Great work boys,

I had began to wonder if my plan to pick David West in the second round (#24) meant I was reaching a little.

Good to see you guys also have him on the up this season.

I’d certainly agree that West has proven to reliable, and that you can be safe in predicting the sort of numbers he will give your team. What I guess I’m hoping for is that the big games he had in the playoffs (particularly in the San Antonio series) are an indication of potential improvement from a guy who at 28 when the season starts will really be hitting his prime.

Boozer and Jefferson are both popular in my league and will be gone by the time I’m picking. Shame really because even though I’m a little excited to see what West can do the lack of C classification is a real downer.

Thanks again for the Big Board and for the site in general – it’s hard to find quality info / opinions in late july.

TC, I can see why you’re losing faith, but starting your argument with Chris Duhon doesn’t really hit me where it hurts. I’ve removed Delfino and Childress, and added Mayo, so that takes care of the majority of your fairly constructive criticism.

As for Duhon… well, the Knicks are a mess. And even if Duhon got 29 minutes a game, he’d be right about where you say he’d be “at worst.” I see that case as his “at best.” I don’t really believe that D’Antoni will somehow transform the Knicks into a fantasy powerhouse like he did with the Suns. If they get rid of Eddy Curry and Zach Randolph, then I will feel more comfortable moving Duhon up the board. Perhaps I’m just overly critical of Duhon because I had to deal with him as part of the 6-foot-3-and-under 3-guard lineup the Bulls actually put on the floor at times. But the Knicks still have Jamal Crawford (who played 39 minutes in 80 games last season), and Nate Robinson (who played 26 minutes in 72 games), both of whom seem (to me at least) more like D’Antoni type players than Duhon.

The Knicks also have Quintin Richardson at SG (a surefire D’Antoni guy) and Mardy Collins at the more general backup G position. They also just signed the 6-2 guard Anthony Roberson. Even if they dump Stephon Marbury, that’s 6 players for 2 spots and I don’t see how you can get more than 20 minutes for Duhon from that.

Finally, we never claimed to be experts, unless it was sarcastic and/or self-deprecating. Sorry if you got the wrong impression. We are just two guys who like fantasy basketball enough to write a blog about it. If you want a Big Board from an actual, official expert go to Yahoo and check out Brandon Funston, from whom we (or at least I) stole the idea for the Big Board in the first place.

TC, I apologize also for the tone of my response. I guess I left off the part where I feel like having 200+ players ranked in July when most people are still trying to make the fantasy baseball playoffs or thinking only about their football draft is something you won’t find on most fantasy sites. And also, I feel like the Big Board (and mock draft sheet) are more “Open Source” or “Web 2.0″ type things (as compared to the GMTR Player Rater which is fairly proprietary). By Open Source and Web 2.0, I mean released to the public as early as possible and then iteratively refined from there. As I mentioned, I’ve already updated them with your comments. I can’t remember (nor find) where I recently read the quote, but a famous writer once said (paraphrasing): A writer’s job is to seek out as much criticism as possible.

That said, the controversial posts are always more interesting and popular than the straightforward, easy-to-digest ones. Or, as Kanye once said: Everybody feel a way about K but at least y’all feel somethin

As for Duhon (again), I don’t disagree that if he gets 30 minutes per game that he’ll be a 110-120 ranking PG. The place where we differ, though, is that you think he’ll get those minutes, and I don’t.

bucko, here’s why I put Butler there: He finished at #6 last season without Arenas, and put up almost exactly the same numbers as the year before (as you mentioned). He should have been higher than mid-second round that year as well as last year.

As for Granger, I am personally worried about his ceiling. There just isn’t enough data there yet for me to say for certain that he’s going to be that much better than last year. You are right that his team has changed in a way that should be better for him, and I’m sure that he’ll get taken in the 10-15 range in a lot of leagues because there is certainly the possibility that he’ll be even better than that. But I prefer to be pessimistic about mostly everybody and I try to draft players when I feel they should have already been drafted, as opposed to drafting them at the high end of their topside potential.

FYI. Greg Oden is still missing from your Big Board.