When I found the news in my inbox about the transaction taking place, I was completely dumbfounded, utterly and completely. I took a moment to gather up my composure and studied what just transpired.

Why would Nels, who owned David Lee, trade away his FG%-generator for a definite non-factor. Oh yes, did forget to mention that the transaction did not occur in real life, but just in one of GMTR’s readers leagues? My bad.

Anyway, my first thought that this was some sort of “social experiment” Nels was conducting about how active managers are at vetoing “unfair” trades late into the fantasy season, and was going to write about it here. That initial thought was quickly washed down the drain along with my being impressed with Nels’ dabblings as a social scientist when I took a look at which GMTR league the deal was about to take place. It was in GMTR’s first-season KEEPER LEAGUE!

The rules of our keeper league are very straight forward. Each manager is allowed to keep three players on their team as long as those players were not drafted in the first three rounds of the fantasy draft. Got it? Simple, huh? Not really. Well at least as far as I am concerned. I am in two keeper leagues this season and both of them are in their maiden seasons. It’s a new experience for me and it’s something that’s giving me some difficulty to digest. Keeper strategy is more long-term oriented than anything I’ve undertaken before. This trade snapped me into a more lucid state and got me thinking about who I want to keep and who are the viable keepers in the league.

Before I get into that let’s breakdown the trade that was. Nels’ team is dead last in the keeper league and I figure he wanted to nab Arenas as a potential keeper candidate. Since his level of fantasy genius is unparalleled, well maybe paralleled by at least by me and Patrick, I decided to interview Nels and pick at his fantasy basketball machinations. And by interview, I really mean sending him an email asking “What were you thinking?”

Here’s his reply:

I’d like some advice on who I should keep on my team! Haha!

So, first off, I’m in last place in the Dynasty league. Just to make that clear, since it is an important piece of the trade. I’m not quite sure how that happened, but I think it had something to do with picking Blake Griffin in the 5th round so I could make sure to get him as a keeper. My 2nd and 3rd round picks were Andre Iguodala and David Lee, so that worked out, but I also have Brandon Roy and Eric Gordon who’ve both underperformed for where I took them in addition to missing stretches this season.

Really, though, my big mistake was not building a team that dominated categories. As you can see from the 4 guys above (Griffin obviously doesn’t count), my team is a all over the place in terms of categories. So, yes, I’m in last place. Someone has to be.

And as such, I decided to tank the season and send David Lee (3rd round pick, so not a keeper) for Gilbert Arenas (4th round pick, so keeper!). My rationale was that David Lee isn’t doing anything for me. I mean, yeah he’s doing something, but it’s not like his numbers are going to overcome the fact that after Griffin, I took Thaddeus Young, Spencer Hawes, Ronnie Brewer, and Rodney Stuckey (and the fact that the guys I picked after them and the guys I picked up out of the Free Agent pool have actually outplayed them).

The trade just basically expanded my options for my keepers. Since I’m obviously not going to stick with Young, Brewer, or Stuckey (Hawes is not even on my team any more), I’m left with Eric Gordon (96th on the year in 9 cat leagues), Blake Griffin (DNP), Luol Deng (58), and Marc Gasol (a surprise 30 – and a definite keeper). Since we keep 3 players, you can see it’s not the best set of players to choose from. I mean, do I keep Gordon and hope that he becomes the Top 50-60 player I thought he’d be? Do I keep Griffin and hope he actually plays? Will I want to keep Deng when the Bulls are obviously trying to add someone ahead of him in the scoring order?

Now, instead of just losing Lee at the end of the season, I at least have Arenas to consider. Yes, he’s probably just as risky as those other options, but I could also try to trade him to someone with a higher risk tolerance for a keeper player that I would find more promising than the options I have otherwise. I’m thinking something like another big man to compliment Marc Gasol and cement my direction towards a Big Ball team for next year. If I can do that, then I can avoid the conflicted type of team that I had this year and hopefully come out knowing I can win 5 categories every week instead of wondering which categories I’d be able to compete in on a week-to-week basis.

Understand Nels’ move, completely. Here are several reasons why I respectfully disagree with going for Gilbert Arenas as a keeper.

1. He is old.
2. He is an injury risk.
3. He might go to jail, not pass go, not collect $200.
4. Nels could have gotten a better keeper option than Arenas. If I knew he was pimping David, I would have offered some of my young studs to be able to utilize Lee’s services in the fantasy playoffs.

Marc Gasol is an excellent keeper pick for Nels. I would Eric Gordon another shot next season. We all know that this kid has a lot more potential to grow into. I’m just not 100% confident that he will be worth selecting as a keeper. I mean if you timed it right, you could probably nab him again in next season’s draft. Given Nels’ slim pickings, Gordon isn’t too bad of a gamble, relatively speaking of course. Blake Griffin still is promising, but I can understand if Nels is afraid of getting odenized by Blake next season.

Onwards with keeper leagues and keepers… As for my team, I was last to pick in the draft and decided to pick three of the oldest, most fantasy-functional players I could find. I went Nash-bounce-Kidd, then grabbed Ray Allen in the third round. I have a lock on two keeper prospects. They are Rajon Rondo (who I picked in the 4th round) and Andrea Bargnani (5th round). The third and final keeper slot is a three-way battle between three big men.

1. Carlos Boozer - He was drafted in the seventh round by another team, but I acquired via a trade for my sixth round pick, Anthony Randolph. Boozer is not exactly young, but this season he gave us all a reminder why he was once a second-round draft lock.
2. Joakim Noah – I drafted him in the seventh round and he was just awesome for most of the season. He’s hurting right now, dealing with plantar fasciitis, but his upside for the future is huge.
3. Tyrus Thomas – I didn’t draft him. He was drafted in the seventh round by another team and dropped into the FA pool during his absence due to injury. I was able to snipe him off the pool, just before he got traded to the Charlotte Bobcats. He’s been looking good so far in his new team, but new Bobcats owner Michael Jordan is scaring me.

If you were me, who would you choose as your third keeper for next season?

Picking keepers is about striking a balance between long-term potential and already inherent productivity.

Here are some strong to just okay keeper candidates and the rounds they were picked:

Round 4

• Josh Smith  - There are many reasons why Patrick is a fantasy basketball genius. This is just one of them.
• Monta Ellis
• Derrick Rose
• Rajon Rondo
• Al Horford
• O.J. Mayo
• Russell Westbrook
• Jameer Nelson – I think he still might be worth it.
• Gilbert Arenas – Well at least as far as Nels is concerned.
• Rudy Gay

Round 5

• Andrew Bynum – Scary, but probably worth it.
• Trevor Ariza – Kevin Martin is slowly dowsing his fantasy flame.
• Tony Parker
• Mo Williams

Round 6

• Antawn Jamison – IF LeBron leaves, guess who will inherit the Cavs. No-brain keeper here.
• Nene Hilario
• Stephen Jackson – The “Bobcats Renaissance” is slowly making me a believer
• Jeff Green – I know he was hugely disappointing this season, but he still has that long-term potential ahead of him.
• Paul Millsap – Carlos Boozer may not stay with the Jazz after this season.

Round 7

• Carlos Boozer
• Tyrus Thomas
• Zach Randolph
• John Salmons
• Joakim Noah
• Andre Miller – I’m on the fence about him.
• Emeka Okafor

Round 8

Round 9

• Michael Beasley – Fantastic!
• Kevin Love – Oh I wish I had him as a keeper option. Drool.
• Anthony Morrow – He might actually be the third component in the Ellis-Curry-future-of the-franchise mix.

Round 10

• Marc Gasol
• Andrew Bogut
• Chris Kaman – He’s old(ish), injury prone, but his production is worth keeping.
• Tyreke Evans – R.O.Y., well my prediction at least.
• Louis Williams – He’s underrated, but with Allen Iverson out of the picture I think he has a bright future ahead.

Round 11

• Brendan Haywood
• Brandon Jennings (?)
• Aaron Brooks
• Stephen Curry

Round 12

• Randy Foye
• Mike Miller
• Yao Ming – Yes he was drafted.

Round 13

• Corey Brewer
• Andray Blatche – It’s hard to believe how a player who was so dang inconsistent last season, is putting together an unfathomable string of solid games…

As far as undrafted players are concerned, I feel Marcus Thornton of the New Orleans Hornets is making a strong case a potential keeper. The same goes for Taj Gibson of the Chicago Bulls, but he’s nowhere near the level of potential to explode next season as Thornton is.

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So, I went about doing just that using a fantasy basketball simulation program I’ve been developing for a while now. The program isn’t quite ready to replace the GMTR player rater, but it is in good enough shape to simulate an all-star game.

The Ground Rules (skip this part if you get bored by fine print… it won’t hurt my feelings)

So, each all-star team has 12 players – 5 starters and 7 bench spots. The goal is to find out which team would be more likely to win in a standard 9-category H2H fantasy league. Now, instead of just taking a player’s average stats for the season and calling it good, the program randomly selects a stat line from a player’s game log (excluding missed games) this season and uses that as their line for the all-star game. As a result, streaky players will be more inconsistent than those who put up good lines night after night.

The trickiest part for me was deciding what to do about minutes played. All these players are the stars of their respective teams and typically play a lot of minutes per game. If you just throw all their lines into a box score, you get a team that totals 400+ minutes and 200+ points per game. Instead, for this game I restricted the starters’ minutes to 30 and the bench players to 15 and adjusted their stat lines up or down (but almost always down) according to those minutes. For example, if the program pulled a stat line for a player where he played 30 minutes in a game and scored 30 points, then the adjustment down to 15 minutes would give him 15 points for the all-star game. While this resulted in a team that played a few more minutes than is actually possible, it is close enough that the final scores never really exceeded 150 points.

Now, anything can happen in a single game, so I simulated this all-star game 1,000 times. This will give us a definitive answer of which league’s fantasy all-stars are the best.

As an added bit of fun, I tracked each games “MVP” which was based on a rough weighted sum of the player’s points, rebounds, assists, steals, blocks and threes, minus turnovers. The guy with the highest sum from the winning team was named the MVP. In cases where there were ties between the teams, the guy with the highest sum among both teams was named MVP.

The Results

The Winner: The West (503 wins, 420 losses, 77 ties)

Not too surprising a result given the depth of the Western Conference, especially at the all important PG position. Here is the final category breakdown of the 1,000 simulations:

Number of Category Wins for Each Team in a 9-Cat League

So while the East actually had advantages in 5 of the 9 categories when compared to the West, the West had huge wins in threes, FT% and points. With consistent wins in those 3 categories, all they had to do was win 2 of the 6 other categories to take home a win over the East. The only category in which the East consistently won was steals, which they beat the West 756 out of 1,000 times.

The MVP: LeBron

While the East came out the loser, LeBron still racked up the most MVP awards with 244 out of the 1,000 runs. The West was led by a more balanced attack, with 4 of the 5 starters winning MVP at least 100 times. Here is the list (since bench players’ minutes were capped, they were never able to win the award):

West

Kevin Durant (131 times)
Tim Duncan (123)
Kobe Bryant (111)
Steve Nash (108)
Dirk Nowitzki (59)

East

LeBron James (244 times)
Dwyane Wade (143)
Chris Bosh (55)
David Lee (19)
Rajon Rondo (7)

The Box Score

Despite that fact that it’s a made up game with made up rules, I did compile a box score for the “game” made up of averages from all the runs. I wouldn’t take it too seriously (as I stated above, the total minutes played by the teams is a little off), but in case you were wondering what each player did in the game:

The West

The East

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Moving forward, let’s map out what to do with our fantasy lineups this week.

Schedule

Teams with four games (11): ATL, CHI, LAL, MEM, MIA, NJN, NOR, ORL, POR, UTA, WAS

Teams with two games (1): NYK

All other teams have three games this week.

If you have better alternatives, sit your Knicks players. I know it will be difficult to find fillers for the threes Danilo Gallinari, Al Harrington, and (recently) Nate Robinson can put up. Hopefully some of my pick-up suggestions will be able to chip in with those treys.

Injuries

Sit ‘em until they’re better:

Kevin Garnett – Knee

Paul Pierce – Knee

Troy Murphy – Sprain

LaMarcus Aldridge – Sprain

T.J. Ford – Gah!

Ron Artest – Concussion

Steve Blake – Pneumonia

Questionables:

Rajon Rondo – Hamstring

Chauncey Billups – Groin

Carmelo Anthony – Knee Contusion

Andris Biedrins – He’s playing, but not yet at 100%

Marcus Camby – His knee is supposedly still  bothering him. I would (actually will) start him, but not expect his usual minutes and production

They’re baaaack! (and they’re ready to play)

Rudy Gay

Chris Douglas-Roberts

Waiver Picks:

Matt Barnes – He’s been starting over Mickael Pietrus and was actually the lone shining point in the Magic lineup this evening. He is capable of giving your team some 3PTM, PTS, and a little bit of REB at good %s.

Luther Head – He’s starting at SG for the Indiana Pacers and has been producing quite well. Good for 3PTM, AST, %s

Nate Robinson – Who the heck cares if he’s playing two games this week? Grab him. Stash him. And hope he continues on his triumphant return with big nights.

J.J. Barea – He may not be the Mavericks first, second, third, or even fourth scoring option; but he’s capable of bringing good games every now and then. He’s easy on the turnovers and yet can chip in 3PTM, AST and good %s

C.J. Miles – He will be frustrating and erratic. His production should even out in the end.

Devin Brown – He’s logging 30+ mins and should be able to contribute some 3PTM, FT%, and STL.

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Another new addition will be the GMTR Watch List. Since I am the FA freak between the three of us GMTR guys, yes at times too impulsive for my good and success, I have decided to share my Watch List. These are guys you may or may not be considering to pick up any time soon. A lot of my inspiration comes from pick-ups across my eight leagues. I see someone pick-up a guy, it makes me give him a serious look. Sometimes, all it takes is for someone else to take the lead in order for people to give a particular player some extra attention.

Since I am also the “impatient one”, I will also be sounding off about players who are wearing my patience thin.  Since these are just lists, you can take ‘em with a grain of salt. Especially since I am the one dishing them out.

For now let’s do a deep league special. These are some of the guys available or recently taken in an 18-man H2H league I am in. Some of them may even have 12-man-deep league value.

Earl Boykins, PG Washington Wizards - The Washington Wizards have a really thin backcourt, that has been trimmed down to its barest functionality due to injuries (Mike Miller, et al). They had to sign little guy, Earl Boykins for some support. Three straight games and double digits is kinda nice. He’s averaging 11 points and four dimes. So I think that makes him legit stream material for those extra passes.

C.J. Watson, G Golden State Warriors – I broke down my impression of his potential over at PITP.

Taj Gibson, F Chicago Bulls - If the Bulls ARE letting go of Tyrus Thomas, you should keep your eyes on this kid. He’s going to be a solid pick-up later on as he progresses. He’s getting better and frankly Brad Miller is just not cutting it anymore, to serve as an ample minutes threat.

Dahntay Jones, G/F Indiana Pacers - With Danny Granger out for four to six weeks and Mike Dunleavy still shaking off the absence-rust, Jones might just get more scoring opportunities in the meantime. He might serve as a functional source of points with reasonable percentages.

DeMar DeRozan, SG/SF/PF Toronto Raptors – He was labeled as raw from the get go, but the Raptors have opted to keep starting him. He’s put together a string of five games with double-digit scoring. His FT% is pretty sweet; 16 of 17 over his last three games. Keep your eyes peeled to see if his line diversifies.

Luc Mbah a Moute, F Milwaukee Bucks – He’s coming back off an injury, but has quickly been inserted back into the Bucks’ starting five. Watch if he gets some of his groove back. Drop Charlie Bell. Yes, EVEN if you are in a deep league.

Carlos Delfino, G/F Milwaukee Bucks – Speaking of the Bucks, Delfino has shown that he can be a consistent source of treys. His value might be short-lived as Michael Redd may return soon. Keep Delfino on your watch lists though as Redd’s return might be short-lived as well.

James Harden, G Oklahoma City Thunder – He’s probably on many people’s watch lists already as he’s steadily rising up the rankings. He gets plugged in whenever the Thunder need some extra scoring punch. Conversely, the few Thabo Sefolosha owners, myself included in an 18-man league, should keep an eye on Harden’s minutes and see if he’s stealing some of Thabo’s thunder.

Dorrell Wright, G/F Miami Heat - He’s back from injury and even posted a WOTN.

Stay tuned next week, as I chime in with the guys that are pissing me off. Here’s a bonus:

Anthony Parker, G/F Cleveland Cavaliers - He’s been a bad slump as of late. I’m not too impressed with his treys and steals contributions anymore. I do recommend dropping him for, say, Carlos Delfino perhaps.

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"...why do birds, suddenly appear?..."

Round 6

Pick 6-1: Chris Andersen, F/C – This pick is way too early. Birdman’s game is too one dimensional to grab him in the sixth round. He passed up on the following guys who could have filled his empty C position: Emeka Okafor, Andrew Bynum, Joakim Noah, Marcus Camby, Spencer Hawes, and a few others. All of those guys bring a little bit, make that a lot more to the table than Andersen does. Even if he grabbed one of those above mentioned players, Chris would likely be available for him to enjoy two rounds later. So why Chris, then? I do not know. Well, I don’t like it. Not Chris, as a pick, but at this stage in the draft. Let’s hope that he doesn’t make a habit of grabbing his bird prematurely too often.

Pick 6-2: Eric Gordon, SG – This is more or less the right spot to grab Eric Gordon. He’s talented and clearly has potential to improve this season. I suppose he fits in Velvet Hoop’s pseudo-big-ball team (that has threes). Interesting mix.  I’m not too sure how it will all pan out though.

Pick 6-3: Rudy Gay, F – Considering Rudy Gay disappointed his fantasy owners last season for failing to reach the level everyone was expecting him to, this downgrade in draft position is just about right. There’s no question about him having a mad game and all, but with the “Z-bo and A.I. additions” situation in Memphis, outlook can be too rosy for him. Both Memphis and Gay’s fantasy owners really need him to take charge of games and assert himself more. He’s potentially a solid multi-cat stud, and is a reasonable swingman choice for this small-ball team.

Pick 6-4: Manu Ginobilli, SG – Manu’s well documented history of being an injury risk is appropriately mitigated by this downgrade in draft position. The lure of him giving you 1.5 treys, 1.5 steals, and roughly 4 assists a night is a tempting spread indeed. He helps strengthen this team’s steals investment (Caron Butler), and yet still does nothing to help out the Dwight Howard base. More likely than not, this pick by the drafter was a BPA (best player available) one.

Pick 6-5: Luis Scola, F/C – Interesting how this season’s “Boozer-lite” gets picked ahead of the real McCoy. It’s probably because of the big upside everyone is expecting him to have. He chips in solid chunks of points, FG%, and rebounds for this big-ball themed team. Not bad. Read the Drafter’s quote for the full impact.

Pick 6-6: Ron Artest, G/F – I will set aside my well documented biases against Ron-ron for a moment and look at this pick objectively. Bad pick. I don’t like it. And yes, I WAS being objective. Here’s why I’m not too excited about it. I can see how Artest can add a bit of threes, steals, and assists for the team; but the early investment in shooting percentages is damaged. With Ron’s field goal being in the low 40’s and his FT% in the low 70’s, he simply hurts Nels’ Dirk-Aldridge core.  While the percentage-havoc Artest wreaks is not cataclysmic by any sense of the word, I do not see the logic of how his contributions are enough to justify weakening a strategy’s core strengths.

Pick 6-7: Charlie Villanueva, F – I like his potential, but I am a bit worried that in the muddled mixture of his injury history and new team situation CV may end up disappointing a few owners here and there. I like the idea that he can add a little bit of everything, especially when you add it to the Granger-Melo forward base. Villanueva’s touch from the outside, 0.6 steals, and 0.7 blocks should be appreciated by almost any team and strategy. He’s a decent soft stat-filler at this point in the draft.

Pick 6-8: Rasheed Wallace, F/C – There are very few centers whose stats favor small-ball. Sixth round is probably the last round you will get a chance to grab one, and so here is an example with a Rasheed Wallace pick. 1+ treys and 1+ stls from your center is probably a good enough bonus for a small-ball team at this point in the draft. In spite of him coming to Boston expected to play a lesser role, he does have the upside potential of covering for KG when he’s injured or rested by the team to preserve his health. Both he and Al Harrington should serve as a cool three-point bombing front court.

Pick 6-9: Boris Diaw, F – Boris Diaw adds his versatile game and diverse stat line to a team already loaded with multiple category contributors. Durant, Kidd, Iguodala, Pierce, Duncan; all of these guys do little and a lot here and there. Diaw fits in this team well, since it’s  based on a strategy that is likely focusing on grabbing the  best player who contributes in the most categories at each round.

Pick 6-10: Emeka Okafor, F/C – He hasn’t been known to be much of a scorer, but with Wade, Joe Johnson, Arenas, and Ellis bearing most of the scoring burden; Okafor’s lacking in that department is well compensated for. Emeka and Brand give this team a promising base at the center position. This team can now actually be competitive in the blocks category. I would have preferred to see Andrew Bynum at this spot for this team, but I can’t blame any drafter who is feeling the slightest bit of apprehension when dealing with Bynum coming into this season. Still, Okafor should provide decent overall fantasy value at this point.

Pick 6-11: Wilson Chandler, G/F – I’m on the Wilson Chandler bandwagon. 71st overall is what I consider to be just the right price for a player with this much potential. After Lee and Harrington, Chandler’s probably the best player for fantasy  on the Knicks roster. Hopefully, this kid can bloom into a bona fide member of the 1-steal, 1-block, 1-trey club. Nice pick.

Pick 6-12: Andre Miller, PG – Andre Miller is one of the better PGs to pair up in the later rounds with a Chris Paul first-rounder. He preserves CP3’s good FG%, while adds assists and steals. The problem is that, like Paul, Miller isn’t very good at lighting it up from beyond the arc. But since this team already locked down Troy Murphy and Ray Allen, that shouldn’t be to big of a concern. What concerns me more at this point is Miller’s team situation in Portland, with his starting duties at risk to incumbent starter, Steve Blake. Tales of Nine Cats has arguably formed the most balanced and most well-rounded Roto team so far! I wonder how it will end up doing considering this mock is for the head-to-head format…

Drafter Quote of the Round

“It’s like Ron-Ron said in his Ghetto MTV Cribs video on YouTube: dude only jump 2 inches off the ground, but he’s good for 20 and 10. With Yao out forevers, it’s going to be the wild Scola show…” – The Mock-Skeeters, on picking Luis Scola

Previous Rounds: Round 1, Round 2, Round 3, Round 4, Round 5

Mock Draft Spreadsheet

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Photo by Rocky Widner/NBAE via Getty Images

Round 5

Pick 5-1: Nene Hilario, F/C – Nene was one of last season’s surprises. I doubt anyone saw him coming. Still, his injury risk factor is scary. To calm our worries, however, Coach George Karl knows how to keep his big men healthy. Remember what he was able to do for Camby two seasons back? Having Nene as a front court partner for Brook Lopez is pretty decent, and that’s exactly the role Nene should play on any fantasy team – second center. This team likes ‘em steals! He has the overall league leader in Chris Paul and now has grabbed the league leader in the category among centers. Not bad.

Pick 5-2: Al Horford, F/C -  Horford is potentially a double-double averaging candidate this season and is capable of chipping in 1+ blocks and possibly 1-steal per game too. His lack of scoring volume should more than likely be easily compensated by Bron, Rose, and Harris. For now, this team is banking on Al and LeBron for blocks and it appears that it won’t do to well against some of the other teams. The rebounds department is looking a lot better now that Horford, Lee, and James are crashing the boards.

Pick 5-3: Monta Ellis, G – This team has assembled one of the potentially most dominating backcourts in this league. Adding Ellis to the core of Wade, Joe Johnson, Arenas is just wicked! If Team Kardashian Babymaker’s speculations are on point, it will give a lot of some of the “purer” small-ball teams a headache when they are matched up against it. Contrary to what some naysayers believe, I think that Ellis’ assist will see an upward spike this season. This will be his first true full season to run things at the point for Golden State. As long as he doesn’t go on any weird-ass, moped-riding excursions; he should bring this team 20 points, good percentages, five dimes, and almost two steals per game.

Pick 5-4: Paul Pierce, G/F – I think that Pierce is a very good value pick at this spot. Even if you predict a continuation of the statistical decline over the past couple of years, he should still bring a fantasy punch that exceeds this draft position. This team now has a trio of dynamic, multi-cat-contributing swingmen in Iguodala, Durant, and Pierce. Jason Kidd fits in well with the multi-cat theme from the PG spot, but Tim Duncan appears to be the “odd man out” of sorts in this mix. Nonetheless, this team has had a consistent run of “best player available” picks thus far. That seems to be the consistent trend in its approach to this draft; which is good considering the wealth of value he’s been grabbing every single round.

Pick 5-5: Stephen Jackson, G/F – Let’s put aside for a brief moment the aura of uncertainty surrounding Captain Jack and look at how he fits into this team. Since the team has appeared to go for a “pure” small-ball strategy, Jackson’s organic fantasy weaknesses are not as pronounced when looked at in the context that his FG% and TOs can be punted anyway. Now, back to his issues. Jackson is an injury risk and now also apparently a personality risk as well. Will we see an Al Harrington-esque tantrum from him at some point in this season? How much time will he miss due to injury? If and when he’s traded, where will he go? How will he mesh, or not mesh, with his new team? So many questions, too little upside…

Pick 5-6: Baron Davis, PG – A feel it’s a tad early to grab Baron. Then again, I’m a fantasy expert who isn’t very high on him this season. Optimistically speaking, Baron may actually be out to prove naysayers like myself wrong this time around. For the Clippers and Coach Dunleavy’s sake, they’re going to want to see the 20+ PPG; 2+ 3PPG; 8
+ APG; 1.8 SPG; stat-slinging version of B-Diddy that we all know is in there – somewhere. It’s a good thing that Jose Calderon and Mehmet Okur are players that are generally easy on the TOs, because Boom Dizzle’s should be good for more than three of those a night.

Pick 5-7: John Salmons, G/F – This is pretty much where I personally end up grabbing John Salmons in almost ALL my mock drafts. Why almost all? Well, his FG% is acceptable for my big-ball strategies and his points, assists, and threes sit very well with my small-ball strategies. So yes, if you’re in a draft room with me, expect a John Salmons pick at some point in the draft. The combination of his relatively low TOs and solid shooting percentages make him a good SG for Nels’ team. So far, Nels has been consistent with the direction he’s mapped out for his team kind of like his first round pick, Dirk.

Pick 5-8: Paul Millsap, F – The slow-motion effect the Jazz have added to the Boozer trade action sequence has kind of put a damper on Paul’s expected upside. While we know that this worry will be but short-lived, it does muddle his projected value a bit. One interesting development in his fantasy status is that Yahoo has removed Paul’s PF/C status and moved him up to SF/PF. Now even if we don’t see his expected upside value to come to fruition right away, whatever he can bring in the interim is awesome when coming from a big-ball team’s SF slot. It allows the Big-ball team to really load-up on the big man stats. That bonus is probably enough to up his draft value for strategy-specific focused teams.

Pick 5-9: Mo Williams, PG – I think that Mo should remain as one of the more consistent fantasy factors in the Cavaliers team. I do not know how effectively his stat set interacts or complements the array brought by Dwight Howard, from a strategic perspective, but then again I’ve been saying that same thing about many this team’s previous picks from the get-go. Value for value’s sake though, Mo is a good pick in the fifth round.

Pick 5-10: Andrea Bargnani, F/C – Bargnani is on my upside list and the fifth round is just about where I expect his value to end up by season’s end. He’s a quality small-ball center and fits this team like a glove. It was a good move that this point for this team to make sure it secured a center. I generally like to make sure that I at least have one center-eligible player by the fifth round. The value drop-off after this point is pretty pronounced. This is especially important for small-ball teams as their optimal guys tend to get snatched up early.

Pick 5-11: Andris Biedrins, C – Not only is Biedrins a good value pick for this round, he also rounds out a now solid core of big men. Bosh, Al Jefferson, and Biedrins. This team’s rebounding and FG% will be tough to compete with. Andris also fits in with the team’s intention to be cautious about the amount of turnovers that its players generate. The only consideration drafters may or possibly should have about Biedrins’ outlook for this season can be summed up in two words – Anthony Randolph. Can this emerging front court force steal some of the opportunities for Biedrins to deliver the fantasy production we are looking for? Can they share the Warriors’ front court duties in such a way that they will both bring wicked fantasy lines? We’ll have to wait and see.

Pick 5-12: O.J. Mayo, G – I’m personally a bit worried that Mayo will take the biggest fantasy hit by Allen Iverson’s addition to the Memphis Grizzlies’ roster. He should be good for some points, a decent number of treys and a handful of assists. He improves the three-point shooting dimension of this team. Mayo helps make the team more well rounded, but at this point I wonder if it should have gone for a center instead.

Drafter Quote of the Round

“Pierce is pretty clearly the best player avalible so I’ll take him even though I sort of hate him.  Plus, even if he gets hurt so badly he needs a wheelchair he’ll be back in 30 minutes.” – Team Shawn Kemp’s Kidz, on picking Paul Pierce

Previous Rounds

Round 1, Round 2, Round 3, Round 4

Mock Draft Spreadsheet

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• The GMTR Hot List: Top 10 Fantasy Centers (4)
• Day 103 of 170: New York Welcomes LeBron with Open Arms and a Lack of Defense (4)
• Day 78 of 170: The Old Men Are Alright (5)
• The GMTR Hot List: Top 10 Fantasy Shooting Guards (6)
• Day 27 of 170: Are You Feeling Randy? (6)
• Day 143 of 170: The Rich Get Richer (1)
• Day 142 of 170: It’s March and it’s Madness (7)

Photo by Barry Chin via Boston.com

Round 4

Pick 4-1: Josh Smith, F – Ok, so Project Spurs did not go for Tim Duncan like I was hoping/predicting. It appears that he really has a thing for talented swingmen who produce in multiple categories. Josh Smith would definitely have to be one of the top names on that list of players. As far as his strategy seems to be shaping up in the first four rounds of the mock draft, it appears this team likes to multi-cat swing + PG when he bounces. This is evident by his Wallace-Roy bounce, and now with his Parker-Smith bounce. His team is making more sense to me now. Parker and Roy make for a strong scoring back court, while Wallace and Smith do just about everything a team needs from the swing position. Not bad. I’m interested to see how he will round out his need to fill his team’s center slots later on in the draft.

Pick 4-2: Jason Richardson, G/F – I’m a bit surprised to see Jason picked ahead of the likes of Vince Carter or Paul Pierce. I see J-Rich having a huge having a big comeback this season. Not that he was particularly bad last year, I just think that the Suns return to its run-and-gun style should assist Richardson in grabbing a return into the Fantasy Basketball limelight. He shot well from the field last season and should hamper this team’s FG% investments less than Rashard Lewis, the team’s third round pick. We’ve got what looks like a big-ball + threes going on at this point. J-Rich is also light in the TOs department and it appears that this team is trying to compete in that category among others.

Pick 4-3: Jason Terry, G – Considering the reliability of Josh Howard’s unreliability, I wouldn’t call this pick too much of a reach. Jet will almost always come up big during Howard’s absences, which for Terry owners is thankfully neither few nor far between. Terry is coming off one of his best fantasy seasons yet, and we project him to do well once again this year. He will shoot a ton of threes, and steal the ball often enough to make up for Deron’s shortcomings in those departments. The fact that Jason does all of that and at a solid  46.3 FG% is simply icing on the cake. Terry and Jamison’s low turnovers help soften the blow of what Deron Williams and Steve Nash will be piling up, but it’s still a long road ahead if this team plans on compensating in that department as opposed to punting it altogether. This is an interesting approach as the conventional route would be to add a steals dimension to the team as opposed to turnover mitigation. Let’s see how it pans out in the end.

Pick 4-4: Vince Carter, G/F – How does Vince Carter, Caron Butler, and David West fit in with Dwight Howard? Frankly, I’m not really sure. For now, this team looks like it’s taking the draft the “best player available” route. Well at least to some degree it is. I am not 100% sure VC’s move to Orlando will fare well for his fantasy value. I’m not sure how he will mesh with Dwight and SVG. All told, based on how Carter performed last season, he looks like he’s a good value pick at this stage in the draft.

Pick 4-5: Kevin Garnett, PF – Even with some expected decline in KG’s numbers due to him playing in a post-injury season; he should still put up reasonably decent big man numbers for the core of Amar’e-Pau. He preserves the team’s relatively solid free throw shooting. Talk about unconventional. This team’s big men are better shooters from the line than its guards, which at this point is just Rajon Rondo. KG fits well in the sense that he strengthen boards and percentages while chipping in a little something-something in the blocks and steals categories every night. His low TOs are also a welcome addition to what appears to be a well-drafted finesse big-ball team.

Pick 4-6: Shawn Marion, F – Shawn Marion seems to fit the bill for what Nels’ has cooking up. Marion is arguably the best SF-eligible player who sports both good percentages, low turnovers, and should be good for a block and a steal per game.  So far, there hasn’t been much competition between the two  big-ball drafters that are virtually seated next to each other in this mock draft. Things should get a little bit tight as far as these two are concerned in the later rounds as the draft targets who shoot well from both the field and the line will be seen fewer and farther between.

Pick 4-7: Carmelo Anthony, SF – I pretty much said my piece about Melo over at PitP in this post. Since this is not  a third-round reach, I feel Carmelo provides just the right amount of fantasy value for this spot. He is a good pick in the fourth round to help offset Jose Calderon’s deficiencies in the scoring department. On the flip side, Calderon helps offset Melo’s relatively high turnovers.  Anthony also adds some rebounding punch to a team who calls Mehmet Okur its primary center at this point. Good value pick here.

Pick 4-8: Al Harrington, F/C – This pick tells me this team is going to play it small in terms of its build and design. It has two solid SGs in Kobe and Kevin Martin. Well Kobe is solid, Kevin just needs to stay away from sprains more in order to join Kobe in that niche. Chauncey is a great PG to have, and now the team’s added Al Harrington who can both score and rain down treys from the PF or C slot. Nice. Small-ball it is then.

Pick 4-9: Tim Duncan, F/C – I was wondering when these guys would come around to picking Timmy. I’m just wondering if this pick is a diversification pick or simply just a “best big man available” pick. Duncan adds boards and blocks to am already versatile core of Durant, Kidd, Iguodala. FT% will definitely be an issue for this team as Duncan is not really good at shooting those freebies from the charity stripe. Overall, his addition to the team makes it much more well rounded and actually opens up more routes for this team to take in future picks.

Pick 4-10: Elton Brand, F/C – Aside from this team’s second-round Joe Johnson pick, this roster is starting to look like a risk-reward player collection. Arenas bounce to Brand as third and fourth round picks! Talk about cheering guys on to make a comeback. I do not like it in the sense that the team adds another “risky” player to its roster so early in the draft, but I have to admire the upside potential if both Brand and Arenas do comeback strong this season. It’s a very “balls-zy” move on this team’s part. It will either win lots of match-ups or dwell in the cellar depending on how its recovering veterans fare this season.

Pick 4-11: Derrick Rose, PG – Derrick Rose is an upside pick at this point. We don’t know for sure how much he has improved over the summer. It just so happens that expectations are high for this youngster from the Bulls. Admittedly, a Rose-Harris fantasy backcourt is a pretty formidable one. They both lack threes in their lines, but are expected to deliver a good number of assists and tons of points. Let’s not forget this team led off with LeBron James in the first round, so I would have to say that its assist category is in pretty good hands at this point in the draft.

Pick 4-12: Ray Allen, SG – As I said in earlier reviews of this team, it appears that it is pretty flexible in terms of the direction it can take as far as going for big or small ball is concerned. At some point, however, the team should probably pick a direction and stick with it. Otherwise, it might just end up looking like a rotisserie team that’s being pitted against H2H teams. That, by the way, is a strategy in itself. Going for a balanced attack in the beginning and simply going for a more focused attack once it’s clear that the team will reach the playoffs. In-season, a “modular” type of team can simply add and drop players as it needs depending on what kind of team it’s facing for the week.

Drafter Quote of the Round

“… I don’t like the fact that my is relying on his knees and Amar’e’s eyes, but sometimes you gotta just say WTF…” – Team The Mock-Skeeters, on drafting Kevin Garnett

Snubbed Player(s) of the Round: Paul Pierce

Previous Rounds

Round 1
Round 2
Round 3

Mock Draft Spreadsheet

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• GMTR Readers League Playoff Review (13)
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• The Fantasy Basketball All-Stars: Western Conference (1)
• Day 90 of 170: In Which Dallas Turns a 16 Point Half Time Lead into a 50 Point Victory (6)
• Day 45 of 170: Even The Meek Can Be Strong (2)
• The GMTR Hot List: Top 10 Fantasy Small Forwards (1)

1) A team-by-team weekly schedule grid for every team in league
2) A team-by-team daily schedule grid for every team in league

Now there are a lot of weekly schedule grids out there, but why is it so hard to find a daily list of games? Sure, you can find calender type schedules or individual team schedules, but I have never been able to find a good daily schedule grid for every day of the season. So I did what any self-respecting geek would do and made my own.

Now the importance a team’s schedule on the average fantasy owner depends on a lot of factors: the type of league, the league’s scoring system, whether there are playoffs or not, and when those playoffs are. Now, I’ve never really paid too much attention to the NBA schedule BEFORE a draft because there are way too many what ifs associated with the NBA. Worrying too much about the schedule is like worrying about where you’re going to take a hot girl on your 3rd date before you’ve even asked her out. Maybe it has some relevance on your future with her, but you have a few more important things to worry about first.

That being said, those of you in H2H leagues with playoffs should take a quick look at the schedule just to make sure it matches with your overall plan and your team management style. What does that mean exactly?

Feast or Famine: A Quick Look at the NBA Schedule

Which would you rather have: 1) a guy from a team with a lot of 4-5 game weeks and on the flip side 1-2 game weeks, or 2) a guy from a team with a consistent 3 game a week schedule? The more extreme schedule will certainly help you destroy teams in certain weeks, but it will also leave you short in others. I haven’t really looked at the topic strategerically, but I’d assume both types of schedules could work depending on your team and your style of play. If you love to trade and work free agency, then the extreme lineup teams are probably more your thing.

Teams with the most weeks of 4 or more games: NOR (13), NYK (13), HOU (12), IND (12), MIN (12), POR (12)
Teams with the most weeks of 1-2 games: LAC (5), MIN (5), NOR (5), NYK (5), POR (5)

If not, you’re probably better off with the consistent schedules.

Teams with the most weeks of 3 games: DEN (14), BOS (13), CLE (13)

Fantasy Playoffs: Someone’s idea of a cruel joke

In theory, the fantasy playoffs are a great way to crown a champion winner take all style. In reality, with injuries to players and teams resting their stars either for the post season or because they have nothing to play for, the fantasy playoffs often become a battle of attrition where the team with the most players left standing has a huge to insurmountable advantage. So, while it makes sense to have some idea of which teams finish the season off strong and which don’t, injuries and coaching decisions are going to have a much bigger and unknown effect on your team than the schedule. The Spurs, for example, have 14 games over the last four weeks of the season, tied for the most with the Bucks, Rockets, Thunder, Raptors and Wizards*. But who knows if the Spurs will be fighting for playoff position again, or will have locked up a playoff spot while resting Duncan, Parker and Ginobili before the playoffs.

Teams with the best playoff schedule (most games over the last 4 weeks): MIL (14), SAN (14), HOU (14), OKL (14), TOR (14), WAS (14)*
Teams with the worst playoff schedule (least amount of games over the last 4 weeks): NOR (11), POR (11), CLE (11)

Another cruel joke: two of the teams with the least amount of games over the last 4 weeks of the season are the Cavs and the Hornets. Will that mean you draft someone else with the first or second pick? I really hope it doesn’t. If you are lucky enough to have CP3 or LeBron anchor your team, you’ll just have to bear down and suck it up at the end of the year or, maybe, possibly, trade them right before your league’s trade deadline. But in my opinion, it makes more sense to worry about making the playoffs before you worry about that 3rd date.

GMTR Fantasy Basketball Schedule Grid

*Correction

Other Stuff Like This:

• No Related Post

But what if the goal isn’t to win the free throw percentage category? Can you create a more realistic team that makes use of Howard’s strengths if the goal is to simply create a team with an above average FT% (with average being 77.6%)?

As in the first post, the same rules apply.

The Ground Rules

• Roto scoring system
• 12-team league
• 10 starters per team (PG/SG/G/SF/PF/F/C/C/UTIL/UTIL)
• A serpentine draft
• I have the 8th pick in the draft
• I’m using the insane mock draft spreadsheet from BuserSports. I cannot draft anyone with an average mock draft position lower than my current pick (if I’m at pick 50, the AVP for my pick has to be 50 or higher).
• With one notable exception, the free throw stats I’m using come from the Four Fingers Draft Guide projections for 2009-10. Among everything else, we projected free throw percentage and attempts for the top 250 fantasy players for the upcoming year.
• And for an added degree of difficulty, I’m taking Dwight Howard in the first round (8th overall) and using his free throw percentage numbers from last season (59.4%) which is ever so slightly worse that what we are projecting for him this year. I don’t want to make this too easy.

The Results

After spending way too much time staring at spreadsheets, I can honestly say there are hundreds if not thousands of combinations of players that can be paired with Dwight Howard to create a team with a decent FT%. All you have to do is limit the selection of players to those with above average FT%. It doesn’t even have that much better than average to work. For example:

Team Big Balls

A nice big ball team that would probably be competitive in points, rebounds, blocks, threes and both percentage categories. Lopez is bit of a reach in the second (especially if your of the opinion that he is in for a hangover type year), but the most restrictive part about this project is finding another center to pair with him. Andrea Bargnani could also be the team’s center, but a better use of Bargnani and his blocks is at the PF spot. Charlie Villanueva is another nice all-around player at the F and Josh Howard brings 6+ rebounds a game from the SF position. If you’re looking for even more blocks, you could swap out Howard or TJ Ford for my boy Francisco Garica.

As far as guards go, I love Martin at pick 32 even with his brutal injury history, Mo Williams is a solid, if unspectacular source of threes and assists and T.J. Ford contributes with assists, steals and decent field goal percentage.

Ok, so maybe you don’t like Martin this season, taking Lopez that high is crazy, and Howard and Ford are just injuries waiting to happen. Here’s Howard with a team of completely different players.

Team Feel the Love

This is more of an all-around team than the first one. Taking Chauncey Billups in the 2nd is a clear message that no categories will be punted. Howard’s teammate Jameer Nelson will also help the team’s assists and threes. Of course we’ll need some rebounds and blocks to pair with Howard, so Marion is a decent value at the end of the 3rd round and Kevin love is a rebound machine in the 7th. Al Harrington will be the team’s second center, but his blocks are horrible, so enter Francisco Garcia, who is a member of the exclusive 1 steal/1 block/1 three club.

Again, even if you hate any of the specific guys on these teams, it’s easy to mix and match a ton of guys to create a fantasy team around Howard that will be league average or better in FT%. My personal recommendation when drafting a roto team with Howard would be to fill the guard positions with great free throw shooters like Billups, Allen and Mo Williams and then use the remaining spots to surround Howard with players who complement is skill set:

The 20 Best Players to Pair with Howard to go Big (in terms of rebounds, blocks and FG%)

Brook Lopez
Amar’e Stoudemire
Pau Gasol
Kevin Garnett
Chris Bosh
Shawn Marion
Kevin Love
David West
LeBron James
Troy Murphy
Ronny Turiaf
Dirk Nowitzki
Mehmet Okur
Zydrunas Ilgauskas
Andrea Bargnani
Carl Landry
Michael Beasley
Nenad Krstic
Kevin Durant
Rasheed Wallace

Also remember that you almost certainly won’t have to take Howard in the first round of a roto league. Everyone is so scared of the guy at the moment that there is no way he goes before the second and he may even fall to the third. If you could somehow pair Amar’e Stoudemire with Howard; that would be one of the ultimate 1-2 bounces in my opinion.

Team Shock and Awe

Amar’e and Howard are such a dominant 1-2 combo that you could fill the rest of the team with D-league all-stars and it would probably be competitive in the big man categories.

We’ve been trained to automatically think small ball when we hear the name Mehmet Okur, but as the team’s PF, he brings 7.7 rebounds, 0.7 blocks and good FG%. Diaw’s FT% is horrible, but he barely takes any free throws, so he can still work on this team. He and Beasley are a couple of flexible SF/PF types to complement the big two. Rose is always a good PG to pair with Howard because of his good FG% and respectable TO numbers. On the other hand, Russell Westbrook is no Derrick Rose, but he’s a good source of assists as that point in the draft. If you don’t like his TOs, he could be swapped out for O.J. Mayo or Mike Bibby or John Salmons or Al Harrington or… you get the point.

You may not be able to win the FT% category with Howard, but if you focus on drafting players with decent FT%, it’s easy to create a team that will at least be competitive in that category.

***

For fantasy analysis exactly like this but with less Dwight Howard, check out the Four Fingers Draft Guide. We talk about other players too, I promise.

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Round 3

Pick 3-1: Troy Murphy, F/C – I suppose that I do not have to mention that Troy’s body parts are probably held together by gum and scotch tape and has a big chance to miss 10-15 games. Oops! My bad. Aside from the unnecessarily mentioned injury risk Troy brings to this team; he also brings in flexibility. He improves on Brook Lopez’s contributions in the boards category; he adds a three point shooting dimension to the team; he mitigates CP3’s 3.0 TOs; all while still preserving the team’s solid shooting percentages from the floor and the line. Tales of Nine Cats now has the ability to swing things in either the Big ball or Small ball direction while still adding a good third round, value pick. This is an example of the poetry of drafting Chris Paul in the first round. You are not pressured to scamper for assists and steals until much later in the draft, because you have the league’s leader in both those categories.

Pick 3-2: David Lee, F/C – Team Why So Serious has decided to balance out its investments and has chosen to diversify the positions he’s putting his money into. Since he started things off with LBJ, it tends to be logical to surround him with quality PGs and PF/Cs to balance things out. David Lee fortifies the team’s FG% and rebounds; he also softens the impact of Bron’s 3.0 TOs. There’s not much blocking on this team so far, but it’s still early enough in the draft for this team to remain flexible and grab some later on. I agree that percentages should be solidified early in a draft because the high-volume shooters from the field and the line tend to go early. For now, threes look like this team’s only weakness.

Pick 3-3: Gilbert Arenas, PG – Let’s look at Gilbert Arenas’ risk-reward status in the context of this specific fantasy team. Another bust season would just be sick, considering he was picked in the third round. On the other hand, a healthy combo of Dwyane Wade, Joe Johnson, and Agent Zero would be wicked sick! Seriously though, from a purely statistical perspective, Arenas can potentially add a ton of points, a ton of treys, and a good number of steals. For now this pick makes it look like that the team is headed in a small-ball direction. It also should be interesting to note that the team is reasonably competitive in the assist category without the sterotypical passing point guard. The “assists by committee” approach allows drafters to focus on other categories, such as points or steals while still remaining competitive in dime dropping race.

Pick 3-4: Andre Iguodala, G/F – I feel that Andre Iguodala is worth a second round draft consideration this season. I suppose this spot is close enough.  Both I and the Philadelphia 76ers will be expecting a lot more from him now that the other Andre has left for Portland. More dimes at the probable expense of more TOs will be the likely changes in Iggy’s stat line. He strengthens the team’s investments in steals and assists. It’s also loaded with good rebounding “small guys” and can actually still remain competitive in that arena with the right big man picks later on.

Pick 3-5: Kevin Martin, SG – If there’s one guy in the third round of a draft that you can anchor your FT% category on, it’s gotta be Kevin Martin. If there’s a player in the third round of a draft whose ankle you’re afraid will fall off after a slight sprain, it’s probably also Kevin Martin. He helps secure this team’s strength in points, FT%, and 3PTM. Assuming he can keep it together, an by “it” I am referring to his health, Martin should be a top 10 scorer easily. I consider him to be a bit of a risky pick at this spot, considering he’s coming from back-to-back injury ridden seasons. Murphy, Arenas, and Martin picks are signs that these drafters are not afraid to do a bit of gambling on some upside early in the draft.

Pick 3-6: Mehmet Okur, F/C – When you see an Okur third-round pick in your head to head draft, it usually means that the team is drafting small ball. Well either that or the team’s being drafted by a hardcore Jazz fan who’s steaming that Deron Williams didn’t fall to him in the second round. When you add Okur’s overall shooting efficiency and low turnovers to that of Jose Calderon, you actually wind up with a team that is fully capable of pulling off a “careful” small-ball variant strategy. I like this pick because it helps secure one of the few center-eligible players that are actually good for the small ball strategy.

Pick 3-7: Jameer Nelson, PG – This pick makes it clear to me what Nels priorities are, and I’m not talking about sex, drugs and living the fantasy-hoops-writing-rockstar’s lifestyle (which probably involves Ibuprofen, Flintstones multivitamins, and minimal sex). His approach is to grab the best FG%, FT%, and lowest turnovers on the market; while rounding out his empty slots and getting some peripheral category gains in the process. With Jose Calderon off the board, Jameer Nelson is the PG-eligible target that best suits Nels’ discriminating needs. Now we have to wonder, “Would Dirk-Calderon-Aldridge have been better than Dirk-Aldridge-Nelson?”  Grab the higher volume percentage guys early, they won’t be around very long in most drafts. We will have to wait and see what other categories he will try and diversify into later on, once he’s established a solid core fore his three main cats.

Pick 3-8: Rajon Rondo, PG – Since I have a Rajon Rondo fetish this season, I will try to keep it in my pants. Assuming you, like this team, went double-PF/C bounce in the first two rounds, you will likely want to cover your PG slot sometime in the third or fourth rounds. Even though The Mock-Skeeters have dubbed themselves as a “big ball team”; I would like to point out that both Amar’e and Pau have very good FT% and combined, a reasonably good turnover rate. Both of those are inherent strengths of both guys that Rondo end up dragging down a bit. I generally prefer pairing Rondo later on from my Dwight Howard base drafts. An alternative PG grab at this spot would have been Derrick Rose, who adds good FG% at high volume and should be close to Rondo in terms of dimes per game while still shooting at a more reasonable FT% clip. Rajon’s steals and slight boards advantage were the likely reasons for this pick, but it was at the expense of the points category. It’s not a bad one. I just wanted to point out an alternative given his Stoudemire-Gasol core.

Pick 3-9: David West, PF – I am not clear of where this team is going with his Dwight Howard first-round pick. David would not be the first PF I would consider to join Howard in the front court, but that’s me. Probably it’s because of West’s vanilla, points-boards-focused stat line that I am not too fond of. West does not block, well at least not enough for him to be considered  as a solid contributor in that category. This could be looked at as a move to soften the blow of Howard’s FT%, but considering this is H2H, why not punt FT%? As of now, I can cannot clearly define where this team is headed or exactly what approach he is taking in this draft. For now, this should probably be considered as a value pick of some sort. We’ll have to wait and see how the team shapes up.

Pick 3-10: Antawn Jamison, PF – Jamison should promise to provide good fantasy value at this point in the draft. He is a solid, PF-slot filler for small-ball teams and fits in nicely with the Deron-Nash core this team’s got going. Again, this pick is one that provides the team with flexibility in the draft. It allows the drafter to proceed small or big. Keeping up one’s flexibility early on allows you to receive with open arms some unforeseen value picks that may fall your way. It keeps your team still somewhat focused while not sacrificing players’ fantasy value. Steals seem to be traded off for FG%, so far; which is something I don’t like to advocate. It’s early and I think we will see him come around and draft some steal-contributors soon enough.

Pick 3-11: Rashard Lewis, F – Uh-huh. I’m sorry, but I cannot “connect the dots” between Jefferson-Bosh to Lewis in the third round. Aside from adding the obvious three-point shooting dimension to the team’s overall cagtegory strengths, this pick neither diversifies position nor directly contributes to Jefferson and Bosh’s organic strengths. This is the team I would have expected to “reach” for Derrick Rose in the third round, but Rashard’s thrown me off my analysis game. I think I’m going to need some of that Ibuprofen. While the pick does open a few doors, it also pulls down the shades as far as illuminating its direction is concerned.

Pick 3-12: Tony Parker, PG – I am shocked, befuddled, somewhat lost; and yet on a team name level, I understand why Team Project Spurs would want to grab Tony Parker in the third round. He wanted a PG. That part is clear as day, but I wonder why he would want Tony at this point over Derrick Rose. It’s probably that Franco-Texan lovin’ he has for his boy.  He adds points, FG%, and assists. It’s good to note that TP improved on his FT% last season. It rose to 78.2% from the previous season’s awful (for a PG) 71.5%. I do consider Tony to be generally underrated by most fantasy experts. Overall, Parker should be solid this season, but I am not convinced that his end-of-season value will match this particular draft position. I suppose it was likely that the drafter did not expect Parker to fall in to him in the fifth round. I wonder if he’s picking Tim Duncan to lead things off in the fourth round. Place your bets!

Drafter Quote of the Round

“Can’t believe both my top small-ball centers were gone by the 30th pick.” – Team Pwangsta

Previous Rounds

Round One
Round Two

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