I did my first mock draft a couple weeks ago, freshly armed with the player projections and rankings I'd spent the previous month compiling. I was happy with my picks every round, feeling that I was getting value with each selection. But when I took a step back and looked at my draft, eight of my 13 picks were point guard eligible. The reason for that was obvious when I looked the draft over ... in almost every round, the value was with the point guards.
Meanwhile, after the first few rounds, there were rarely forwards available of similar caliber to those guards. My first two picks in that league had been Paul George and Kevin Durant, but only one of my next nine picks would be a forward.
This is the importance of a tiered approach to preparing for drafts. By grouping prospects into tiers before the draft, I'm able to clearly illustrate the phenomenon I noted in that mock draft.
Through the middle parts of the draft, the forward positions are the sparsest of them all so, when deciding between similar caliber players, it might behoove you to lean toward filling the scarcer position with the knowledge that there's a better chance to fill your backcourt with quality a few rounds later.
Bottom line: There's more than one way to build a champion, but one way to do it is to maximize your value at each position based upon where you're picking. Tiers 3-6 contain as many point guards (19) as small forwards (10) and power forwards (9) combined, and by tier 5 the rankings of those forwards is solidly lower than their backcourt counterparts. Keep track of what type of talent might be available at different parts of the draft, and watch for the benefits in your team results. You'll be happy that you did.
The following is my breakdown of players into tiers, by position, based upon my preseason projections. It's worthwhile for you to see how I break things down, but ultimately you'll get the most benefit out of taking a few minutes for yourself and breaking down the players into your own tiers based upon your own valuation.
You would be shocked how much a little exercise like that can do to prepare you for your draft, and how much this 20 minutes could set you apart from the other team managers in your league.