By Jon Loomer

Part I | Part II | Part III | | START YOUR LEAGUE NOW!

The features that you can customize while setting your league up are out of the way. Now what about in-season?

The Live Draft: As commissioner, you have full control. Stop and restart the draft at any time. Change the time limit for each pick. Backtrack and restart the draft at a specific pick. Change selections or make a selection for another team. You have ultimate control.

Draft Picks: Prior to the start of the draft, you can trade draft picks between teams and also set their keepers. We'll get to keepers later. Tired of having to negotiate a draft pick swap prior to the draft, not be able to change the ownership of those picks and needing to pick for the other team to consummate the deal? It could get messy (just like that run-on sentence), especially if one person backs out or does not show up for the draft. Here, you re-order the draft in specific rounds to reflect each deal.

Commissioner Features

Free Keeper Leagues Trade Draft Picks Co-Owner Option Execute a trade involving more than two teams Full Commissioner Control Track contracts and salaries Auction waiver option Customizable position eligibility Create a Player option Fully Customizable Rosters and Scoring Five draft types including Live and E-mail Rotisserie, Points-Based or Head-to-Head

Salary and Contract Data: Most often found in keeper leagues, league owners have players under contract for a designated amount of money. The commissioner tracks the salary for each player as well as the length of the contract.

Create a Player: Technically, you can create yourself, as if you're playing a video game, and draft or acquire yourself. Now, this wouldn't make much sense since you'll likely never make the NBA and won't accumulate any points for your fantasy team. However, some of the more complicated keeper leagues can create a player who is not currently in the league but is projected to enter the NBA at some time in the future. The purpose of this feature is for an owner to stake a claim on a player prior to that player being available in the player pool.

Update Position Eligibility: Position eligibility in the NBA is an inexact science. Only starting lineups are announced. That means that when a player enters the game from the bench, there is no official record of what position he played. In addition, official scorers only list point guards and shooting guards as guards, and small forwards and power forwards as forwards. For these reasons, position eligibility is largely subjective and differs from site to site. Because of this, it is impossible to make everyone happy. Or, we can just allow you to edit it yourself. Don't like that we have Boris Diaw as a Center? Change it. Edit any player's eligibility as much as you'd like.

Keepers: The fun has just begun. Once you've worked your way up the chain of fantasy games and still want a challenge, you are ready for keeper leagues. Whereas the typical fantasy competition ends with the final game of the regular season, keeper leagues keep going and can last for several seasons -- for as long as the league is intact.

How does it work? First, when you're setting up a league, indicate that it is a keeper league. You will then need to specify a number of players for everyone to keep at the end of the season. Likewise, if you are carrying over a keeper league, specify your settings when setting up the league. A relatively common number of players to keep is four, but you can keep anything from one to an entire roster. Whatever works for your league.

After the season and prior to the start of the next season, you will need to announce your keepers by a designated date. At that point, all teams will start out with four players and build around those players with a draft. Therefore, the value of a #1 draft pick is greatly diminished, assuming the top players were kept.

Some keeper leagues go beyond simply keeping players and utilize contracts and salaries. Players are drafted in an auction to set a salary, and are owned for a designated number of years. In some cases, their salary goes up a designated amount for each year they are kept. In this case, player value gets more complicated. It's not just the performance of your player you want to consider, but his value. Even a LeBron James can be overpriced and too expensive to hold on to.

Regardless of whether salaries are included, owners in keeper leagues assess player value differently than owners in your standard one-season sprint. Depending on the number of players kept, you're thinking like a true GM. Whereas a single-season owner is only concerned about the short-term, you may be looking at the potential of a player next season -- particularly if he can be had for a cheap price or you keep a decent number of players.

So mess around with it. Join a league. Join five leagues. Whatever league you want, you can create it.

Part I | Part II | Part III | START YOUR LEAGUE NOW!