October 31, 2005
The NBA.com is hosting a NBA Cares Celebrity Fantasy League.
Is it any suprise Pamela Anderson takes Ron Artest in the second round? Can’t stay away from the bad boys… What I really want to know is how did Bill Simmons get away with Ricky Davis in the 11th round? I guess that’s what happens when Pam Anderson and Star frickin Jones (Reynolds) are in your league. Samuel Jackson is a baller with Elton Brand at number 19. He’s going to be laughing at Matthew Modine all season for taking Yao right before him. Of course, Star provided some of the best (worst?) of the ridiculous picks: Shaq number 6, and Amare at number 46, before recovering with Donyell Marshall and Kyle Korver in the 12th and 13th rounds. Another baller move from Sammy J: Andrew Iguodala at #79.
Matthew Modine was picking like he knew what was what about 2 years ago, but didn’t bother to update his cheatsheets from back then. Possibly worse picks than Star…
#3: Allen Iverson
#18: Yao Ming
#23: Chris Webber
#38: Marcus Camby
#43: Jamal Crawford
#58: Jerry Stackhouse
#63: Jalen Rose (the only appropriate pick so far)
#78: Tayshaun Prince (2 good picks in a row! Is that enough to salvage the 6 that came before?)
#83: Antoine Walker (could be a good pick, but just adds more risk to an already risky portfolio)
#98: Nenad Krstic (played well for a little while last year, but let’s remember that Kidd, Vince and Jefferson will all be playing at the same time for the majority of the season)
#103: Hedo Turkoglu (this is good insurance for Grant Hill)
#118: Trevor Ariza (probably shouldn’t be picked in a 13 round draft)
#123: Earl Boykins (at least he didn’t take Earl Watson)
I wonder how many people besides Modine, Simmons and Turasi actually picked their own teams…
October 26, 2005
I first spotted this in NBA Source, so I’m giving them the credit for it. Milwaukee has traded Desmond Mason to New Orleans/Oklahoma City for Jamaal Magloire.
And here’s your Carival of the Trade:
Tony Mejia from Sportsline
Fantasy Basketball Coach breaks it down:
Desmond Mason is now THE man on the Hornets. Don’t be surprised to see lots of 20 + points per game with a still decent shooting percentage.
Are we talking about the same Desmond Mason? His career high is 17 points and he’s going to somehow get to 20 just because there aren’t any good players on his team? I think with Chris Paul, JR Smith, PJ Brown, and Chris Andersen in the starting lineup with Mason, there’s some guys who can score besides Mason. Yes, his value goes up a lot after leaving Milwaukee, but let’s not go hog wild before we see how many shots he gets in NO/OC.
FantasyNBA also has some brief analysis:
Now this is a dream come true trade, fantasy wise for owners of Bobby Simmons who will now enjoy the minutes, shots etc. that would have gone to Mason. I can’t see a benefit for Magloire owners, maybe not much damage either.
That’s more like it. No benefit for Magloire owners. Certainly no benefit for owners who picked Gadzuric near the end thinking he’d be a pretty good sleeper when Bogut underperforms this season. And it will be hard for Bogut to outpeform exepectations now with Magloire and Gadzuric competing for minutes. I can see Magloire averaging close to a double-double (probably not more than that, though). The other big guy who gets a big boost is Chris Andersen. With starters minutes, he should be able to produce the same numbers as Magloire last season. He’ll probably get more blocks, and might get more points since his FG and FT percentages are higher than Magloire’s.
Simmons gets a boost in value; I’d say as big as that of Mason. The reason I’m down on Mason is because he’s a chronic underperformer. If he was capable of scoring 20 points, I believe that he should have been closer to doing it already. Redd is a 20 point scorer: he’s done it for the past 2 seasons - in the same lineup that Mason was in. If you look at Mason’s other numbers: 45%, 79%, 4.5 REB, 1.8 AST, 0.7 STL, and 0.3 BLK, there is nothing besides the points that makes him worth taking. He could score 30 points a game and still not crack the first round without bringing the other numbers up. Compare to Simmons: 16, 6, 2.7, 1.4, 0.2 on 44 and 84. You get 1.5 more rebounds, 1 more assist, 0.7 more steals (double Mason’s number) and close to the same blocks with about the same FG and better FT. Even with Redd, there’s not a lot going on with the Bucks that will impact Simmons.
Fortress on Fourth has a quote from Yahoo.
SonicsCentral has 2 sentences on the trade
SI.com has several hundred words on the trade
True Hoop quotes ESPN on the trade
Yahoo has another long article
YAYBasketball is always amusing
The “Outside” World:
Hnk Jr. has some more good fantasy analysis (with specific examples from the Return of the Jedi league
Backdormitory Boys
October 24, 2005
NBA.com (by way of the Talented Mr. Roto) has some good advice on scouting the opposition. And I don’t mean, Jaques Itch, Blue Ballers, or whoever it is you’re playing next week…
The article is a little long (trying to get to a word count, probably), but it comes down to this… if your players are playing against certain teams, they may see a boost in categories where that opponent is particularly week. The main example is the Suns, who, last year, gave up a ton of rebounds because their up-and-down stizzyle meant they took a ton of shots. So, if you’ve got someone playing against the Suns (and maybe the Warriors) in a particular week, you can probably count on that person getting more rebounds than normal. This is good for playing catchup in Roto, and can be useful when used wisely in H2H.
Good teams to get more rebounds against:
- Phoenix Suns
- Golden State Warriors of Oakland
- Toronto Raptors
Teams that will cause your players to have more turnovers:
- Philadelphia 76ers
- Denver Nuggets
- Charlotte Bobcats
Teams that won’t cause your players to have more turnovers:
- Minnesota Timberwolves
- Los Angeles Lakers
October 23, 2005
As promised, the sizzling, scintillating pictorial featuring the hot hot hot players of Give Me The Roq (aka my fantasy team).
Starting things off, Mr. Pro Hop:
I hope to see plenty of that, and maybe some of this:
My second round pick:
The nice thing about Sportsline is they only have the Guard position, so doubling up on point guards in the first two rounds doesn’t hurt too much.
Moving on to round 3:
Next up: Chuke! With another throw down!
I’m hoping he’s moved on past the photo shoots and drinking problem…
But, I guess I’d be okay with drink, dribble, dunk. Chuke!
Speaking of dunking… Throw it down big man! Throw it down!
I took Chandler near the end of the 5th round, which was probably too early, but I let my loyalty to the Bulls take over… and since I do believe that he’ll be an awesome center this year, I think it’s okay. At least for me… if you don’t like the Bulls, I’d wait until the 6th for him. I was able to follow up it up with Tayshaun Prince, though, so I think that probably evens things out… at least in my mind.
The next two rounds were probably my worst of the draft… I took Wally Z (yeah, I know, it starts with an S, whatever) and Primoz. Wally appears to already be injured. Great. I drafted him (as I usually do) on potential. If he plays like I’ve always wanted him to, it’s a good pick… so we’ll see. Primoz was a pretty terrible pick since I already had 2 centers, but the one good thing is he and Okafor are both FC’s so I can play Chandler (who, actually, is also an FC) at C with one of the Bobcats, and put the other Cat at F.
I actually had this poster on my office wall during my internship in 99. It was the only basketball poster in the local one-stop shopping store that didn’t have Kobe Bryant on it. Somewhat suprising since I did live in Portland. Where were the Blazers posters? Yeah…
Back to the Bulls in the next round with Luol Deng. Once again, I wanted a Bull, so I got one. 9th round probably isn’t bad for Deng if he builds on last years excellent season.
Follow that up with another GF, Kyle Korver. Can you tell I’m big on the multi-position players? They can come up huge for you when guys start getting injured. Check out that form:
That’s fantasy points right there.
Another gamble in the 11th round… Sarunas Jasikevicius. His experince should give him a nod at the starting position over Jamaal Tinsley and Anthony Johnson. Even if he doesn’t start the season for the Pacers, he should be shortly. On Sportsline, he didn’t even show up on the “draftable” part of the list in the draft room. Sometimes you have to dig the diamonds out of the mine.
I feel I got a solid 12th rounder here in Haslem. Sure, the Heat appear to be overloaded up front, but it really depends on how you stack the depth chart. At this point, I also want to mention Alonzo Mourning… he is the backup to Shaq, who is certainly not going to play more than the 34 minutes in 73 games he had last season. Mourning went undrafted in my league, and that’s a big reason I wish I hadn’t taken Brezec. I could have taken Chris Paul, Al Harrington, Josh Childress, or even another Bull with Michael Sweetney and then taken Mourning in the last round as my 3rd center. Or I could have moved up the Deng pick to Brezec’s spot, and then gotten Mike James (who I think is going to be awesome in Toronto) in the next round. It was him or Korver and he got taken right before my pick, so I went with Korver. But I could have had both of them is the point. Anyway…
At this point (after the 12th round), I had my 11 starters (yup, that’s right! 11!) filled in, and one sub, so I just tried to fill in the spots where I thought guys might get injured, and simultaneously take the best player available. I think I did okay considering we were up past 156 players at this point…
Derek Anderson:
Trevor Ariza, who will hopefully have more interesting photos in his portfolio after this season:
Gordan Giricek, who might even start for the Jazz for a while this season in the 15th:
And finishing it out with yet another Chicago Bull (I was going to take David Lee, but he got picked right before Giricek. There are rumors that Larry Brown might start him over Malik Rose and Maurice Taylor, or at least have as the backup instead of 3rd string)
October 21, 2005
For those of you just joining us, this is Give Me The Rock. I’m your host, Nels, sometimes referred to as the Kevin Willis of Fantasy Baskblogging.
This [inconsistent time period]’s Carnival brings with it a virtual cavalcade of posts, sure to awe and delight at every click. Read on, my friends… read on…
Is it any surprise we’re going to start things off with the Fantasy Basketblog crew’s Overall Fantasy Rankings starting with 1-30 (and extending through 90, for those souls brave enough to go that far). Those two are always churning out quality fantasy info. Wish I could say the same about this site…
Almost a Carnival in and of itself, 120 Proof Ball has a Roundup. Certainly better than the weed killer by the same name.
Anthony gives us the #3 reason to look forward to the 05-06 season: The Battle for Eastern Supremacy. There’s a lot of “IF”s being thrown around in the post… Seems like anyone could come out on top of the conference. I guess that’s what’s great about the preseason - fans can imagine their team is capable of anything. Well, except for Raptors fans.
Speaking of fan’s preseason predictions, Motoring brings you their (his?) thoughts on the Central Division. Not only does he accurately classify the Central Division as the most competitive in the league, but also, unfortunately, accurately puts the Bulls at #4 in the division. I can’t wait to see Ron Artest and Andres Nocioni going Philly on each other.
And a little more bull…
Chandler a handler? Blog-A-Bull is understandably worried. Even though Chandler is the clear choice to start at Power Forward or Center for the Bulls, Hinrich and Gordon should be passing the ball in to Sweetney to get things started. Despite having vacuums at either end of his wingspan when the ball is up for grabs after a shot, Chandler doesn’t do so well when required to put the ball in the basket from a non-rebounding position. He’s working on it, but he’s still not a better choice than Sweetney as you can see in the game log.
With a recap of an episode that I must have missed (I don’t know how, since it’s my favorite show), SacKingsBlog summarizes NBA Inside Stuff. It’s like TV Guide… with the TV. Thanks for the catchup, Tom. Cause some of us don’t have NBATV. Let alone cable. (Though I would certainly pay for the NBATV channel if I could avoid paying for the rest of the channels I’d never watch) The SportsBlogs network has agreed to take SacKingsBlog without a DNA test, and in return, he agrees to change his URL to SacTownRoyalty.com. Catchy.
Evidently there are at least 30 Power Forwards in the NBA. I might have drafted some of them mere days ago, but didn’t come up with Troy Murphy. GSW Blog says the starting PF for the Warriors is #18 on the list. Also in this post is an introduction to the somewhat controversial “fun” meter.
While we’re in the Bay Area, we’ll stop by The City to see what Dave thinks about the Warriors this year. Perhaps he should have had a poll for readers to vote on which of the 3 scenarios is most likely. If Baron and Dunleavy stay healthy, I’m going to give them somewhere between “back to respectability” and “Chris Mullin sells his soul to the Devil.” I guess either option would make Golden State fans pretty happy, though.
Speaking of 3 things… BBallBlog has a 3 part series on how to Fix the Timberwolves. I’d say it’s a “must-read” for Kevin McHale, except that it involes his termination. So, maybe not so much.
Every team has its ups and downs. You might be in trouble if one of the downs is having a player arrested. But, along with the bad, there are some good things happening in Boston. It can’t be all bad if you’ve got Paul Pierce, Ricky Davis, and Al Jefferson on your team.
We start the Q&A portion of the Carnival with YAYBasketball. In the season preview for the Nets, The Cavalier has part of NBA.com’s Q&A with Lawrence Frank. What a lucky guy. Frank, not The Cavalier.
We’ll end (the Q&A session, and the Carnival) with what I consider the crown jewel of this Carnival… The Get Buckets Brigade continues to display the bravado that makes the Boston bloggers stand out like Lebron and Garnett by bringing us Q&A with Ricky Davis himself. If you don’t think that’s the shit, you must have a stuffed up nose.
October 20, 2005
I couldn’t help but notice NBA Source taking subtle jabs at my fantasy league in his Fantasy Reconstruction post:
We keep it simple and stick to a head-to-head, five-category confederation that consists of points, rebounds, assists, steals, and blocks—all positive statistics. Thus, a player like Allen Iverson is drafted where he should be because he doesn’t have the 4.6 turnovers or poor FG% weighing him down. This makes our draft ridiculously simple because essentially all that’s required is to fill all five categories as best as you can. There are just three rules: take the players who provide the most offense early and often, sprinkle in a few sleepers, and be sure to screw your buddies out of one or two picks. I mean, who wouldn’t want to be a part of this league? So the real question is, why the hell don’t more people set up their leagues to resemble ours? I guess it’s because most managers think you’re “supposed to” take part in a league that factors in negative statistics. But never once do I recall the Fantasy Gods making this imperative. We must never forget that this is a hobby and if things get too complicated to enjoy it, we must be doing something wrong. So with two weeks still separating us from the start of the season, make sure you do your best to enter/create a league with these simplified parameters. Take our word for it that you’ll have the time of your life.
I think he’s just bitter because I got Dwyane Wade in our league and he didn’t. That and he thinks it’s better to let someone draft Luke Ridnour in the second round because that person couldn’t make the live draft than to have a draft that goes for 9 days so people can actaully consider who they want. The draft is the most important part of fantasy basketball and cannot be taken lightly.
On the other hand, we’ve got Hnk Jr. who has a “Charlie Rosen” interpretation of his fantasy team (also in our league), and seems to have enjoyed every second of the gruelling 9 day marathon draft.
Speaking of the league… I thought it would be easier (and I was right) to put the draft results into the GFBE spreadsheet and let you view them their. You can also see what my draft sheet looks like after 9 days of being ripped to shreds at every turn. I told Gabe (who’s an Art Teacher, and now the manager of the freshly dubbed Ligers) that it’s like spreadsheet art. So, hopefully at least one person will appreciate it.
Coming soon: My Team - a pictorial
