Halal Hoopers AFK | 2025-2026 | Week 1: Power Rankings

The first week of the league is finally behind us, and with that comes early looks at the success of this season's teams. Below is my version of the power rankings. ESPN has its own designation of power rankings based on Wins and Losses, however I feel this is often misleading as it doesn't truly take account the strength of a team. My power rankings are based on how many fantasy points a team generates which I think better translates to "which team is best", regardless of record. You can find the ranking below as well as my insights:

Ranking:

RK	TEAM	FGM	FGA	FTM	FTA	3PM	REB	AST	STL	BLK	TO	PTS	PF	PA	STRK	MOVES
1	nauman's Nifty Team	219	438	112	150	50	205	153	41	15	88	600	1171	748	W1	1
2	Ball-Till-U-Fall	240	467	156	193	55	165	121	25	17	83	691	1131	971	W1	3
3	IA Wemby Stays Healthy	199	390	100	133	35	223	80	33	41	49	533	1124	1088	W1	3
7	Team Khanqueror	189	396	104	130	58	174	108	39	27	60	540	1088	1124	L1	3
4	The Jokic Express	167	372	90	104	57	186	110	49	17	66	481	1024	965	W1	3
5	Aqeel's Net Positive	173	372	110	145	61	177	104	37	15	53	517	1004	919	W1	3
6	Umz Pistons	192	457	116	146	59	189	124	32	23	58	559	1000	944	W1	1
8	Bench Mobbin	189	379	87	109	57	175	113	23	12	63	522	971	1131	L1	0
9	Knickerboxer	189	412	121	145	58	126	91	29	19	46	557	965	1004	L1	3
10	Team Day to Day	164	354	108	141	50	189	133	26	12	70	486	944	1000	L1	1
11	High flyer	191	391	101	135	43	203	75	25	15	59	526	919	1040	L1	3
12	Moby 773	145	279	100	140	34	140	81	20	4	52	427	748	1171	L1	0

Insights:

• Nauman's Nifty Team takes the top spot to start the season, scoring 1171 fantasy points in the first week.
  • That’s 40 FPTS more than second-place team Ball-Till-U-Fall.
• Moby 773 had a tough week, scoring only 748 FPTS.
  • To be fair, Moby 773 also faced off against Nauman's Nifty Team — creating a massive scoring discrepancy for Week 1.
• Team Khanqueror looks like a top-5 caliber roster despite taking an L.
  • There’s a clear production gap between Team Khanqueror and 6th-place team The Jokic Express.
• A total of 24 waiver pickups were made in Week 1 across 10 teams.
  • That’s nearly 2 per team — showing a healthy, active league right from the jump.

Not much else to comment on for this first week, but as the season develops and the playoff picture takes shape, expect the insights to get spicier. Good luck to everyone in Week 2!

Halal Hoopers AFK - Fantasy Basketball Draft Score

 Hi All - Wanted to get this out before the Games start today and my analysis is proven wrong. Below you can see an evaluation of each team. I used FantasySP.com's AI tool for the scoring but the analysis is from me. This should be fun to revisit at the end of the season.

Team	Score (Link)	Overall Thoughts
Aqeel's Net Positive	251	Love the Zion pickup here, I think he'll finally be healthy (maybe). I'm a fan of Egor Demin but I don't think he will contribute much this year. Aqeel targetting the two guys known for being fat and are now thin, rounding it out with Doncic - he's pretty good I hear.
Bench Mobbin	250	Fellow Muslim brother JB should have plenty of opportunities to shine with Tatum out. I'm excited about Buzelis as a Bulls fan this year. Sabonis and LaMelo should be statistical contributors and Zach will always get near 20 points. But I feel there isn't much "oomph" with this team. Probably a good trade partner though.
Fahad's Fantastic Team	255	Giannis and Jokic have been fantasy kings the last few years. I think Scoot will finally show out this season. Ace Bailey I think is forcing his way to minutes, and I'm not sure if that's good or bad. This team has potential, but it needs another big star.
High flyer	268	KD and Durant are going to get theirs. There's a well-balanced roster here otherwise—with lots of rebounding. AI favors this team highly based on the score. I'm skeptical though as it requires better production from Ayton. Still, KD and Shai... that's tough to beat.
Knickerboxer	250	Brunson is king of New York—AI be damned! Antman is the truth. The rest of this roster would dominate fantasy three seasons ago.
Moby 773	255	Coby White is going to average 25 pts and like 5 assists every game. I'm a fan of the Thompson Twins in general. Solid role players here with Lauri having star upside. But this team relies on LeBron James staying healthy—and father time is undefeated.
nauman's Nifty Team	255	Trae Young? Sigh... haven't we done this before? Maybe make some trades or something for once!
Riamo's Rowdy Team	251	This team sucks and should just be thrown in the garbage with the rest of the trash. Or thrown in the trash with the rest of the garbage.
Team Khanqueror	224	Okay—not so low key—Dylan Harper and Evan Mobley are going to be fantastic this season. Huge fan. Add Brandon Miller (if LaMelo lets him do more than catch and shoot). Herbert Jones has been solid in my past fantasy teams. Steph and Maxey are going to be good. I'm shocked AI scored this team so low.
The Jokic Express	259	Jokic, Chet, and Cooper—just fantastic picks. All on one team will be interesting to juggle. Ayo will be a big bench contributor for the Bulls and could be in the 6th Man race. Decent secondary scoring options here but a trade could make this team a favorite.
Umz Pistons	241	Cade will break into All-Star status this season. Derrick White will get more opportunities next to Brown. Banchero is great on a bad team—good for fantasy. Westbrook plays with passion. Chinese Jokic might not get minutes, but would be fun to watch. Once again, I don't agree with AI here.
Zuhair's Honorable Team	265	AI is rating this team highly based on past performances. I think this is a team of the past—but we’ll see.

Day 1 Helpful Tips - Setting your Lineup

I wanted to provide some information for anyone new to Fantasy Basketball about Setting your lineups and other actions you can take day to day:

How to set your lineup via the ESPN App:

From the App follow these breadcrumbs:

My Team > Roster Tab

Here you can manage your lineups day to day including:

• Setting your Current day lineups
• Setting up your Future Lineups
• Setting up your Matchup Lineups
• Managing your IR
• Checking out information on your players

Setting Current Day lineups:

On the left side of each of the players on your roster is a "position button". Press this and you can move your player to valid locations by tapping where you want him moved. If there is a player in that position he will either be swapped with the first player you selected (if position designation is valid) or be moved to the bench. Any player can be moved to the bench or to the utility positions (UTIL). However, all other positions have to be filled with a player that has a valid designation. 

For example: Anthony Davis has a PF and C position designation. So you can move AD to the PF spot, the C spot, the F spot, the UTIL spots in your starting lineups. You can also move him to the bench. You cannot move AD to any of the guard spots however(PG, SG, G). If he is not OUT due to injury  (OUT/INJ shows on his icon) he also cannot be moved to the IR spot.

Setting up your future Lineups:

Lineups differ day to day so just because you set your lineup today doesn't have an impact on the lineup for tomorrow. For that reason it's highly recommended that you jump to future days and set those lines. You can do this manually by just using the arrow icons to jump to a future day and set the lineups as you would normally using the position buttons.

You can also do this auto-magically by hitting the quick lineup button, this quickly sets your lineup based on projections and if the player is playing (moving players who the logic thinks should be active to the starting spots, and players who the logic thinks shouldn't be playing to the bench). This only works for the duration of the current matchup.

Managing your IR:

The IR spots allow you to stash hurt or otherwise players who wont be playing and free up a roster spot. This is a valuable tool so that you can stay competitive even if your star players go down, allowing you to find a replacement until they return. Keep in mind that if your player is no longer in a valid IR designation (Suspended, Out, Injured) then they cannot sit in an IR spot. If they are sitting in an IR spot without the correct designation YOU CANNOT MAKE ANY ROSTER CHANGES UNTIL YOU REMOVE THEM FROM IR.

When you remove a player from IR, if your team added a waiver player to replace the IR player, then your roster will need to cut a player to make room for the new IR player.

Scouting Players:

ESPN will occaistionally provide updates on key players in the league. You can find this information by clicking on the player. Players with new information will get a red box under their name. You can see how a player has been performing recently as well as some analysis provided by ESPN. This is great for setting your lineup but also for scouting players you may want to trade for.

Welcome to the Halal Hoopers AFK Fantasy Basketball League!!

Welcome all to the first (of hopefully many) season of the Halal Hoopers AFK Fantasy Basketball League. 

Here in this blog you'll find a general introduction to our fantasy league rules, an introduction to the ESPN Fantasy Basketball app set-up, and what to expect from this blog throughout the season. 

Lets jump into it!

League Info:

Name - Halal Hoopers AFK Fantasy Basketball League

# of Teams - 12

Draft Day - Monday, October 20th

Draft Time - 8:30pm CST

Draft Format - Snake ( Draft Order will be determined 1 hour prior to the draft )

Fantasy Format - Head-to-Head Points (whichever team has the most fantasy points by weeks end wins)

Divisions - 2 ( East vs West )

Schedule - TBD

Rule Settings - Standard ESPN NBA scoring

Trade Rules - We will be enforcing a super majority (three-fifths) to approve trades and other ordeals (minimum 7 votes required to pass a decision).

What to Expect from this blog:

Weekly Power Rankings:

The ESPN app offers a ranking system based on Wins and Losses already, however I've often found that the ranking system based on wins and losses doesn't do justice to how good a team actually is. So i'll be doing my own power ranking weekly based on fantasy point accumulation that hopefully helps give a better picture of which teams are to be feared and which ones are paper tigers.

Trade Analysis:

I think the sign of a good league is the number of trades that take place within it, so I highly encourage trades to happen in our league. For the ones that get completed I'll offer my thoughts on them, provide trade grades and additional insights.

Mid-Season/End-of-Season Awards:

Self explanatory, but expect to be rewarded for having the best scoring team, the best team name, best trade, the best waiver wire pickup and more!

End of Season Retrospective:

At the end of the season I'll recount our journey regardless if lives up to the hope or not and pinpoint what went wrong and what went right. Even if this league isn't successful, I'm sure there will be lessons to be taken away for future Fantasy Sport leagues.

Keep in mind your feedback and suggestions will help drive the content - I look forward to everyone's thoughts throughout the season.

Helpful Tips and Tricks for New Team Owners:

- A Fantasy Basketball Match typically lasts 1 Week (Exceptions are made during all-star week and during playoffs)

- You are only scored on players who are active (not benched) for that particular day

- You can bench and start players up until their real NBA games begin. Once a game starts that player is locked

- Transactions (Trades of Waiver Pickups) completed after the first real NBA game begins will not be in effect till the next morning.

- Waiver order is based on an automated round robin system. Free agents (non-waiver) are on a first to select first to receive system.

Quick Reference Guides:

ESPN FANTASY BASKETBALL FAQ

ESPN FANTASY BASKETBALL HOW TO PLAY

HOW TO USE THE ESPN FANTASY APP (Video)