On November 2nd, 6 teams make their 2004-2005 debut.  If you've never played our fantasy game before, you may be wondering what to expect.

The most important thing to understand is that leagues that are still drafting do not have to rush to finish by the start of the season.  If you are still drafting when the first game starts, you will simply have one game dropped from your regular season schedule (usually this is just one out of 50-80).  If you finish the draft by Saturday, November 6th, you'll only miss two games.  We've seen many leagues get frustrated and rush the last few vital rounds to get one or two extra games in.  Take your time.  There are plenty of regular season games to make up for it.

Now, for those who are ready to play...

First, at 8pm ET, the first deadline passes.  At that time, if you have more than 12 players (through trading or waivers), your roster will be automatically trimmed down to 12, meaning you'll lose players in the 13th spot and behind to waivers.  At the same time, your lineup will be frozen for game 1.  The positions and order you have set will be stored and used for game 1.  You can make changes at 8:05pm, but they won't affect the lineup already saved.

So, some things you might want to consider doing before 8pm Tuesday:

• Review the Sports.ws scoring system and understand how the order of your lineup affects your success. Use your lineup page to change the order before the first deadline.


• If you have players that can play more than one position, make sure you have everybody playing what you want by altering positions with the lineup page. If you realize a player should or could be playing another position, considering proposing a position change vote well in advance of the deadline to allow enough time for the vote to close and take effect.


• If you have less than 12 players, be sure to fill up your roster with free agents (if you're still drafting, this won't apply yet).


• If you have more than 12 players, you don't need to drop the extras ahead of time, just make sure the 12 you really want are the first 12 in your lineup box. They will be kept based on the priority in which their are ordered.


• Have you played our Pick 5 game? You guess who will score the most fantasy points any night of the season. If you want a jump on the competition, get your November 2nd entry in soon (the form is available now through the first deadline).

As the games finish up, final scores will begin to be tallied (for some games, the scores will be updated at Sports.ws live).  Usually there is a delay of an hour or more after the game to allow for any official adjustments.  You will be able to see how the night's games affect your league by visiting your league's schedule page.  If you have players on the six teams playing the first night (Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Houston, LA Lakers, Sacramento), your box score for the first game (finishing Friday, November 6th) will start filling in with stats.  You can see when the rest of your players play their game 1 here or by visiting a link in the box score.  The rest of your league's matchups are available when you click "Full League Schedule" at the top of the page.  Boxscores will be available and updated for these as well.

When the night is done, Pick 5 scores and ranks will be calculated in the wee hours of the morning.  You may wonder what's next, and if there were games, why you don't see "wins" and "losses" in your standings.  Remember, the game 1's results are based on 1 every team's first game.  The first fantasy games will be decided on Friday, November 6th.  Don't worry, even though you have to wait a few days for the first teams to finish, the games start piling up fast - game 2 finishes the next night!

Some of the things you may want to do after the first deadline, but before the next night's game include:

• Check in on your league's partial boxscores using your league's schedule page and the "Full League Schedule" link.


• Take a peek at the waivers wire right after the first deadline to see if any gems were dropped by other teams. Since everybody has the same record, the earlier you express interest, the more likely you are to get a player.


• Review the game results, even if you don't have players participating. Preseason is much different from the regular season, and you may see a star emerge as soon as night 1. If you find one of these and they're not on a team in your league, pick them up!


• You have until Friday, November 5th, before your next lineup is frozen, but you might want to see if adjustments are needed - especially if your players played the first night and you know if they did better or worse than you expected.


• See how your game 1 Pick 5 picks fared.  Will the 5 players you pick out-perform the 5 the rest of the site choses?  If you're ready, get your Wednesday's picks in before the first game starts.

We'll be making more announcements towards the end of the week and explain how to interpret your boxscores.

Good luck!