There's only 1 fair way to pay out the prizes in your fantasy basketball or hockey league

There’s a dilemma popping up in fantasy hockey and basketball leagues everywhere when it comes to doling out prizes now.

How do you pay out the winner(s) based on regular season results when the regular season ends abruptly, slamming the door shut on your league before it was ever finished?

I’m here to be your judge and arbiter. If you’re having this argument in your league now that the NHL has declared its regular season over, or when the NBA figures out its schedule, consider this the impartial vote in your matter.

There’s one way to do this, and it’s the only fair way: You have to pay out the winner AND the top contenders with a more even share.

Let’s say the payment structure in your rotisserie-style league was third place gets their money back, second gets a third of the pot and first place gets the rest. The way to adjust is to split the pot up more equally among teams one to four. Maybe fourth place gets their buy-in back, third place makes a higher percentage and so on up the line. First place still gets the biggest share, but not as big if your fantasy season was finished.

In a league with head-to-head formats, you can pay out the teams that were in playoff spots ahead of your fantasy postseason. Again, top team gets the biggest slice of pie.

Will this anger the owner in first place? Probably! But the point here is you have to pay for what didn’t happen. You don’t know if that first place team might have collapsed late in the season or if the fringe contender would have snuck into the playoffs and upset the top seed. If the owner is really mad, give him or her the league trophy if it matters that much.

(Also, as I said above, show this post and maybe it’ll help!)

I’m thinking about it like the NHL and NBA — the former has a 24-team structure when the league comes back and I’m hoping the NBA has a play-in format for the bottom playoff seeds.

As Kuiil from The Mandalorian says, I have spoken.