Lowery hooked on Beat the Coach

I've never played fantasy sports in my life … until now.

All of my mates play and every year they invite to play fantasy NFL and NBA, and I declined the offer every time because I felt like it was too big of a commitment. My mates would tell me about all the hilarious banter and trash talking that took place in the group chats and I thought that would be fun.

Beat The Coach, presented by Choice Hotels™, is the best of both worlds.

I usually don’t like things when they’re easy, but playing Beat the Coach, presented by Choice Hotels™, is easy to play. First of all, if your life is particularly busy one week, then you don’t have to play. The beauty of this format is, you can play whenever you feel like it.

Another easy aspect of this game is you only have to pick six players. There is a salary cap that you have to manage, and I quickly learned that I just couldn’t go spending money willy nilly.

I think deep down all sports fans are ‘couch’ GMs, we constantly criticise our favourite team’s player personnel decisions. Playing Beat the Coach, I’m the GM and I rarely criticise myself.

I’ve always loved basketball and have played it since I was 10 years old. I grew (not much) into a point guard, so I have always seen the game from the lens of a pg. I play fantasy from a similar lens, but I’ve learned some fantasy strategies. I look at the player’s strengths, attitudes and, most importantly, the role they play in their team. I’m learning how to separate the ‘real’ game from the ‘fantasy’ game.

I literally watch every single NBL game because I love it, used to play in the league, and now I work for the league.

When it comes to picking my Beat the Coach team I have a few things to consider

1. How much is the stud player going to cost me?

2. I have to have two studs in my team every week

3. How’s the player’s form? Are they in a slump, or are they playing lights out basketball?

4. This is a big one – How many games are they playing in the round? If I have two studs to choose from, but one is playing once and the other is playing twice, I’m going with the player with the two games for obvious reasons.

All of those considerations normally take about 10 minutes, but since I’m a highly competitive beast, it could take me 30 minutes to settle on a team.

Register to play, its great fun. You might beat me, but there’s a very big chance you won’t.

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