Give Me The Rock
this is fantasy basketball
My third and final fantasy basketball league conducted an auction the other night. Not many leagues run an auction, probably because you have to get everyone in the same room or on a conference call to make it work, but when they’re done right, it’s much more involved and intense than a draft.
The auction went down like this. It is a roto league that consists of 10 teams with 10 starters and 5 bench players each. Teams had $75 bucks to bid on as many or as few players as they wanted – however – if a team ran out of money they have to pick up their remaining players off wavers. So, there is certainly an incentive to not run out of money. Each keeper was $5. Every team took a turn, selected a player, and started the bidding. Bidding progressed until the high bid won. You can see there is some strategy in selecting players, starting bids, and knowing when to bid and when not to.
My basic strategy going into the auction was to go hard after a few of the top guys (especially Marion, Arenas, and Brand) and then fill the rest of my team with role players and sleepers. The rational was that the top guys: 1) went at a discount the past couple of years, and 2) were as sure things as you could get. I figured I could target enough sleepers to fill out the remaining 8 to 10 spots without too much trouble.
The plan did not go as I imagined – here’s what I ended up with:
Jason Richardson (keeper) – $5
Tracy McGrady – $9.25
Jermaine O’Neal – $9.50
Peja Stojakovic – $6.75
Ron Artest – $4.25
Josh Smith – $5.00
Stephon Marbury – $6.00
Ricky Davis – $4.00
Al Harrington – $4.75
Nenad Krstic – $3.25
Darko Milicic – $2.25
Mike Miller – $2.00
Andres Nocioni – $2.50
Luol Deng – $3.00
Josh Childress – $0.25
Total Spent – $67.75 ($7.25 remaining)
For some perspective, the bidding started with Kobe at $12.50, followed by Wade at $12.00, and Yao Ming at $12.25. A little later in the auction, Lebron was won for $15.75, Paul Pierce and Ray Allen for $13 each, Chris Paul for $12, Kevin Garnett for $16.25, and Brand went for $15.50. Arenas’ name didn’t get called until the back end of the auction, and by then a few guys with money to burn (one of whom may have been me) drove his price all the way to $17. Arenas was only the second most costly player though, as Marion went mid-auction for a whopping $17.25.
Despite any planning and good intentions that I might have had, no one wants to be the guy who goes out and blows half their budget right out of the gate. Kobe ended up being a steal at $12.50 and even my own calculations put his value around $14-15, but since he was the first guy out there, I threw in the towel after my bid of $12.25. Instead, I horded my money waiting for Marion and Arenas. Unfortunately, so did a couple of other teams, and a bidding war ensued for those guys. After I lost out on both Arenas and Marion, I was left with a bunch of money and bunch of mid-rounders on my team. Lesson #1: Don’t wait until the end of an auction to spend your money.
Overall, I see three glaring problems with my team:
1. In my fascination in looking for good value, I broke the cardinal rule of auctions: I left money on the table. A lot really, $7.25. That’s just horrible planning on my part. If I had used my money a little better, I could have gotten Kobe or Wade in exchange for someone like Al Harrington.
2. Also notice that I don’t have a single first rounder on my team. I’m not happy about that, especially since I could have had Kobe or Wade with a little better planning (see point 1).
3. The stars and planets need to align in harmony for this team to do well. If McGrady and O’Neal are healthy, if Peja and Marbury bounce back, if Artest doesn’t kill someone, if all the kids step it up, this team might be on to something. It’s never good to have that many things that need to go right for your team to do well.
What am I happy about? Well, I was able to achieve my goal of drafting Darko in each of the three leagues I’m in. I’m feeling the positive vibrations all the way from Orlando. And it’s not actually a bad team; I took enough chances that luck would dictate someone has to step it up, stay healthy, bounce back, whatever. Plus, I have a deep enough team that if someone should be a disappointment (almost guaranteed) I can swap in a decent bench guy like Miller or Deng on not miss out on too much. I just hope I’ll have enough firepower with my starting 10 to make some noise.
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