ADP
Average Draft Position. The round and pick at which a player is typically drafted across all leagues. Lower ADP = drafted earlier. Use it to anchor your tier strategy, not as gospel.
Every term you'll encounter playing fantasy sports — explained without the jargon. Whether you're drafting your first NFL roster or running a 9-cat NBA punt build, this is your reference.
Average Draft Position. The round and pick at which a player is typically drafted across all leagues. Lower ADP = drafted earlier. Use it to anchor your tier strategy, not as gospel.
Each round reverses pick order. Round 1: pick 1→12. Round 2: 12→1. Designed to balance the advantage of the early picks across the draft.
Alternative to snake — everyone gets a budget and bids on players. Every team can get every player in theory. Skill ceiling is much higher than snake.
The pool of players not on any team in your league. Pick them up to replace injured, underperforming, or bye-week players. Most leagues run waivers Tue–Wed.
Free Agent Acquisition Budget. Instead of waiver priority, you bid blind dollars on waiver-wire players. Whoever bids highest wins. Most common in serious leagues.
You keep your entire roster forever (or until you trade them). Plays out like running a real franchise — rookies matter, contracts matter, aging matters.
Hybrid format. You keep 1–3 players from your previous roster each year; the rest are re-drafted. The middle ground between redraft and dynasty.
The simplest format. Everyone drafts a brand new team every year. No history carries over. The default for most casual leagues.
A practice draft, usually against bots or randos. Goal: see how rounds 1–5 might fall, refine your strategy, find sleepers. Do at least three before your real draft.
Daily Fantasy Sports. Build a roster for one slate of games, against a salary cap. DraftKings, FanDuel, Underdog. High variance, high skill ceiling.
Guaranteed Prize Pool — a DFS tournament where the prize pool is set regardless of entries. Top-heavy payouts; you need to finish near the top to win.
A player who either explodes for a huge week (boom) or disappears (bust), rarely scoring in between. High variance. Useful in tournaments, dangerous in cash games.
Floor = a player's bad-case fantasy outcome. Ceiling = best-case outcome. High-floor players go in cash games; high-ceiling players go in tournaments.
Pairing players from the same team to capture correlated upside. Classic example: QB + their WR. If the offense goes off, both score.
Point Per Reception. Every catch a receiver makes adds 1 point. Half-PPR = 0.5 per catch. Standard = 0. The most important scoring setting in fantasy football.
0.5 points per reception. The "balanced" middle ground between standard and full PPR. Most ESPN and many Yahoo leagues default to this.
A roster slot that can hold a RB, WR, or TE (sometimes QB in Superflex leagues). Forces tough start/sit calls every week.
A flex slot that also accepts a QB. Effectively a 2-QB league. QBs become the most valuable position in the draft — rounds 1–3.
TE receptions count for 1.5x (or 2x) instead of 1x. Elevates Travis Kelce / Sam LaPorta-tier TEs into first-round talent. Common in dynasty.
Each NFL team has one week off during the regular season. Players on bye that week earn ZERO points. Plan rosters accordingly — don't draft three RBs on the same bye.
The backup running back for one of your starting RBs. Insurance for your top picks — if your stud goes down, the handcuff steps in. Especially valuable for workhorse backs.
An RB who gets the vast majority of his team's carries and passing-down work. Saquon, CMC, Bijan when healthy. Highest-floor players in the game.
When 2–3 RBs split a backfield's touches. No single back has standalone value. Hard to predict, frustrating to roster. Avoid in fantasy unless one back wins the job.
A receiver's percentage of his team's total targets. The single strongest predictor of WR fantasy points. Anything above 25% is elite.
The total yards in the air on all targets to a receiver, completed or not. Captures usage and downfield role. Predicts breakout WRs better than receptions do.
Inside the opponent's 20-yard line. Where touchdowns happen. Players who see consistent red-zone touches (carries, targets) are TD-dependent gold.
Defense + Special Teams. You roster one whole defensive unit. Points for sacks, INTs, fumble recoveries, TDs, low points allowed. Streamable in most leagues.
Picking up a DST, QB, or TE weekly based on matchup instead of holding one all season. Saves a roster spot, frees up budget on draft day.
A player drafted late or undrafted whose actual production massively exceeds his ADP. Every league winner has 2–3 of these. Targets matter more than narratives.
Nine-category league. Teams compete weekly across PTS, REB, AST, STL, BLK, 3PM, FG%, FT%, TO. Win 5+ categories = win the week. The default NBA format.
Eight-category league. Same as 9-cat but turnovers (TO) are dropped. Makes high-usage stars (Luka, Trae) significantly more valuable.
Every stat converts to a point value. PTS=1, REB=1.2, AST=1.5, STL=3, BLK=3, TO=−1, etc. Volume scorers dominate. The simplest NBA format.
Rotisserie scoring. You're ranked across every category for the whole season — sum your ranks, lowest wins. No weekly matchups. Pure stat accumulation.
Head-to-head. You face one opponent each week; whoever wins more categories takes the week. Playoffs at season end. The most common format.
Deliberately conceding 1–3 categories to dominate the other 6–8. Classic example: punt FT% to roster Giannis + Gobert + Capela. Win 7 cats, lose 2, run the league.
% of his team's possessions a player uses (shots, FT trips, turnovers) while on the floor. 30%+ = star-level offensive load. Predicts scoring + assists volume.
A player's stats projected to 36 minutes played. Levels the playing field between bench guys and starters. Useful for spotting undervalued role-players about to get a starting bump.
Did Not Play — Coach's Decision. The player was healthy but the coach benched him. A red flag. Watch for trend toward DNP-CD before dropping.
Two NBA games on consecutive nights. Aging stars (LeBron, KD) often sit one of the two for load management. Worth monitoring in DFS and weekly H2H.
Stars resting during the regular season to stay fresh for playoffs. Kawhi, AD, sometimes LeBron. Discount their full-season stats slightly when projecting.
Trade strategy. Buy low: acquire a player in a slump whose true talent is higher. Sell high: trade a player after an unsustainable hot streak. Edge comes from knowing the difference.
The classic roto categories. Hitters: HR, R, RBI, SB, AVG. Pitchers: W, K, ERA, WHIP, SV. The default fantasy baseball format — used in ~70% of leagues.
5x5 plus two extra categories — typically OBP (for hitters, replaces or adds to AVG) and Quality Starts or Holds (for pitchers, replaces or adds to W). Rewards plate discipline and skill-based pitching.
Rotisserie scoring. You're ranked across every category for the entire 26-week season — sum your ranks, highest total wins. No weekly matchups. Pure stat accumulation. The original fantasy baseball format.
Head-to-head each category. Each week you face one opponent across the 10 categories; you "win" each category you're ahead in. Most categories won = wins the week. High variance — single hot week can carry you.
A pitcher's start of 6+ innings and 3 or fewer earned runs. Used as a category in 6x6 leagues to replace wins — rewards skill over team luck. Tarik Skubal had 25 QS in 2024 (MLB-leading).
A starting pitcher scheduled to pitch twice in a single fantasy week. Double K + double W upside, but double WHIP + ERA risk. Two-start streaming is the single biggest weekly edge in H2H formats.
Picking up an SP short-term (sometimes for just one start) for a favorable matchup. Coors Field avoidance is mandatory. Park-adjusted K-rate + opposing offense quality drives every decision.
How a ballpark inflates or suppresses stats vs league average. Coors Field hits ~1.40x HR (avoid pitchers there). Petco hits ~0.82x HR (target pitchers, fade hitters). Drives every projection.
Walks + Hits ÷ Innings Pitched. A standard pitching category that measures baserunners allowed per inning. Elite ~1.00, good ~1.15, bad >1.30. WHIP-based punt strategies are common in 5x5.
A weekly or season-long maximum on total pitching innings. Forces choices: which 2-start pitchers do you start? Stream less, hold more? Most modern leagues cap at 1500-1700 season IP or 40-60 per week.
The five-chapter learn track shows you how every one of these concepts translates into real draft decisions, real start/sit calls, real waiver-wire moves.