I heard My Life on 3 different radio stations in less than 20 minutes last night. This post is dedicated to The Game, and Chris Paul, who’s mind state is, evidently, never out of bounds.

Line of the Night:
Passing on Yao?
Don’t you feel stupid now? (at least for a day)
Dude is throwing it down, 25.5 points per game.
30 and 13 last night,
100% from the stripe.
Who else makes 73% of 15 shots
while taking the time to get two blocks?
Game score of 1.09
and only turning the ball over 3 times.

Honorable Mentions with the Best of Intentions:
Second up, calling Yao a jerk
for taking his Line of the Night is Dirk.
What a white boy gotta do to get respect?
36 points and 14 of 14 free is not enough to check?
How about 2 threes?
Or 7 rees?
Dino, you want the call?
Maybe try passing the ball.

Teammate of Nowitzki
checks in at number thrizee
Jason
gonna pay some
Bills
with the passing skills
12 dimes on the night
and only 1 TO is quite
a ratio
like a statement of: you can’t waive me, yo.

Speaking of waiving,
and people in the grave and
here’s what you do to do what’s right:
Waiver Wire Line of the Night:
Grinding until he dies with the hollas
0.71 belongs to Big Ben Wallace
Back to doing what he do
10 rebounds and 5 swear-word-goes-here blocks too
He knows he don’t have to get the ball in the hoop
Only taking two shots (no free throws), all is good

All good is Clevetown,
not D-Brown,
but D-Gib
look what he did:
25 pizzoints, with 4 threes on 7-1 point 4
guess that’s what you get when only 63 people tryina score.

We already got a Lifetime Achievement Biggest Loser,
y’all already know, cause who else rhymes with Loser?
But leaving the Cavs
ain’t as bad
as playing 21 minutes and only making 1 shot
Yeah, Leo, Bebo, with your 3 TOs, you got caught
Chris Paul made you look like a fool
I hope Terry Porter has detention cause you got taken to school
Yeah, you made a shot,
and Sean May may have not
but I’m sorry son,
there a reason he’s -0.46 and you’re -0.71.

Peace out, and thanks for indulging my long-since-faded dream of being an MC. Watch out, though, cause if there’s positive comments, I might come back with it.

First things first: Glad to see Patrick has a Gravatar now!

Next up… in the Carnival of the NBA Battle of the Bloggers League, we’ve only got 2 bench spots and I currently have Greg Oden, Manu Ginobli, and Francisco Garcia all injured. So, basically I’m a man down to whatever team I’m playing. The rest of my lineup is here, or if you don’t want to click over:
LeBron James
Al Jefferson
David West
Joe Johnson
Corey Maggette
Grant Hill
Joakim Noah
Drew Gooden

The only good thing is that we only start 1 Center, so I can slide Al Jefferson over there to take care of that. Actually, there’s another good thing… the league is H2H with Daily Lineup Changes! (Brendan, I’m looking at you) So, I can drop Garcia and put someone else in right away…

The question is: should I drop Garcia and pick up someone else? And if so, who???? I’ll take any suggestions since I know you can’t see who’s actually available and I kind of think it’s annoying when people give a limited list of players only to leave me wondering who they’re excluding as possible pick ups. Clearly this is a Big Ball team, and I have Garcia at F right now, so players who can play F would be most useful, but I could slide Grant Hill or Corey Maggette to F if the right SG’s name is thrown out there.

Oh, glorious NBA action is back in our lives. With the first full day of NBA games behind us, lets roll on with the fantasy lines.

Line of the Night: Danny Granger (1.02). The Danny Granger Experience™ is off fantastic start. For those of you who took a chance on Granger in the second/third round of your drafts, you’ve got to be happy with this line: 33 points/10-16 from the floor/5 rebounds/2 steals/3 blocks. The Pacers will be Mike Dunleavy-less for the next couple weeks, which means that Granger is going to have to handle the scoring duties of two men until Dunleavy returns. I think he’s capable.

Honorable Mentions: Josh Smith (0.93) came in a close second with 17 and 10, adding 4 steals and 5 blocks. Corey Maggette (0.76) had a nice and efficient debut for the Warriors, scoring 27 points off 8-11 shooting.

Waiver Wire Line of the Night: Spencer Hawes (0.74). Really. The dude finished with the fourth best line of last night thanks to a career-high 14 rebounds along with 12 points and 6 blocks! At this point, Spencer is still only a short-term add as he is (temporarily?) starting while Brad Miller serves a five game suspension for some marijuana tokage. But, if he can continue to play at that level, the Kings starting center spot might become his sooner than we anticipated.

Jarvis Hayes had 14 points, 5 boards and 3 steals for New Jersey against his former team the Wizards. But most important was the 30 minutes he got off the bench compared to Bobby Simmons 18. Don’t count on Simmons keeping that starting gig for much longer.

The Biggest Loser: Greg Oden owners. If you were one of the unlucky people to draft Greg Oden, do you give up on your season now, or do you wait a month until he hurts himself again? I’m just curious.

In actual on the court news, did Jamario Moon (-0.4) catch lightening in a bottle last year? I was hoping for a little more from him than his performance last night: 6 points and 1 rebound. Mike Bibby put on a nice shooting performance if you dig masonry work, going 4-15 from the floor (0-6 from three) with 4 assists. And Antawn Jamison (-0.1) was 1-8 from three and finished with only 3 rebounds.

As many of you already know, the GMTR Readers League draft happened last week. Nels commented on his team a while ago as did many others in the league, and it’s right about time I did the same. My comments are a little late, but they are worth the wait if you are curious to see how a real fantasy champion* drafts (it’s also about time seeing that the season has actually started). Here is my team with a description of what generally was going through my head the time as best I can remember:

1. (5) Shawn Marion (SF,PF)

My first semi-mistake of the draft! In round 1! And a reason why it is important to pay attention to position eligibility when you’re drafting. It was no surprise that the big 4 went in order, leaving me with the consolation prize at the fifth pick of Marion, Elton Brand, Dwayne Wade, or Dirk. I picked Marion because he has the potential to be the best of the 4 and I like how he brings everything to the table (though the same could be said for Dirk). However, I forgot that Brand qualifies at C in Yahoo leagues. Stupid, just stupid. LittleFlyingWarrior! happily snatched up Brand at 6.

2. (20) Rashard Lewis (SF,PF)

Marcus Camby was on the board and I thought about him in this spot, but I think he’s going to be in for a tough year and play in like 40 games. Instead, I went with Lewis, another player who I don’t like all that much, but should complement Marion nicely and play in more games than Camby. There is nothing like getting 3 threes a game from your PF and 11 boards from your SF. It all evens out in the end, I guess.

3. (29) Marcus Camby (C)

Ok, it was obvious at this point that no one in the league wanted to touch Camby with a 10-foot pole, myself included. But him falling to 29 was ridiculous, he had fallen so far that I literally was forced to draft him by the fantasy gods. The fact that the league starts 2 centers made it an even easier call.

…what, he’s already hurt?

4. (44) Antawn Jamison (SF,PF)

At this point, my draft is quickly turning into Patrick’s big bag o’ value picks, as I went with my fourth big man in four picks. But I couldn’t pass up Jamison at 44, especially when he finished 18, 23, and 24 on the GMTR player rater over the past 3 years. Provided everyone stays healthy, I don’t think rebounds are going to be a problem for this team.

5. (53) Mo Williams (PG)

Straight up position pick here. 2nd Round Reach snagged Devin Harris at pick 50 and In Baclao We Trust selected Andre Miller at 52, meaning that Williams was the last tier 4 PG remaining. I’m not particularly jazzed about Williams, but you’ve got to separate your emotions from your team if your goal is to win.

Yes! My team finally has some assists.

6. (68) Jermaine O’Neal (PF,C)

The start of round six coincided with a run of players I would have loved to have: Josh Howard, Corey Maggette, Jamal Crawford, Jason Terry. With those guys all gone, I went for O’Neal - a guy I’ve been targeting in a bunch of leagues. I think there is a 50% chance he returns to his old form, a 50% chance he plays at a reduced level like last year, and a 50% chance he misses a bunch of games. I’ll take those chances.

7. (77) Andrei Kirilenko (SF,PF)

Even when he’s on, AK is extremely frustrating to have on your team, as I’ve experienced quite a few times. I don’t know why I picked him here, I must have blacked out during this pick.

8. (92) John Salmons (SG,SF)

I like when I can make upside picks like Salmons without having to reach for it – as 92 is later than I’ve seen him go in other drafts. At this point in the draft I needed guys who I could throw in at the guard position while all but conceded the assists category. If only he still qualified at PG, I could make the biggest big ball team in the history of fantasy basketball.

9. (101) Gilbert Arenas (PG)

Alpha_Terrance gambled on Manu Ginobili in the 6th round. Monta Ellis ended up going in the 10th. I think the 9th was a great spot to roll the dice with Arenas. Who should I have grabbed instead at this pick? Nick Collison?

…what, Camby is already hurt? Ok, maybe I should have.

10. (116) Shane Battier SF

Lets be honest here. Things are not looking great for Shane Battier. He lost his starting gig to Ron Artest and has missed the last four weeks with an inflamed left foot. He’ll be coming off the bench when he gets healthy which will be at some undetermined time in the future. However, despite not being able to score, he did finish 62 on the player rater last season thanks to the rest of his game - 5 boards/1 steal/1 block/1.7 threes. He’s not going to average 36 minutes a game this season, but in the 10th round I’ll take what he has to offer at 28-30 minutes.

11. (125) Raymond Felton (PG,SG)

Best PG available at this spot in the draft. He’ll average 14 and 7 and allows me to plug another PG during good matchup weeks.

12. (140) Jason Maxiell (PF,C)

Has since been dropped. Looks like Amir Johnson is going to be the man in Detroit. I could have made a better pick here, like the previously mentioned Amir Johnson who went 2 picks later or Matt Barnes who went at the end of the 12th (much to Nels’ chagrin).

13. (149) Ramon Sessions (PG,SG)

Back in the day, Fantasy Basketblog had a great theory about bench spots, especially for leagues with limited spots like the readers league. It went something like this: Always keep at least one bench spot available for quick waiver wire moves. While it’s great to have a deep team, if your bench is filled with good/undroppable players, then you are either going to miss out on some hot waiver wire action, or you be in the bad position of having to drop a good player to make a waiver wire move.

With that being said, Ramon Sessions is currently my “open” spot. If he can wrestle the starting job away from Luke Ridnour or Ridnour gets hurt early in the season, great - he’s a keeper - if not, he’ll be easily droppable when a better player becomes available on the wire.

In Summary

Overall, I’m pretty damn satisfied with this draft. I made some risky picks (Camby anyone?) but honestly, all my drafts are like that. I’m like the John McCain of fantasy drafting, In fact, I think that AK pick happened when I suspended my draft to help with the economic crisis.

I’m definitely going to need another center for when Camby and/or O’Neal miss time. It probably would have been a good idea to pick up one of those instead of wasting a pick on Jason Maxiell.

In the spirit of Nels’ team breakdown, here’s a visual breakdown of my team:
Regular text are solid picks
Bold are picks I’m very happy about
Strikethrough are picks I’m upset with
Italics are picks I’m just sort of kind of OK with

1. (5) Shawn Marion
2. (20) Rashard Lewis
3. (29) Marcus Camby
4. (44) Antawn Jamison
5. (53) Mo Williams
6. (68) Jermaine O’Neal
7. (77) Andrei Kirilenko
8. (92) John Salmons
9. (101) Gilbert Arenas
10. (116) Shane Battier
11. (125) Raymond Felton
12. (140) Jason Maxiell
13. (149) Ramon Sessions

*Not just hyperbole – I won last year’s readers league

I breathed a Windy City sigh this morning when I went to NBA.com and found that while they still offer their sortable statistics including Fantasy Ratings, it looks like someone forgot to flip the ON switch. So, instead, I head to the ever reliable Basketball Monster.

Let’s see if I can remember all the daily categories off the top of my head…

Line of the Night: Drew Gooden bitchez! He had a 0.86 which doesn’t sound like a lot, but only 29 players were above 0 last night, so there’s that. Gooden had 13 and 8 with 3 steals and a block, and only turned the ball over once. He also shot 57% from the field and made all 5 free throws. I’ll take it! I’m starting him on my Battle of the Bloggers league team and now that Greg Oden is out and since I also have Manu Ginobli on that team, I’m going to need Gooden to continue getting LotN pretty much every game.

Honorable Mentions: Rudy Fernandez (0.83) had 16/2/4 with 3 threes and 2 steals - I’m sure everyone who took him in the last round is happy now; Michael Redd (0.72) made 4 threes on 52% shooting en route to 30 points, and in typical Michael Redd style, there wasn’t much else; Kobe (0.64) came in 4th with 23/11/5 which normally would be a LotN style line, but he had 5 turnovers. Still, that’s what you expect from Kobe, and the kind of performance you look for from your first rounder.

Waiver Wire Line of the Night: Trevor Ariza (0.62) came off the bench for LA and got pretty close to Kobe in the rankings. He’s probably still be available in normal-sized leagues. His 11/2/1 isn’t much, but the 2 threes, 1 steal, and 2 blocks with 0 turnovers is good cross-category filler.

Jordan Farmar (0.35) was another Laker who made the Top 12 last night with 9/6/6. He only shot 25% from the field, but made all 4 free throws.

The Biggest Loser: Greg Oden (-0.66). Ouch. Literally. 5 rebounds and a block isn’t bad for 13 minutes of play from the big guy, but we’ll have to wait to see how injured he is after only 1 game in the league. Visions of Sam Bowie anyone?

Copyright 2008 NBAE (Photo by Andrew D. Bernstein/NBAE via Getty Images)

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Let the games begin, indeed.

Sergio, I love you man, and it’s not like I’ve posted any Week 1 Fantasy Planner myself, but posting this awesome weekly fantasy basektball planner on Monday when most teams have to have their rosters set by Sunday at 11:59 is a lit bit of salt in Brendan’s wound. (Brendan posted in the GMTR Readers League today at 8:22 pm asking if he somehow missed that the league had weekly lineup changes; so if you also didn’t pay very close attention to your league’s settings, don’t worry, everyone has a day job. I ain’t about to quit it.)

Soon you will see a recap much like this one from Fantasy Basketball Jedi of the GMTR Monster League draft. FBJ also has a Eight Great Reasons to Look Forward to Fantasy Basketball 2008-09. I would have done something like that for this post, but I was too busy doing the calculations concerning the physics behind this outfit:

Atlanta Hawks
Matt McHale: Basketbawful
Hoopinion: Peachtree Hoops

Charlotte Bobcats
BrettL: Queen City Hoops 
Ziggy: BobcatsPlanet

Miami Heat
Darren Heitner: SportsAgentBlog.com
Gregory Broome: The Peninsula is Mightier

Orlando Magic
Ben: Third Quarter Collapse

Washington Wizards
Rashad: Hoops Addict
HoopsAvenue: HoopsAvenue
Mike Prada: Bullets Forever
Truth: Truth About It Dot Net

Also see links to all the previews at CelticsBlog.com