Fullcourt Press is our weekly look at the latest headline news from around the league. We'll examine stat trends, injuries, depth chart battles and schedule breakdowns, along with notable performances throughout the NBA season and offseason.

As Fantasy diehards have shifted their full-time attention to the diamond, this week's Fullcourt Press will reflect on the past season and offer ideas for improvements within your own commissioner leagues.

In my March 28 column, I asked for feedback from some of our loyal Fantasy Basketball owners regarding unique custom rules they've implemented within their leagues. The feedback was terrific, and I'm happy to share with you several original ideas that you can employ within your hoops leagues.

Eric Clark, St. Louis: Fantasy Basketball is infamous for mid-week injuries. Too many times, teams set their lineup on Monday, only to have one or several of their best players forced to the sidelines early in the week. This is a major inconvenience and can decide the outcome of several match-ups throughout the season. In order to avoid this, out league has instilled a rule that will allow each team to create a Substitution Bench. In essence, each owner will establish before the week starts a three-man reserve list that can be used if one to three of your starters suffers a mid-week injury. For example, if you are starting Jermaine O'Neal one week and he sustains a sprained ankle on Tuesday that could keep him out for two weeks. Instead of keeping J.O. active for that week and getting zero points, you could replace him with a player off your reserves. The only stipulations are (1) you must submit your Replacement Bench players before the week starts, and (2) you can only use replace a starter if they get injured -- the Sportsline.com NBA injury list is a helpful source here.

M.L.: Without a doubt, injuries can make or break your season in Fantasy. This is truly an original and effective way of bypassing this problem. Many leagues use daily-lineup transactions to avoid being stuck with an injured player in their active lineup, but this is just as useful. If you decide to instill this idea within your league, you also have the option of limiting the amount of mid-week Replacement Bench players you could use during a week or throughout the course of the entire season.

Jason, Winnipeg, Canada:: Our league is a keeper format with a closed bid auction draft style. Each of the 12 teams has $100 fantasy dollars with which to bid on up to 15 players (10 active, 5 reserve). You must start two centers, four forwards and four guards. Season starting positions are those designated by the site, but after a player has played five consecutive games at a different position you have the option to change the player to that position. This year alone we have probably seen 5-7 position changes (most of which are changing Fs to Cs). We hold free agent drafts on the 15th and first of every month where again we use a closed auction bid system (after the initial draft you get an additional $25.00 fantasy dollars to bid on free agents).

Trading is allowed and there is a hard cap of $175 that a team roster may not exceed. The keeper aspect works as follows: at the beginning of each new season you can keep up to three players, but must add $2.00 to each of their salaries. So eventually the higher priced studs in the league get thrown back into the pool as they become too expensive. We see tons of trading activity prior to the trade deadline where guys will trade good keepers for studs in order to make a run in the playoffs. We use a trade committee as we often have arguments over the fairness of a trade.

M.L.: Auction drafts can definitely be more exciting than snake-style drafts. They are most popular in football and baseball leagues, but can be a nice change of pace for B-Ball leagues as well. Maintaining a budget throughout the season is also a quality way of maintaining parody.

Michael Divorsky, St. Paul, Minnesota: In order to add some excitement to our league's scoring system, we instilled the "break the law" clause. If at any time during the course of the season, one of your players gets arrested, your team is penalized 25 points.

M.L.: Nice - that can be a full-time job for a Fantasy Basketball Commissioner at times. I would have suggested adding categories like double-doubles, triple-doubles or penalizing missed free-throws (the Shaquille factor), but felony drug possessions and domestic abuse charges can be used too ... I guess. Isiah Rider could have scored negative points despite averaging 20.0 PPG.

Commissioners can alter their leagues scoring by going to Scoreboard and selecting Adjust Scoring.

Daniel Gross, Des Moines, Iowa: Last season, our championship game was an absolute blowout because of the fact that most NBA teams rested their studs in the final few days of the season. One team was lucky enough to play with a full roster, but the other team was jam-packed of players that were in street clothes.

We decided to start the postseason one week earlier and have a two-week final period to remove this situation. With this year's final period actually being 10 days, our finals last a full 17 days (ultimate two periods).

M.L.: Several teams contacted me regarding this strategy during the championship period. I, however, feel that 17 days is a bit too extensive. The finals should be as consistent time period as every other week. Since the final period of the season lasted 10 days, consider removing the final three days and ending your season on the final Sunday.

Jason J Pittman, Detroit: Our League, "Sports Fans Worldwide", allows for owners to request a position change for swingmen at two points in the year, once before the start of the regular season and once during the All-Star break. Each team can transition as many players as they want but that player must have both positions listed on the NBA.com site. For example, Emeka Okafor was listed as F-C. The owner may select either position, but they are obligated to that position until the next position change period.

M.L.: CBS Sportsline.com gets their rosters directly from the NBA before the season starts. We list players' eligibility exactly how their NBA team lists them during the preseason. Injuries and a team's personnel movement can change a player's role at any time, so it's essentially up to the commissioner of the Fantasy league to instill rules to modify this.

NBA.com is a great source of information for this throughout the season. It allows teams with players like Chris Bosh, Amare Stoudamire and Tim Duncan the opportunity to play at the thinner center position.

Sam Applegate, Hartford: Every season, the winner of our league has the opportunity to establish a new rule to our ever-growing constitution. Two years ago, our champion decided to have our league have a college-player draft. After the eighth period of the season, we have a one-day draft determined by the reverse of the league's standings. The team in last place has the first pick, the second-to-last place has the second pick, etc ...

Each team can then keep three players from their NBA roster -- as well as the lone college player. That college player can then be retained heading into the following season for the initial eight weeks without counting as a roster spot.

M.L.: This is my favorite idea so far. Every part of this process is done in a fair manner. It's vital to select a college player that will be (1) successful at the next level and (2) will actually declare the NBA draft -- it's a wasted selection if the player decides to stay in school another year.

The commissioner can use the Add Unlisted Player feature located under Transactions and Add/Drop.

Matt Jankun, Atlanta: I am the commish of a 16-team league and we have found a great solution for position changes of players. In order to change a player's position that player needs to start four straight games at the new position. Once that happens the owners send me a message and I change the position of the player. It has seemed to work great for us the last 4 seasons, and this gives players like Amare and Jermaine a chance to be #1 centers.

M.L.: This is another great way to determine the position change. For players that do not start, their positions will not be listed within the boxscores. In these situations, it should be up to the commissioner to determine if a position change is allowable. For example, Jerry Stackhouse was utilized as the Mavericks offensive spark plug off the bench. Due to the fact he didn't start, NBA.com will not list his position within the boxscores. However, a well-informed commissioner should have the knowledge that Dallas uses Stack as a swingman -- both guard and forward -- so he would still be a perfect candidate for multi-position eligibility.

Steve Alexander, Dahlonega, Ga: Our league allows two keepers per year, and after the second year a player is on your team, they're thrown back into the pool ... and if you keep a 12th rounder from this year, you have to give up your 11th round pick next year. Keeping an 8th rounder means you forfeit your 7th rounder, and so forth. Therefore, a first rounder can't be kept the following year. That keeps the superstars in the draft and the fact you can only have a guy for two years keeps the draft interesting and fun, which is usually the highlight of everyone's season anyway. It's no fun to go into the draft with all the good players already gone, or to know one or two teams are already much better than everyone else's.

M.L.: I firmly believe that contracts are important within keeper leagues. A player should only be able to be kept for a specific amount of time (two or three years). This keeps competition fair. If a team has Kevin Garnett or LeBron James, they have an obvious advantage. This allows every team a fair opportunity to land one of the game's elite superstars.

Brian Meahan, Boston: The only thing more frustrating than having to face the team that scores the most points that week, is being the team that scores the second most. The luck of the schedule can honestly be a major force in determining the league's playoffs.

In order to avoid the headache of outscoring 90 percent of the league and still registering a loss, our league uses the Breakdown within the standings. Here, the site shows how each team would fare if they were to play every team, every week. The top-four teams with the best overall record advance to our postseason.

M.L.: I'm a firm believer that Rotisserie leagues are a more just and fair style of play than head-to-head Fantasy leagues. Determining your standings like this removes the "luck" factor almost completely. This is a very rational way of determining your league's playoff bracket. However, the playoffs should be played in a in the standard h2h manner.

David Butler, Silver Springs, Maryland: A two-thirds majority (8 of 11 teams) must approve all off-season rule changes. A unanimous vote is required to make in-season rules changes. A 90% majority (10 of 11 teams) is required to approve expansion. Our league is a keeper format where each team must carry six players over from one season to the next. Each team must "own" at least seven players when the annual draft begins. The extra player is necessary to support possible expansion drafts. NBA.com's opening night team rosters are the official source of players' position eligibility. Players listed at two positions can be used at either position. Players with dual position eligibility may be switched from one position to another whenever a line-up is being set - at the start of the season, at the start of a new period, or when replacing a player.

M.L.: David emailed me his entire constitution -- which was about the size of War and Peace. I just copied a couple of his better rules that we have not already discussed. Deciding league issues with majority voting is the most diplomatic way of solving issues. If a commissioner has the complete trust of the league members, he/she should make the call. If the trust is not there, league voting is the only way to go.

Please e-mail your unique commissioner rules to Matt Lawrence at fullcourt@sportsline.com. Be sure to put Attn: Full Court in the subject field. We will highlight some of the more interesting ideas in Fullcourt Press when the Fantasy season comes to its conclusion.

Matt Lawrence is the champion of the 2005 Sportsline.com Head-to-head Experts Fantasy Basketball League.