The National Fantasy Football Championship (NFFC) and National Fantasy Baseball Championships (NFBC) are about as official as it gets for Fantasy Sports competitions. They are run by Greg Ambrosius and Krause Publications. Greg has been the editor of Fantasy Sports Magazine since its inception in 1989 and was the founder of the Fantasy Sports Trade Conference in the year 2000. In 2001, he was elected to the Fantasy Sports Hall of Fame and in 2002 he became president of the Fantasy Sports Trade Association. Krause Publications is the world's largest hobby publisher, with more than 60 periodicals, 15 hobby shows and 750 reference and how-to books. They are well established in the fantasy sports industry with a full slate of magazines, online games and live drafts.

Both the NFFC and NFBC feature 350-400 fantasy teams drafting live simultaneously and competing for a $100,000 grand prize and over $500K - $750K in overall prize money. While I've never competed in either contest, I know that they attract the most die-hard fantasy owners out there. Unfortunately, there is no National Fantasy Basketball Championship. As far as fantasy sports goes, basketball has always lagged behind baseball and football. Hopefully that will change soon, because I want to compete against the best of the best. Until then, we have to settle for an Unofficial National Fantasy Basketball Championship.

Starting in 2005-06, Greg Ambrosius kindly decided to organize an NBA Fantasy Championship using similar rules to the NFFC and NFBC but on a much smaller scale. Naturally, I jumped at the chance to participate. For the first year, there were just 24 total teams (2 leagues x 12). My team, A Tribe Called Evil, finished in 2nd place overall and 2nd place in my league, just 1 roto point behind the winner. The guy who won my league (Brian Oldenski) also happened to be the $100,000 grand prize winner of the '05 Fantasy Baseball Championsip. That year, my top 2 picks (Yao Ming and Baron Davis) missed a total of 53 games and my 11th round pick (Nene) played 2 minutes and then missed the rest of the season (torn ACL), but my team stayed afloat thanks to breakthrough years from Memo Okur, Gerald Wallace, and Chris Kaman.

In 2006-07, I got the 1st overall pick and, like almost everyone else, drafted LeBron James to build my team around. My 2nd and 3rd round picks (Michael Redd and Josh Smith) weren't that great either because they missed a total of 39 games, but I made up for it by drafting Caron Butler in the 4th round, Carloos Boozer in the 5th round, Deron Williams in the 6th round, Kevin Martin in the 8th round, and Leandro Barbosa in the 11th round. Unfortunately, LeBron's sub-70% FT shooting was too much to overcome. For the 2nd year in a row, I finished in 2nd place overall (out of 36 teams), but also 2nd place in my league. It's okay though, because my Tribe is coming to dominate in '07-08!