This is part two of my draft clinic series, wherein I've decided to share some of the results of the various mock drafts that I've participated in. In this segment I will be posting various attempts to draft teams based on specific strategies for the Head to Head (H2H) Format.

Why bother with strategies, can't we just grab the "best player available" when our turn comes around in the draft?

Well of course there's nothing really wrong with that approach to a H2H draft. In fact, some pundits believe that that is the way to go. I believe otherwise - but to a certain extent. Since each category's value is fixed at one, giving your team either a win or a loss for that week's match-up, a few categories may be ignored or punted in order to provide focus on other categories that can strengthened to the level of league domination.

Draft strategies vary depending on the specific categories they intend to target and ideally dominate.

Small Ball

Small ball focuses on categories that guards or "small guys" are generally good at. The categories generally focused on by this strategy are: PTS; FT%; 3PTM; AST; STL - that's five out the nine standard categories.

Small-Ball A

In this first draft, I took a very pure approach when it came to the strategy. This was for a 14-man draft. I was 10^th to pick in the first round. My goal was to grab the best quality point guards available to me, as early as possible. I reached for Deron Williams, who I believe is the best PG at that spot and second only to Chris Paul overall. I then bounced to Steve Nash in the second round, providing my team a good base in terms of assists, threes, and oddly enough FG% as well. The main point of the move was to give the CP3 owner a run for his money in terms of assists. He will be hard pressed to find support in that category. Chris Paul will need two guys to help him out  the assist category just to compete with me. I, on the other hand, only use two slots to achieve a base of 20+ APG for my team.

Moving on, I opted to go and grab the best quality available small-ball, center-eligible players to cover that particular positional need. The goal was to not draft players that had negative contributions to the theme. Mario Chalmers, being my favorite third-string PG, helps round out my assists and adds a much needed improvement in the steals department. My team has enough steals to compete against an "average team", but will have stiff competition against a fellow small-ball themed one. I am counting on my relative preservation of FG% to swing things in my favor in the mirror match-up. Drew Gooden was just back-up C with some marginal upside who I at least knew would not hamper my team's FT%. My last pick, Hakim Warrick, was an accidental one. I was playing around with the draft queue when the phone rang... thank goodness it was the last pick.

1. Deron Williams (Uta - PG)
2. Steve Nash (Pho - PG)
3. Jason Richardson (Pho - SG,SF)
4. Mehmet Okur (Uta - PF,C)
5. Al Harrington (NY - PF,C)
6. John Salmons (Chi - SG,SF)
7. Boris Diaw (Cha - SF,PF)
8. Mario Chalmers (Mia - PG)
9. Ronnie Brewer (Uta - SG,SF)
10. Aaron Brooks (Hou - PG)
11. Rudy Fernandez (Por - PG,SG)
12. Drew Gooden (Dal - PF,C)
13. Hakim Warrick (Mil - SF,PF)

Small Ball B

As I mentioned in my "When Should I Draft Gilbert Arenas?" piece, one of the objectives of my mock drafting craze was to be able to assess the possibilities of forming a functional team that could mitigate the risk involved in drafting him. I mentioned that the team should be a small-ball team and that people should overdraft Gilbert's strengths so that he comes out like a bonus of sorts, only there to take your team's campaign for this season "over the top". I made sure I had a ton of threes on hand, and drafted both Raymond Felton AND Mario Chalmers to grab a hold of a strong steals base.

This is a 12-man draft and I was eighth to pick.

1. Dirk Nowitzki (Dal - PF)
2. Steve Nash (Pho - PG)
3. Gilbert Arenas (Was - PG)
4. Jason Richardson (Pho - SG,SF)
5. Andrea Bargnani (Tor - PF,C)
6. Al Harrington (NY - PF,C)
7. Jason Terry (Dal - PG,SG)
8. Boris Diaw (Cha - SF,PF)
9. Nate Robinson (NY - PG,SG)
10. Mario Chalmers (Mia - PG)
11. Raymond Felton (Cha - PG,SG)
12. Shane Battier (Hou - SF)
13. Anderson Varejao (Cle - PF,C)

Big Ball

One of the reasons to draft Dwight Howard in the first round of your H2H draft is to be able to build a team based on the Big Ball draft strategy.

Big Ball A

This mock was for a 14-man league and I was up to pick 12^th. For this particular attempt at Big ball, I went for a back door attempt at being competitive in the steals category aside from the standard targets of the Big ball strategy. Grabbing Rajon Rondo for his FG% and rebounds, opened up this window. Andre Miller, Mario Chalmers, and Courtney Lee are the boosters in the category. Nene Hilario, who led all centers in the steals cat last season, was a good synergy pick for this diversification. In theory (on paper), the team should also be able to beat some average teams in the assist categories as well. The Shaq pick a convenient no-brainer, since Dwight has forced me down the "punt FT%" road anyway.

1. Dwight Howard (Orl - C)
2. Tim Duncan (SA - PF,C)
3. Rajon Rondo (Bos - PG)
4. Nene Hilario (Den - PF,C)
5. Andre Miller (Por - PG)
6. John Salmons (Chi - SG,SF)
7. Mario Chalmers (Mia - PG)
8. Shaquille O'Neal (Cle - C)
9. Courtney Lee (NJ - SG,SF)
10. Chris Andersen (Den - PF,C)
11. Hakim Warrick (Mil - SF,PF)
12. Brandon Jennings (Mil - PG)
13. Drew Gooden (Dal - PF,C)

Big Ball B

This draft was an experiment within the draft itself. This was also for a 14-man draft, but this time I am 14^th to pick. The drafter at the 13^th spot drafted Dwight Howard, sending a loud and clear signal that he was likely going for Big ball. I then tinkered with the idea of directly competing with him using the same strategy he was planning to use. I immediately denied him the two best big man picks he could use to pair with Dwight, by bouncing Al Jefferson and Tim Duncan.  Interestingly enough, I think I ended up with a decent Big ball team. Similar to Big Ball A, this team attempts to go for steals as an additional category to compete in. Ellis, Chalmers, Felton, and Jennings are hopefully enough to add to the fact that most of my big guys average about 1-steal per game too.

1. Al Jefferson (Min - PF,C)
2. Tim Duncan (SA - PF,C)
3. LaMarcus Aldridge (Por - PF,C)
4. Monta Ellis (GS - PG,SG)
5. John Salmons (Chi - SG,SF)
6. Paul Millsap (Uta - SF,PF)
7. Tyrus Thomas (Chi - SF,PF)
8. Kevin Love (Min - PF,C)
9. Mario Chalmers (Mia - PG)
10. Raymond Felton (Cha - PG,SG)
11. Brandon Jennings (Mil - PG)
12. Drew Gooden (Dal - PF,C)

I wrote four of the five Head to Head draft strategies in the Four Fingers of Fantasy Draft Guide. Check it out to get more in-depth information, strategy, and draft tips.

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