happy island with both your love life and your hobby, you have to meet the living breathing one’s needs first. Fantasy will not get mad at you for ignoring it for one day.

These are the keys to winning your league. If you follow these guidelines I can at least guarantee that you gave yourself as good of a chance to win as possible. We can’t control luck but we can control our effort. Always keep your eyes on the prize and never lose the motivation to win even when baseball season comes around. I know it’s hard to juggle hoops and baseball, but you didn’t bust your ass from October to March to lose in April. Get that ship!

For more fantasy hoops analysis you can follow Zack on Twitter @BigZack44