My latest study for the Yahoo! Contributor Network is intended to quantify the impact of rest on fantasy basketball production. The results are interesting. Check it out.

I wrote another article for the Yahoo Contributor Network that studies how stars in the NBA rebound from bad games. Have a look.

In the interest of full disclosure, I’m writing for the DraftDay NBA Blog. I thought it would be a good idea to write a post introducing daily fantasy to those fantasy enthusiasts not yet familiar with the format.

There is a battle brewing in fantasy sports between season-long games and daily (or weekly) games like the ones that DraftDay hosts. For football, the season-long format still makes a lot of sense due to the repetitive timeline of the NFL season (games, waivers, set lineup, rinse & repeat). But for the NBA, MLB and NHL, the daily format is attractive for a few reasons:

1. You don’t have to manage your team every day. Some NBA, MLB and NHL leagues require daily lineups/waivers and that can be too much for the casual fantasy owner. Daily fantasy allows owners to play on their terms. Have a rough day at work and don’t have time to set your lineup? No harm, no foul — the game will still be there tomorrow. And since there is no draft to attend, you can set your lineup whenever you want.

2. You’re not stuck with underperforming or injured players. Owners with Stephen Curry and/or Eric Gordon know what I’m talking about. Sure, your daily fantasy lineup could be derailed for a night by a surprise pre-game or in-game injury, but the next day you can start fresh with a new lineup. A bad (or injured) second round pick won’t haunt you for an entire season.

3. Want a particular stud? You can have him – for a price. Typical daily fantasy games give owners a salary cap that they can spend on several different players to set their lineups. That means if you want LeBron James or Kevin Love, you can have him, but you’ll have to sacrifice salary elsewhere. Should you go with a lineup that features several studs along with several cheap players? Or should you go with a balanced lineup that features solid, low-upside players across the board. These are the decisions you’ll have to make as a daily fantasy owner.

Let me walk you through the process…

This the draft screen for “World B Free,” which is DraftDay’s daily freeroll. The payout isn’t huge, but there’s no entry fee, so it’s a great way to get your feet wet and see how you do.

The list of players is on the right along with each player’s price. You start with $100,000 to spend. As you can see, I started my lineup with Kevin Martin (who has been hot), Derrick Brown (cheap starter for the Bobcats) and Shawn Marion (who has had to step it up with Dirk Nowitzki out). The site shows how much payroll you have left along with the average for each remaining player. That helps to minimize the guesswork when picking players since you know what kind of range you should be looking at.

So now I’ve filled out my roster with Tony Parker, Kemba Walker, Landry Fields, LeBron James, DeMarcus Cousins and Amar’e Stoudemire. Once I hit Submit Lineup, my lineup is…well…submitted. Now it’s time to see how my lineup fares…

My team is on the left while the winning team is on the right. I finished 126th out of 1500 entries with a final score of 230.75. This lineup was good enough to finish 14th out of 111 entries in DraftDay’s “Double-Double” — owners who have lineups that finish in the top 50 double their money.

Scoring is fairly straightforward, with one point for each point scored, rebound, assist, and three-pointer made, and two points for each steal and block. Players are penalized 0.25 points for each missed field goal, 0.5 points for each missed free throw and one point for each turnover. Complete scoring rules can be found here.

So it’s that easy. Why not enter DraftDay’s Friday freeroll and see for yourself?

I wrote my first fantasy basketball article for the Yahoo Contributor Network (YCN) which calculates the increase in production for players playing at home versus playing on the road.

I think it turned out well. Take a look. (Click the table in the upper right to see a bigger version.)