GMTR Readers Fantasy League Draft

Categorized as: Author: Patrick, Fantasy Basketball, Fantasy Draft Cheatsheet 2007, GMTR Leagues
Posted on: October 18th, 2007

The GMTR Readers League draft was held last night. The response to the league was great and the draft went just as well. Here is my attempt at a running diary of the draft.

Pre-Draft: I arrive to the draft room about 15 minutes before it starts and I’m immediately bummed that I’m picking tenth. There goes my dream of drafting Garnett in at least one league. Here is the league’s draft order.

Cantankerous Succubi
The Scrantons
Marvin Barnestormers
NoBloodNoFoul.com
Alpha – Terrance
pradohood
Bonafide Garudas
Will
LuOLcats – Nels
Rondoettes – Patrick
Team Spaghetti
Door Mats

Nels, being the nice guy that he is, offers to trade me Garnett if he’s still available for his pick at number 9. Unless, as he says, “Allan Houston is available.” I’m sure Isiah Thomas is thinking the same thing.

Ten minutes before the start of the draft, the trash talking is flying so fast and furious that I’m not able to keep up with who is saying exact what. Someone makes a joke about what the term “SF” means, which leads to someone saying that it means Special Forces, which leads to someone saying that they’re going to grab Chuck Norris with their first pick, which leads to our first Chuck Norris fact of the night (Guns don’t kill people. Chuck Norris kills People). I already love this league.

With about 30 seconds before the start of the draft, my wife starts a conversation with me about some family I don’t know and their trip to Disney World. She starts the conversation with: “I know you’re busy, but I just want to tell you this…” which is the kiss of death as far as spousal conversations go. She just informed me that what she’s about say is more important than what I’m currently doing, so I’m forced to either listen to her story or start a fight that will last until the end of the week. The story involves some t-shirts that the family made with Mickey Mouse on the front.

9:00: The draft is live! Unfortunately, my wife’s story has not ended. With all the subtlety of a meth addict, I alternate between looking at her and looking at the computer screen every 0.25 seconds. I glance at the screen long enough to see that with the first pick the Cantankerous Succubi take… KG!

9:01: Kobe Bryant goes second to The Scrantons. Marion, LeBron, Dirk, Arenas, Nash, and Amare Stoudemire follow in the span of about 15 seconds. The first round is moving so fast that I’m worried that my wife’s story will last longer than the draft. But then to my relief, either her story ended or she figured that I was a lost cause because she stopped talking at that point. Either way, I’ll take it. Believe it or not, Nels shows what a man he is and takes Allan Houston with the 9th pick. Alright, he actually takes Pau Gasol and his magnificent beard.

9:02: I happily snatch up Dwyane Wade at 10. Of course, if he’s out for more than two weeks to start the season, I might not be so happy.

9:03: Team Spaghetti selects Jason Kidd at 11. The Door Mats finish off the first round with Tim Duncan and start the second with Yao Ming. That’s a nice 14+ feet of foundation for the Door Mats and it’s one of the benefits of being on the end of a serpentine draft. The Door Mats have a much easier time molding a team of complementary players by being able to draft two guys in a row.

9:05: For the second time after calling him out in my Hornets preview, I select Chris Paul in a draft. To my credit, at least Jason Kidd was off the board this time.

9:06: I belch out that Kevin Durant seems to be ranked a little high in the Yahoo rankings. Nels correctly notes my breach of draft etiquette as Durant hasn’t been drafted yet. So instead I quickly write up a post about how Durant is going to be a horrible fantasy player and, like Chris Paul, you’d never want to draft him – all in hope that he falls to me in the fifth round.

9:07: Sensing a potential run on point guards (or maybe he’s a Jazz fan), Will Bonafide Garudas selects Deron Williams with the 18th pick overall. That appears to be the first reach of the night as the point guard run never comes.

9:08: NoBloodNoFoul.com drafts Pierce at 21 and Marvin Barnestormers takes Ray Allen right after him. The Celtics big three are officially off the board eight minutes into the draft and unless I’m in the mood for James Posey, Tony Allen, or Kendrick Perkins, my last shot at drafting a Celtic is now Rajon Rondo.

9:11: Will apparently steals Michael Redd out from under Nels’ nose in the third. With his pick gone, Nels switches gears and takes Dwight Howard. There’s a lot of smack on the board about Howards’ horrible free throw percentage. Nels says that it is all part of his grand strategy. We’ll see about that.

9:16: With time running out on my fourth pick, I panic and take Jason Richardson. He totally screwed me last year and I wasn’t excited about the pick at the time, but the more I think about it, the more I like it. He’ll be the focal point of the Bobcats offense and should be a solid fourth round pick as long as he doesn’t kill my percentages along the way.

9:18: Bonafide selects LaMarcus Aldridge in the 4th. That’s early for him, but at the same time I can’t help but feel jealous. Joel Przybilla is no Greg Oden and Aldridge should have a monster year patrolling the post for the Blazers.

9:19: Ron Artest goes in the fourth to NoBloodNoFoul. He notes that Artest is unstoppable both on an off the court and follows that up with a joke about how is ex-wife couldn’t block any of his punches. NoBloodNoFoul is officially on fire on the message board.

9:20: Marvin Barnestormers is apparently wise to my game as he takes Kevin Durant. Again, I’m jealous as Durant seems like he’d be a really fun player to have on your team this year.

9:21: Cantankerous Succubi selects Tyson Chandler with the first pick in the fifth. With that, all of the upper-ish tier centers are now gone. From the reaction on the board, it seems like a lot of people were planning on taking Chandler with their fifth round pick. Groans all around.

9:23: Brandon Roy, Manu Ginobili, Jason Terry, Leandro Barbosa go in order in the 5th. With Chandler off the board, we’ve got a run on guards.

9:26: Nels selects Sheed in the fifth and immediate says he doesn’t like the pick. It’s all part of his master plan, though, to make picks that he doesn’t like. I follow Sheed with Lamar Oden and feel lucky he’s still available at the end of the 5th. Here’s to Kobe being traded!

9:31: Things start to slow down a little in the sixth. Team Spaghetti selects one of my favorite guys out there – Andris Biedrins. With Biedrins gone, it seemed like a good place for me to select Mehmet Okur, especially in a league that starts two centers. Bonafide makes a comment about Okur’s hot wife, which gets me curious enough to google her. Yep, she’s a former Miss Turkey and she’s smoking.

9:37: In a move reminiscent of Nels’ Dropping Dimes Experts Draft, NoBloodNoFoul comments he has no big men yet. Well he goes with Ben Wallace as his first center in the 7th. I would be a little scared to count on Wallace as my C1, but NoBloodNoFoul is confident that Wallace will be rejuvenated this year with his headband back in play.

9:41: Nels ruins my dreams (as well as my team’s name) by stealing Rondo right before my pick. The board is really getting on Nels for his teams horrible free throw percentage so far, but I’m beginning to see what he’s going for.

9:43: Bonafide selects David Lee and then admits he has a man crush on him. I think we’ve just crossed a line.

9:50: Round 8 is being sponsored by Vioxx as Nene Hilario, Peja Stojakovic, Stephon Marbury, Chris Kaman, Nenad Krstic, and Andres Nocioni all go in the round. I draft Brad Miller to keep the theme going.

10:01: With Okur and Brad Miller on my team, I could really use a big man that actually acts like one. I’m nervously waiting for Al Horford to fall to me in the 10th. And… no. The Door Mats snatch him up two picks before me and receive and round of praise for that pick. Damn. I respond by selecting Kyle Korver in the 10th. Korver? Clearly, losing out on Horford has left me momentarily dazed.

10:02: Nels channels his inner Chad Ford and selects Marco Belinelli, a 21 year old Euro with some legit NBA-level skills. I heard Nels was taking some secret scouting trips to Italy earlier this summer and now I see why.

10:06: pradahood has done what everyone was thinking about and grabs Elton Brand in the tenth. I had thought about it myself, but with only three bench spots and one Dwyane Wade on my team, it would have been tough to pull off. We’ll see if it works for pradahood.

10:28: In one of the best picks of the draft, NoBloodNoFoul takes Paul Millsap in the 13th. Pradahood and Door Mats note that Millsap is one AK or Boozer injury (or trade in AK’s case) from just exploding.

10:29: Nels jokes that since I’m still in need of a big man, I should draft Shaquille O’Neal, which is interesting because I don’t even see him on the list. No one does. After some investigating, Yahoo put him way, way down on their player rankings at 426. 426! Right after Rashad McCants, who averaged 5 points for the Wolves in 15 minutes a game last year. Someone appears to hate Shaq at Yahoo.

10:30: Nels drafts Shaq.

10:34: And with the last pick in the 13th round, the Door Mats select Alonzo Mourning

So there it is. A twelve-team draft in an hour and a half. Not bad at all. The board was active throughout the draft, so much so that I couldn’t capture even a quarter of the witty comments that we’re being made while stilling drafting my team. A suggested improvement to Yahoo – let people copy the message board, or at the very least, don’t kick people out of the draft room immediately following the draft. That would have made things easier.

So, this is the team I ended up with:

Rondoettes – Patrick
1. (10) Dwyane Wade
2. (15) Chris Paul
3. (34) Jermaine O’Neal
4. (39) Jason Richardson
5. (58) Lamar Odom
6. (63) Mehmet Okur
7. (82) Ricky Davis
8. (87) Brad Miller
9. (106) Jamal Crawford
10. (111) Kyle Korver
11. (130) Charlie Villanueva
12. (135) Brevin Knight
13. (154) Ronald Dupree (since dropped)

Overall, it’s a solid if unexciting team. If Richardson, Miller, and possibly Villanueva can bounce back this year, it should be a competitive, especially when Wade returns. I went into the draft trying to keep my percentages up, and while I haven’t run the numbers yet, my field goal percentage looks to be pretty bad. Also, I could still use a big man who can block some shots so I don’t lose that category every week.

Best Pick:
I enjoyed getting Brevin Knight at pick number 135. Knight is always an injury risk, but I don’t see Sam Cassell doing much this year.

Worst Pick:
None were horrible, but I’m not sure where I was going with Jamal Crawford other than “he’s going to be playing a lot of minutes so I might as well draft him.” Considering I missed out on Horford in the 10th, I should have went with him instead of Crawford.

I want to thank everyone who participated in the draft. It was a whole lot of fun for me. If anyone wants to talk about the draft or your team (what you like about it, best/worst pick, etc), free feel to do so in the comments. It’d be great to hear from you.

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