Fantasy basketball: André Snellings' Ultimate Draft Board - ESPN

What does your perfect fantasy basketball draft look like?

This is a question you should consider before your draft begins, when you're still in the planning stages.

Even now, after all these years of playing fantasy sports, I still do this before most big drafts — I look at where I'm picking in the draft and decide who, among those likely to be there, I'll take first. And then I look at where my next picks are and compare that to the player rankings, to see who I want most among players in the right range for me to take.

Most of the people in your leagues aren't going to go into the draft with much of a plan, and just hope for the best. So, if you step into the draft with an idea about what the talent looks like at different parts of the draft, it will give you a leg up on the competition right from the opening tip.

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The best way to gauge what your team might look like, in my experience, is to do mock draft(s) before my real drafts to get a feel for what players should be available. Will my sleeper picks be there, or does everyone know about them so they go earlier than expected?

Often, there are really good players ranked lower than you expect that might be available later than you think. Having an idea of how this tends to shake out before you enter your draft can be very valuable for maximizing your squad.

In this article, I highlight players I would like to draft at different locations within the draft. In the early rounds, draft slot makes a huge difference in what players might be available, so I point out players of interest in different parts of the round. In the middle and later rounds, I highlight groups of