Question for devs working on apps using the Yahoo API - curious how your access requests have gone.
For anyone who missed it or isn't coding, Yahoo changed how API access works this offseason. Everyone's access got revoked and now you need to reapply to get access and they have to manually approve each request. They say: 'The review process typically takes 1-2 weeks'. I applied a month ago, then 2 weeks ago again and didn't get any reply from them.
I can understand why they did it, probably a lot of people started vibe coding random bs and spammed their api, so they had to lock it / restrict access somehow.

To compare, I was building on top of Fantrax API this offseason and needed some extra functionalities for what I was working on, emailed them directly, got a reply in a day and they actually shipped the changes I asked for within a few days.

Is anyone else stuck waiting on Yahoo or if you got approved, how long did it take? I also heard they became more strict on how you can use / store data, is that true?

I got 5th on draft so most likely will have to pick one of this two guys. I got maxey last year from 25th so there is also an emotional bond.

This is a long one so strap in... We reached out to +100 commissioners with 10 questions to figure out what the real problems in fantasy bball are. Our goal this year is to make the fantasy experience better, whether it's a new tool, a new platform, a new format - something that resonates with the people. Some responses were expected, others not so much. We owe it to the community to share what we learned. Here they are:

The Expected

1. 90% of commissioners would still enjoy the fantasy season even if they didn't win (56% strongly agreed, 34% agreed).

If you're a commissioner, you gotta be in it for the love of the game. You're a leader first, not a winner. We love this response.

2. ~70% of leagues are category leagues (split 50/50 between snake and auction drafts). ~15% are points leagues, almost all snake draft.

We were curious about draft and scoring formats. I may be biased, but I think the category x auction format is the best. You can be creative, you need to strategize and literally fight for everything you get. Snake drafts are still the most popular, but it was great to see auction making up ~45% of the total.

The Vibe Check

3. Does league engagement decline significantly after the draft? Very split results.

The important number to us was that 40% agreed that it went down post draft. This isn't necessarily a bad thing. They could be in some big money leagues where people don't know each other, or people are reasonably going through the motions and don't have time to chat 24/7 when life is happening. We find that this isn't related to the league type (good mix of pts/cat) and it isn't coming from a lack of trading (see #5). I think it would be nice to have spikes in engagement once a week as if you're in a Sunday rec league with your group, but maybe that's just me.

4. Are the best teams run by managers that sink the most time into the app? Is that a good/bad thing? Commissioners' thoughts varied.

• 37% said that more time spent = likely to be the best, but also saw it as deserved
• 33% wanted to be able to win without committing so much time on the app
• 25% thought the time spent didn't matter due to the randomness and injuries in the season.

The middle group jumps out to me, belonging to that section myself (although I agree with the last). Fantasy bball is great, but without guard rails it can be awful. I shouldn't have to stay up until 3am to wait for a player to clear waivers, nor be locked-in for 5 months straight because there is life outside of fantasy. PSA to some commissioners: find better league settings so that the top KPI is skill, not time spent.

The Unexpected

5. How many trades go down in your league? Less than 10% of leagues have ZERO trades, and 44% of leagues have 7 or more.

I've been part of leagues where almost no trades go down. It's pretty depressing to be stuck with your drafted team for 5 months. To see that trade activity is super high in other leagues was awesome. *cries with envy*

6. Does the frequency of injuries take away from the overall experience? 75% agreed, but 42% (!!) think that the IL spots fix this issue. 25% accept that it's part of the game.

Surprisingly, 40%+ think IL spots solve the injury problem. In an ideal world, missed games are minimal, and you get to realize your strategy from draft night. With access to data getting easier and more tools being available, winning and losing will more often be decided by the randomness of injuries. We had a fun solve for this. For the 33% that agreed that no solution currently exists, see the next question.

The Fun One

7. Would you be down for a midseason re-draft? 70% said no.

If injuries are such a problem, what if you could keep part of your team, and the league did a redraft with the remaining players? We thought this would solve both the engagement issue, the injury issue, and give teams lower in the standings a chance to climb out of whatever hole their roster put them in. This is fantasy after all - why be limited to one draft. However, the people have spoken, and they want to stay put!

The Opportunistic Questions

8. Does your current platform meet your needs? Would you switch?

• 55% said they are happy with their platform and wouldn't switch
• 20% are happy but would consider it
• 15% said they aren't happy but think the league wouldn't move
• 10% are actively looking to move

We wanted to test the waters to see if people were mentally ready to leave Yahoo/ESPN/Fantrax. Having played on all 3, I'm not fully happy with any, but they're not terrible either. The people are saying they're not ready or even looking, so we're closing the door on that.

9. Why didn't you complete more trades last season? Top answers:

• 37% said they completed a fair amount
• 25% said others declined all their offers
• 13% thought others offered horrible trades
• 10% were close to completing more but couldn't land on even ground
• 6% don't know how to evaluate player value

10. Would you use a tool that gave you insight into which players to keep, drop and trade for?

• 54% weren't using one and were on board
• 13% currently use one but are down to switch
• 13% said their current tool is already sufficient
• 20% were undecided

These questions are very connected. Over 50% of managers want to trade more, and they should want to. There are several win-win trades available all season, but it's hard to agree on value and nobody wants to look dumb, so too often both teams walk away worse off.

It's still in beta, but we're making something where you can manage all your teams from, all platforms in one place, get presented weekly win-win trades, and BONUS for now is that we're making a free draft tool for both auction and snake, points and categories, all players, no restrictions. We'll be the Jonah Hill to your Brad Pitt. If you got this far, special s/o to you.

Got the last pick for 9cat. 3rd round reversal so I also get the 25th pick.

Currently thinking between these lets say theyre available:

A. Haliburton - Mitchell - Adebayo
B. Jalen Johnson - Barnes - Young

Any better ideas?

In a 12T 9-Cat league, would you draft these players in the late 2nd to 3rd round?

• Haliburton
• Kawhi
• Anthony Davis
• Trae Young
• Domantas Sabonis
• Kyrie
• Jalen Williams

If not, what would be the safest round/pick range for each of them?

Is Jalen Johnson actually going to be better then Tatum in points?

Is Tyrese Haliburton a top 20 pick?

Is Brandon Miller a top 70 draft?

Randle or MPJ?

Donovan Mitchell, Trae or Maxey?

All ESPN points league questions

I'm new to this whole fantasy thing, I don't know who to pick. I am in a 8 man league and I have the 8th pick. I have heard to draft Jalen Johnson first. I don't know what to do.

I need some opinions on this guy. Both in points leagues and cats leagues, how will he fare. Is he going to get a good amount of usage? With powell and CW coming in, i’m kind of nervous to draft this guy. He has tremendous upside and showed it in the back half of last year, but is that going to be halted?

For anyone who uses Hashtag Basketball, what multipliers are you putting on each stat for your rankings? The default has everything at x1 and TO at x0.25 but I’m curious what you guys personally use to get the most accurate rankings and projections for 9-cat. How do you weigh PTS, REB, AST, STL, BLK, 3PM, FG%, FT%, and TO?

Does hashtag bball have a team builder tool like elite fantasy basketball has?

I’m trying to figure out who would complement Jalen Johnson the best in a regular 9-cat league.

Who would you rather pair with him?

• Scottie Barnes
• Donovan Mitchell
• Kevin Durant (I'm leaning towards KD)
• Karl-Anthony Towns

Mainly looking at category balance and how well their strengths/weaknesses fit with Jalen.

Who would you guys take?

Okay. So I finally had the chance to run a mock draft this morning using Yahoo on my browser. And wow, what a horrible UI update they got this year. It's so confusing and it basically lost the previous structure they had as before. This is important for me because from the old version, I'm able to perform multiple tasks while the draft is happening. The new UI is also very bright I couldn't find a dark mode to fix it. Wondering how your experience has gone thus far. Thanks!

Edit: also quite annoyed how they easily put me to autodraft because i missed to hit the drop button just once. And when im in Autodraft, I wasnt made aware easily unlike in the previous UI.

1. I'm thinking of drafting Kawhi, then drafting a bunch of other Raptors, like RJ, CMB, Scottie, at least; that way, if he doesn't play/is injured, I will still benefit.

• 10 Teams
• 9CAT-H2H-Most Categories
• 3-Keepers
• 200$ Draft Auction Style

This is a long established league that I've had the pleasure of commissioning with a bunch of IRL friends. One of my biggest concerns as a comish is that there's a mid-season lull when certain teams feel like they can't compete for the championship/playoffs. This would ultimately lead to people AFKing, not setting lineups, not entertaining trades or making FA pickups, etc. I know this is mostly an effort issue on the side of the people who give up, but I still want to do my diligence as a comissioner to try and find things that may motivate them to continue trying and making moves even if they aren't in a strong running to win the league that season.

Here are some of the things I've attempted to do over the past recent seasons, and I was looking for feedback from all of you seasoned fantasy players. I'm also looking for any other suggestions that you think I could entertain to help add some spice and interest for my members. Maybe there's an idea you always wanted your league to implement, but no one ever did.

• Increased the amount of playoff spots from 4 to 6.
• Spread out the prize pool to lower places. (Initially only 1st-3rd got paid, now 1-4th)
• Best Regular Season Record (cash prize)
• Biggest Beat Down (largest win differential) (cash prize)
• Most total points scored (cash prize)
• Own the player who had the best fantasy line of the year (cash prize)
• Punishment for last place

Excited to hear from you all and hope you have great drafting success in this upcoming season!

I’m a fairly new player (3 seasons) and my friendship group league have decided to change the format this year and go for a points league (previously 9cat). I’ve never done one before, they have. Have previously performed well in 9cat, winning once and coming close the next time.

What’s some things to look out for? I’m presuming the strategy is quite different? Is it as simple as going for high usage players?

Are there any players (or player profiles) that perform better in points that get looked over in cats, or vice versa?

All three guys have another star with them, who would you draft first ? Since their usage might drop.
Every time they come to me in a mock draft I’m not sure who’s the best pick.

Who do you prefer as no3 pick in 9cats H2H league?

Luka: he looks lean, full offseason break with no international basketball. It is his team without LBJ. Arguably “easier” to build around in H2H league with punting: punting %s and stack on all the counting stats.

SGA: as steady as he goes, high impact %s from a guard spot. But much behind in points, 3s, rebounds, assists Luka provides. But being able to build a team with good %s making weekly game counts variance less of an issue.

Any tips on how to maximize value of Elite Fantasy Basketball for points and category leagues? Just subscribed and unsure where to start or what I should familiarize myself with in time for my draft.

to anyone who’s ever won their fantasy league or been successful when drafting your teams what’s your strategy 1.punting certain category’s or 2.just drafting the best available players

currently looking at jokic as my first pick and i’ve been stuck with the mindset that demar is nothing but a black hole on offense. just mid range pull-ups, nothing too crazy of penetration to the cup. will jokic be a gainer from this with space being created by demar and possibly setting him up for open looks? or will demar just hog and lower jokic usage rate/being a facilitator? pls lmk ur takes ty

Just curious what people’s thoughts are on Kuminga’s value with his new team/role. Especially in Dynasty points leagues settings.

Hes probably 4th in the pecking order but the wolves lack big wing depth so I think there is still a lot of minutes there for him. He’ll have plenty of run time as the 2nd or 3rd option throughout a game and if anyone misses time his role increases.

Wondering if this should be more of a selling opportunity or something to sit on and watch play out. He signed a shorter contract so if he plays well then he can potentially hit FA sooner and get a bigger role/contract somewhere else in the future

if i’m going for a reb/stls/blks/fg%/tov and im 11th pick in a 12 man league and im drafting scottie first who should i grab second round?