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New Draft Tools Including Mock Draft Simulator & Board Creator

October 24, 2020 by Zach @fanspo

New Draft Tools

Fanspo has now expanded into providing resources for the NBA draft! With similar features as our trade machine, you can share, rate and comment on your draft creations. This post provides a summary of the changes.

 


 

New Draft Pages

We have now added a variety of draft resources, including a list of draft prospects, detailed player breakdowns, team needs, official draft order and of course new tools to share, rate and comment on (Mock Draft Simulator, Draft Big Board Creator).

New Draft Pages Dropdown

 

Draft Big Board Creator

You can now create and manage your very own NBA Draft Big Board! View the list of available draft prospects and make decisions on where you think they should be ordered among the draft class. Add notes to each individual player to be placed along side your shared big board. Go back to this page at any time while logged in to continually adjust and modify your rankings. Once saved, you can even use your big board in our mock draft simulator! Add a title and description to your draft board to give it some context and clarity for other users who may come across it.

Draft Big Board Creator

 

Once saved, you can view your draft board using the custom link provided. It can now also be found on the Mock Draft Big Boards page or pinned to the top of your user profile. Below is an example of what your draft big board would look like to other users on the site. This is the page that tracks views and allows users to rate and comment on it.

User Draft Big Board

 

When shared, your draft big board will be featured on the Mock Draft Big Boards page, with a custom generated image displayed relating to your top five players.

Mock Draft Big Boards Page

 

Mock Draft Simulator

You can now simulate your very own NBA Draft! Go through what NBA front offices experience on draft night and make your selections for your favorite team, lottery teams, first round or even the full draft. Leave and come back as you choose, since the current state of your draft selections will be preserved until you complete or restart the draft. You may add custom notes for every selection and those notes will be shown in the final result as well as your post when shared using the custom share link.

Mock Draft Simualtor

 

Choose between the following options to start your draft. You can select "Lottery", to only go through the first 16 selections, select "First Round" to go through the first 30 selections, and "Full Draft" to go through all 60 picks. The draft order selected determines the order teams will be placed in to pick players. Currently, only using the official draft order is supported. Custom order creation and support is coming soon. Finally, choose the draft board you would like to use when making your picks. You can choose from one of the internally managed draft boards that contain the ranking other sites currently have for players, or you can select your own draft board (if created and saved). Note that we are not affiliated with any of these official board sites and are simply just keeping track of their board orders to allow users to get an idea of what credentialed media outlets are reporting. You may find the links to these official board sites in their board details if you would like to go directly to the site for the related board. Please view and support these official board sites being linked by visiting their website for more content.

Mock Draft Simulator Options

 

Once you have made all of your picks in the draft, you will be greeted with the final result. You can then click the "SAVE DRAFT" button to generate a custom link for your draft. Saving the draft will also give you the option to include a title and description with your mock draft. Please make sure to use the generated link when sharing your result, as the link in the browser url is only for the mock draft simulator itself.

Mock Draft Result

 

When using your shared link, or viewing a mock draft from the Mock Drafts page, your mock draft will look like the following post below. This is the page that tracks views and allows users to rate and comment on it.

Mock Draft Shared Result

 

When shared, your mock draft will be featured on the Mock Drafts page, with a custom generated image displayed relating to the players you selected in the first five picks.

Mock Drafts Page

 

Filtering & Sorting Posts

When logged in, you can filter mock drafts and draft big boards by users that you are following or by fans of your favorite team.

Mock Drafts and Boards Filtering

 

You can sort posts by newest, most viewed, most likes, most dislikes, most comments and highest ratings. The time period can be all time, this month, this week or just today.

Mock Drafts and Boards Sorting

 

You can click on the "FILTERS" button on the mock drafts page to filter posts by simulation type.

Mock Drafts Filtering Example

 

You can click on the "FILTERS" button on draft big boards page to filter them by creation type.

Mock Drafts and Boards Filtering

 

Draft Prospects

View the draft prospects page to see the list of players available in the upcoming draft along side some at a glance stats. Filter the list by position and sort by name or age. Click on a player to view their full profile and breakdown, along with official board rankings.

NBA Draft Prospects

 

See some common traits and comparable players for a draft propect. Player images can be clicked on to see more about the player they are being compared too.

Propect Traits and Comparisons

 

See where they fall on popular big boards from other top sports sites. Note that we are not affiliated with any of these official board sites and are simply just keeping track of their board orders to allow users to get an idea of what credentialed media outlets are reporting. You may find the links to these official board sites in their board details if you would like to go directly to the site for the related board. Please view and support these official board sites being linked by visiting their website for more content.

Prospect Big Board Rankings

 

Team Needs

View the new team needs page to see a list of all 30 teams with the positions they are in need of and at what level of severity that need is.

NBA Draft Team Needs

 

Draft Order 2020

View the current draft order for the full draft on this page, including details about traded picks and more.

NBA Draft Order

 

New post types

As discussed previously, along with trades, users can now create, share, comment on and rate the following types of posts.

  • Mock Draft

  • Draft Big Board

 


 

New Pages

The following pages have now been added. These pages include in-depth information about draft prospects, draft tooling and more.

 

Updated Pages

The user profile page has now been updated to show your draft big board at the top of your profile along with created trades and mock drafts below it. Also, the ability to follow and block users has been made available. Should you have any questions or need assistance regarding these features or abuses of them, please reach out to support.

Followers Drop Down

 

Here's an example of what the followers/following section looks like on your user profile or others. You can switch between the two tabs similar to other social sites and follow or unfollow users as well as see who is currently following you on another users profile.

Followers Following Example

 

The user profile page now displays their draft board at the top (if created). A users created trades and mock drafts will now be shown below it.

New Look User Profile

 

Feedback

Feel free to leave any feedback about the changes by commenting on this post, reaching out via the support email, or talk to me on twitter.