Give Me The Rock
this is fantasy basketball
In an article for ESPN The Magazine, Bill Simmons makes his suggestions on how to improve fantasy basketball.
The Fantasy Basketball Jedi does a good job of analyzing Simmons proposed changes.
A problem-solution article like Simmons almost begs for a point-by-point analysis. I’ve been trying to think of some way around it since I don’t want to seem like I’m just tearing apart what he wrote. I guess I could just take the easy way and say that the only idea of his that I really think would work is the auction style draft, which I believe is available on certain fantasy basketball sites already, so it’s not like it’s the most original thing in the world.
But I’ll preface it this way: Nothing he wants to change is necessarily or categorically wrong. I just feel that some of the changes he proposes would not be as beneficial as perhaps he thinks they would. Brendan at 2nd Round Reach goes ahead and “calls the man out”. (And I promise I actually wrote the rest of this before I went through Brendan’s post)
I am way too passive to call anybody out. Instead, I’ll just list my reasons why I don’t think Simmons suggestions are necessarily the best ones that could be made to improve fantasy basketball.
Such as:
Doubling the weight of Points, Rebounds, Assists: Here’s the thing, fantasy sports aren’t always about being realistic. I mean, in many fantasy football leagues, you draft an entire defense. Does that happen in a real NFL draft? I’m pretty sure it doesn’t. If we wanted to be realistic about fantasy basketball, we could just have one category: Points. I mean, whoever has the most points wins the game, right? Yes, all the additional categories make certain players worth more than others, but the glaring exceptions are usually just that: exceptions. Most people would agree that the top 4 fantasy players: Chris Paul, Amare Stoudemire, Kobe Bryant, and LeBron James are the top 4 MVP candidates as well, right?
Let’s also look at what fantasy games are, okay? They’re games. Just like video games. I know from experience that some players in video games don’t reflect reality perfectly either, but again, those are exceptions.
Free agents taken by incompetent owners who spent two minutes preparing for the draft: FBB Jedi dissects this one perfectly:
Also don’t get why he thinks that owners who drafted badly will have the first crack at good early-season free agents. The waiver order should go in reverse draft order, so that’s not necessarily true. Maybe he’s making the point that owners who drafted horribly will have more candidates to cut loose early in the season.
Someone who takes Deron Williams or Dwight Howard in the first round might have screwed up their draft, and maybe they’ll pick up the next Hedo Turkoglu or Mikki Moore, because they’re worried about trying to fix things before they start losing every week. But really, is picking up Hedo Turkoglu or Mikki Moore in place of someone you drafted in the 12th round going to help you beat the guy who picked Shawn Marion right after you (or Elton Brand at 16)? Probably not. Plus, the guy who make the smart pick after the guy who made a dumb pick has a better chance of getting the good free agents because he’ll have a higher waiver wire priority. I think this might be that Simmons is jealous that he doesn’t work the waiver wire as well as other people he plays with. That said, I do think his idea of having money to spend on the waiver wire is a good one.
Only playing with Guards, Forwards, Centers: I don’t know what leagues Simmons is playing in where there’s only 3 positions, but he needs to maybe get out a little more. I think that just about every league I’ve ever played in has had PG, SG, G, SF, PF, F, C, and Util spots. The only one I can think of right now (after several minutes spent reviewing) is the AOL league, and that was just a travesty of a league all around (because AOL wasn’t ready to do fantasy basketball at that point).
On the other hand, though, when I see teams like the Bulls (or maybe the Bucks now) throw out 3-guard lineups, it makes me question the notion of position at all in fantasy basketball. When the Phoenix Suns (of so few years ago) can run-n-gun with Boris Diaw at Center, then do you really need to fill two Center positions for fantasy basketball? I am happy that Yahoo does a good job of recognizing this sort of thing and giving tons of players multi-position eligibility.
Simmons last three issues come down to: Having the fantasy basketball playoffs at the end of the season sucks because everyone who’s not making the playoffs is injured, so only half the fantasy teams are even competitive. I actually wholly agree with this, though my solution is as different from Simmons’ as you can get.
Scoring for the league shall end no later than 2 weeks prior to the end of the regular season. For Head-to-Head leagues, the end of the season shall proceed as follows: 6 teams make the playoffs based on regular season standings, with the top 2 teams getting a bye for the first week of the playoffs. The first round and second round of the playoffs will be 1 week each. The final (championship) round of the playoffs will be 2 weeks in length. In a 25 week regular season (where week 25 consists of only 1 or 2 games played by each team; which the NBA has used for the past 3 years) this means the playoffs will start in week 19. The second round will be week 20. And the final round will span weeks 21 and 22. For rotisserie leagues: this simply means the end of the fantasy season will be the end of week 22.
Simmons’ proposes a keeper system + redraft of players from the fantasy teams that don’t make the playoffs. While I admire the innovation, and appreciate that for some people this would probably be really cool, I really violently dislike this idea.
And here’s why:
1) Simmons acknowledges that this changes the entire way you would draft players, and while he thinks this is great, I’m not so sure. E.g., where would you take Caron Butler? It depends on how much faith you have not just in your fantasy team to make the playoffs, but also on the Wizards to make the playoffs in non-fantasy life. You now how have to take into account much more than just Butler, or even just the Wizards as a team. You have to account for the rest of the teams in the division and the conference. This clearly creates extra deviation in any statistical analysis you try to do. And – I would argue – makes it harder for novice fantasy players to have fun playing the game.
2) While Simmons is trying to cut down on the impact of injury down the stretch, he may actually be increasing it. What if you draft Kenrick Perkins as your second center because you think they Celtics are clearly going to be in the playoffs and he’ll be a great second center, or even first center if you get to the Finals. Oh, but then Kevin Garnett gets injured and the Celtics don’t make the playoffs. Perkins would be awesome while Garnett is out, and you might make the fantasy playoffs, but then you’re screwed, because you’d have to hope you can pick up a center who can carry you from one of the fantasy teams that didn’t make it. So, not only do you have to pick a center who’s on a team in NBA playoffs, but you have to pick one from a fantasy team that didn’t make the playoffs?
3) It basically comes down to who bets on the right team during the season and in the redraft. Simmons even says:
You have three Celtics, I have two Hornets. Let’s fight to the death.
This only underscores his apparent lack of fantasy basketball experience. Unless the three Celtics you have are Rondo, Perkins, and Eddie House, and the two Hornets I have are Chris Paul and David West, the person with more players from the teams in the Finals is going to win. This is further exacerbated by Simmons notion that the 1st place team would get three more players than the 4th place team, and the redraft would be straight rounds instead of a serpentine format.
While I know fantasy basketball players often get frustrated because they make it to the Finals with an awesome team, only to have several players “injured” or “rested” before the real playoffs, making it that much harder to upset a team in the playoffs kind of defeats the purpose of even having the playoffs. Maybe try some Roto instead of H2H?
I guess when it comes to trying to figure out a way to incorporate the NBA playoffs in fantasy basketball, my feeling is: There are separate fantasy basketball games designed solely for the playoffs. That’s the way it should stay.
I would be up for some H2H with no playoffs at all, though. What do people think about that? Better or worse than a playoff keeper+redraft?
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