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.

Other Stuff Like This:

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• The Fantasy Basketball All-Stars: Eastern Conference (1)
• 2009-2010 Week 16 Fantasy Basketball Guide (2)
• Fantasy Hoops Roundtable: Biggest Surprises (3)
• Just A Little Taste (3)
• Revisiting This Year's Rookies (2)
• Day 42 of 170: The Kid Has Some Talent (0)

The CBS 30-Man league is on. For those of you who are unaware of this league, CBS invites 14 fantasy basketball experts and me (aka, “The Word”) to complete against 15 CBS employees (aka, the “CBS”). The man who runs the league, Sergio Gonzalez, is pretty much the man when it comes to fantasy basketball-related content over at CBS.

It’s my third year in the league, which starts 6 players (PG, SG, SF, PF, C, UTIL) with 6 bench spots. If your keeping score at home, that means the draft goes 30 teams x 12 rounds = 360 players deep, which is beyond ridiculous. Add in the fact that CBS is the position nazi when it comes to dual position eligibility and you have one tough league to draft in. When you hope that Bobby Simmons falls to you in the 8th round, that’s the 30-Man.

Anyway, it’s an H2H league using standard 9-cat scoring where you compete against 2 different teams every week. Unlike most H2H leagues, it uses an all or nothing win/lose format. If you beat your opponent 9-0 or 5-4, it doesn’t matter, you “win”. Likewise a 4-5 score for the week is a “loss”.

So, starting with year 1, here is what I’ve learned playing in this league.

Year 1

In my first year in the league, I didn’t know what they hell to expect. The draft, which wasn’t timed, took like 3 weeks to do and I may have gotten married somewhere in between, it’s tough to remember. I fortunately got hold of Chris Paul in the draft, but unfortunately I built my team more like a roto one than an H2H one. The results were decent and I made the quarter-finals of the playoffs, but ultimately my lack of a cohesive H2H plan left my team a little short of the best teams in the league.

Year 2

Ok, 1 year of experience behind me, I now “knew” that there was exactly 1 quality free agent that could be picked up during the year. The first year it was Jamario Moon, while in the second year it happened to be Anthony Morrow (both of whom were not on the player list to begin the season, resulting in someone calling “dibs” while waiting for the player to be manually added to the list). And while you could trade players, you were basically stuck with the team you drafted at the start of the year. I also knew that my year 1 team lacked the star juice to complete with the best in the league. So, I did what I thought was the smart thing and went high-risk, high-reward.

And it completely blew up in my face.

Picking at spot 16, my first round pick was Elton Brand, Kevin Martin “fell” to me in the second and I went to DEFCON 1 in the third with Gilbert Arenas. It was the most epic failure of a draft I’ve ever had the pleasure of conducting. Somehow, with Nazr Mohammed and Walter Herrmann leading my squad for most of the year, I did not finish in last place. It was the sweetest 28th place finish ever.

This Year

Ok, I’ve learned some more things.

1. Injuries will break you – injuries hurt in all types of leagues, but when there are no free agents to pick up, you are screwed if more than 1 of your starters gets hurt.

2. I need a f**king plan – Given the win/loss structure of the league, the best way to protect myself from injuries while giving myself the most chance to win every week, is to only complete in 5 or maybe 6 categories while tanking the rest. Call it the ultimate in H2H strategies.

3. F**k you Gilbert Arenas

The Draft

For a complete rundown of the draft for every team in the league, check out the CBS 30-Deep page.

So, heading into the draft, here is what I was looking at in terms of draft order and competition.

1. Tom Carpenter, ESPN
2. Jamey Eisenberg, CBS Sports
3. Mike Yam, ESPN
4. Sergio Gonzalez, CBS Sports
5. Matt Stroup, Rotoworld
6. Scott White, CBS Sports
7. Rick Kamla, NBA
8. Jeff Lippman, CBS Sports
9. Dave Gawron, RotoCommunity
10. Peter Madden, CBS Sports
11. Patrick Madden, GiveMeTheRock.com
12. Eric Mack, CBS Sports
13. David Klyce, HoopsKlyce.com
14. Dave Richard, CBS Sports
15. Steve Alexander, Rotoworld
16. Greg Urbano, CBS Sports
17. Brian Flood
18. Michael Hurcomb, CBS Sports
19. Eric Karabell, ESPN
20. Fazal Imam, CBS Sports
21. James Questel, MSG
22. Jason Horowitz, CBS Sports
23. Aaron Gleeman, Rotoworld
24. Corey Guerrera, CBS Sports
25. Hector Castro, RotoExperts.com
26. Ross Devonport CBS Sports
27. Brandon Funston
28. Denny Burkholder, CBS Sports
29. Dennis Velasco/Matt Satten, BarkleysMouth.com
30. Lauren Shehadi, CBS Sports

So, I had the 11th pick in the draft, which is nothing to complain about (man, picking in the bottom half of the 30-Man draft has to suck). Here’s how it all went down for me.

Round 1 (11) Amar’e Stoudemire

Tough to complain about Amar’e falling to me at 11 (although I remember being exciting about getting Brand at 16 last year). While he’ll always be an injury risk and he’s not center eligible in CBS leagues, drafting Amar’e clearly defines my team. I’m going big.

Round 2 (50) Vince Carter

People think they can find shooting guards later in the draft, so VC falls all the way to 50. Going big, I want points, percentages, threes and rebounds from my guards if at all possible, so Carter actually kind of fits with what I’m doing. At least that’s what I tell myself.

Round 3 (71) Troy Murphy

Ugh. Murphy is not exactly in line with what I’m trying to do, but I couldn’t pass him up all the way down at 71. On the down side, he’s an injury risk and only qualifies at PF in CBS leagues, so I’ve effectively painted myself into a corner by eating up my UTIL spot after 3 picks. Here’s hoping Amar’e gains C eligibility quickly in CBS leagues.

Round 4 (110) Marvin Williams

Back on track. Not only does Williams look good going into the year, but he brings a nice all around game that jives with what I’m trying to do – he shoots threes, decent rebounder, will block some shots and shoots good percentages. He also qualifies as a small forward.

Round 5 (131) Samuel Dalembert

Needing both a starting center and point guard, I bypass the last remaining starting PGs (like Aaron Brooks) to grab Dalembert. Unfortunately, the Murphy pick left me a little short on blocks, so I needed a good shot blocker to compete in my big man categories.

Round 6 (170) Steve Blake

When you wait until pick 170 to draft your starting point guard, not only do you get Steve Blake, but you’re lucky you get Steve Blake. Someone like DJ Augustin would have been awesome for my team (especially since Raja Bell is now injured), but he went at the beginning of the 5th. Instead, at the end of the 6th I get Blake, who will hopefully contribute to my team in 1 lone category: threes. Fortunately, news breaks a few days after my pick that Blake will enter the season as the Blazers starting PG because Andre Miller isn’t meshing with the team. So Team Give Me The Rock is now powered by chemistry.

Round 7 (191) Mike Dunleavy

Bazinga! Dunleavy neither fits my strategy nor is a safe pick health-wise, but rather this was a pure value play at pick 191. It is certainly is a risk that Dunleavy may not play until January and when he finally comes back he may not be all that effective, but considering the picks around Dunleavy included Roger Mason Jr., Nicolas Batum, and Darko, it seems like a calculated risk. Once Dunleavy regains some value (crosses fingers), my plan is to flip him for someone more big ball appropriate.

Round 8 (230) Bobby Simmons

There is a chance Simmons will start. And he shoots threes.

Rounds 9-12

(251) Shaun Livingston
(290) Joel Anthony
(311) Earl Clark
(350) Bobby Brown

Livingston is my backup point guard, which means that Blake better stay healthy. Anthony is the Heat’s 3rd string center, but I like that Jermaine O’Neal and Jamaal Magloire are the two guys ahead of him on the depth chart. At pick 311, my only goal was to find someone who might be good at some point in the future. And taking Brown at 350 is my prerogative (SING IT).

The Lesson

It was a lot more difficult to stick to my plan of staying big than I was expecting, especially in the later rounds when you start sifting through garbage to try and find something of value (hence the Dunleavy pick).The team is still more of an injury risk than I would have liked, but that tends to be how I roll in fantasy leagues. Unlike most fantasy leagues, it’s almost impossible to get a starting six that you’re happy with, but overall I’m content with the team’s focus on big man stats, percentages and threes. If I can win rebounds, FT%, TOs and threes in nearly every matchup I have, all I need is one more category out of points, FG% or blocks to win the week.

It remains to be seen if my strategy will work and if I was able to execute it successfully. But as was the case the past couple of years, no matter what horrible things happen to my team, it should be a fun ride along the way.

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So some new players/managers to the game might ask “What kind of team is a team that will make the Playoffs in fantasy head to head?” Well hopefully this look into the teams that made the playoffs, their core players and basic strategy will shed a sliver of light towards answering that question.

I figured I would discuss with you readers the strategies employed by the elite six teams that made the Playoffs in the GMTR Readers League. This was how the teams were seeded coming into the playoffs and their win-loss records.

1. Big Baby Got Back (Patrick of GMTR) 112-74-3 (Bye)
2. Fantasy Basketball Jedi 110-78-1 (Bye)
3. Kobe Tai’s Pinkie (Nels of GMTR) 104-82-3
4. In Baclao We Trust 102-84-3
5. Skeeter/Obama 2012 102-85-2
6. PWNAGE! Inc. (Me of GMTR & Points in the Paint) 95-92-2

Now let’s take a look at what these teams were made of and how they got into the Playoffs.

Big Baby Got Back

This is where I have to give Patrick credit where credit is due. I mean his team was basically anchored by a disappointing Shawn Marion and an even more disappointing Marcus Camby, who by the way through his poor performance this season and long time away from the court due to injuries just bitch-slapped Patrick’s team faster than you can say “Chris Brown Indictment.” I’m pretty sure Patrick will be filing a restraining order on Marcus for next season’s draft. Fine, so those two former studs obviously didn’t take BBGB to the top. Then who did? Well it was Antawn Jamison, Rashard Lewis, Mo Williams, and John Salmons who bore the team on their collective shoulders. BBGB also had the dubious distinction of having to sit on the utterly useless Gilbert Arenas on one of its bench slots for pretty much majority of the season. I wonder if the allure of having Flip Saunders at the coaching helm of the Wizards renew what little confidence and/or trust (?) Patrick has/had in Agent Zero for next season. Without the assistance of the big fantasy names like CP3, LBJ, Wade, Howard (Dwight), Durant; Patrick brilliantly piloted his team to an impressive regular season finish.

He originally drafted the team with the intent of foregoing an attempt at the points category. As the season lumbered along, the team kind of morphed into a small-ish ball team which didn’t actually intend to compete in assists. In the 24 weeks that were played out by the team, it did well in the following categories:

• FT% 17-7-0
• 3PTM 17-7-0
• BLKs 15-8-1
• TOs 14-8-2

Fantasy Basketball Jedi

Now this team was clearly defined from draft day. He was blessed to have gotten LeBron James in the first round of the draft, decided to follow-up with Tim Duncan; Big Ball (w/steals and points) then became the name of the game for this team. He had Andris Biedrins, Ron Artest, Jose Calderon, Paul Millsap and later on in the season Monta Ellis, Boris Diaw and Tyrus Thomas to strengthen his campaign.

This team was a perfect example of how much flexibility drafting LeBron James in the first round actually gives you. Here you have an awesome scoring small forward who gave his team rebounds, blocks, FG%, and in the end became the transitional glue that linked in his guard’s assists and steals. Essentially, he drafted a team with the intent to only lose freethrow percentage, turnovers and three pointers made.

Categories that FBJ were good at were:

• REBS 17-6-1
• ASTS 19-5-0
• STLS 17-7-0
• BLCKS 18-6-0

Kobe Tai’s Pinkie

Nels’ team was a straight up small ball team, plain and simple. It was solid as a rock (pun very much intended). How could it not be? It had Dwyane Wade, Billups, Ray Allen, Rasheed Wallace, Troy Murphy, Jamal Crawford, and real-life rookie of the year Derrick Rose as its core. He took full advantage of Ray Allen and Wade’s comeback season, and Billups’ new offense-oriented team. Let’s not forget that he had the BEST small ball big man in the game today, Troy Murphy, as well. He drafted small, and stayed the course of his original focus throughout the regular season.

His best categories were:

• FT% 16-8-0
• 3PTM 19-5-0
• PTS 15-9-0
• and uncharacteristically, TOs 17-7-0

His good showing in the TOs cat, was there mainly in part to Wade being his only real high TO contributor. This was also probably the main reason that Nels’ personal real-life favorite rookie sat in his small ball team’s bench for, uh pretty much the whole season. Whether he was just on his roster for decorative reasons, or he just didn’t want anyone else making use of his kid will have to be answered by Nels himself. Yes folks, while us mortal fantasy managers were drooling over the back court help Derrick Rose could have provided our teams, Coach Nels sat the guy down! It speaks a lot about the talent he had on his roster. Either that or D-Rose and Coach Nels had some kind of locker room squabble we didn’t know about.

In Baclao We Trust

This was one of the more interesting teams in the league and frankly, one of the teams I considered to be dark horse to win it. During the live draft I could not really peg down his strategy. The team took Kobe Bryant in the first round, then followed it up with Dwight Howard in the second. It looked more like a balanced approach at first, but after reviewing the categories that the team did well in, it appears that the team ended up building a successful big ball team despite starting off the draft with Kobe. This was probably more a result of the dominance D-Ho had in this season’s big man numbers. Rounding out IBWT’s dynamic duo were the likes of Mike Bibby, Gerald Wallace, Nene Hilario, Andre Miller, Josh Smith, Charlie Villanueva, and Shaq-Daddy-Diesel.

With Superman Sr. and Jr. on your team, you can probably expect it to dominate the big man numbers and so indeed this team did:

• FG% 22-2-0
• PTS 17-7-0
• REBS 21-2-1
• BLKS 21-3-0

This team drafted pretty well from the get go and simply did not look back. Awesome.

Skeeter/Obama 2012

This team right here is a testament to the power of owning Chris f’n Paul. He called his strategy “microball.” I suppose its an apt name considering this lucky bum, got to bounce Steve f’n Nash to partner up with his “best fantasy PG in the game.” I know, sick combo eh?

I can even recall chatting with my buddy Ogre on YM, a day after the draft and as I was telling him the rosters of my fellow drafters; he paused and said “How did you people allow the guy to get BOTH CP3 AND Nash?”  I shrugged on the other end of the chat as a palpable ball of worry welled up in my throat. Precognitive as that reaction was at that time, that same ball of worry painfully popped out of my butt when I found out that team Skeeter was my going to be my finals matchup.

Speaking of team Skeeter and our matchup, Nick (its manager) wrote a little something something about his team and his draft over at Points in the Paint. That post was also a discussion (by me) about which is the better route; small ball or big ball. I hope you enjoy the read.

So as you may have read, team Skeeter not only had the benefit of owning two elite PGs; he was also able to surround them with a good supporting cast. He also had Kevin Durant, Kevin Martin, Andrea Bargnani, Zach Randolph, and Al Harrington.

True to form, this team did well in the small ball cats:

• FT% 21-3-0
• 3PTM 20-4-0
• ASTS 15-9-0
• PTS 25-9-0

PWNAGE! Inc.

Contrary to my team’s name, it didn’t do much pwning in the league; especially in the early part of the season. My team had no clear identity nor direction at the onset of the fantasy season. I had to do some tweaking here and there, 92 moves worth in fact. My core of players who comprised the big ball strategy look which my team ended up having in the end were Dirk Nowitzki, Yao Ming, Brook Lopez, Tony Parker, Paul Pierce, Al Horford, and later on Mario Chalmers and Lamar Odom. Having Dirk, Yao, and Brook (big men with good FT%) allowed me to be unconventionally competitive in the freethrow shooting category. This is admittedly the exception and not the rule when it comes to the big ball strategy for head to head. This just goes to show that managers need to not be limited to the standard categories that big ball or small ball are generally known to dominate.

My good cats were:

• FT% 15-9-0
• REBS 17-7-0
• BLKS 17-7-0
• PTS 14-10-0

There you have it folks, the six teams that made the playoffs. As you can see, they can be loosely stratified into either big ball or small ball strategies; albeit not all of them fall into the standard builds of the said strategies. For the new players who are reading this, the point you should take away is that you should at the very least have a direction in building your team. Know the categories you want to compete in and grab players that support that direction for your team.

So what happened in the playoffs?

Quarterfinals

Big Baby Got Back and Fantasy Basketball Jedi got byes as rewards for their good finishes in the fantasy regular season.

Skeeter/Obama 2012 edged out In Baclao We Trust by ONE point to finish with a 5-4 victory.

PWNAGE! Inc. edged out Kobe Tai’s Pinkie 5-3. This was a lucky break for me as Nels was missing out on the services of both Rasheed Wallace and Troy Murphy for that week.

Semi-Finals

Skeeter/Obama 2012 beats Big Baby Got Back 5-4, by sneaking away a rare small ball FG% win. This is what happens when your PGs shoot at 50% from the field.

PWNAGE! Inc. barely defeated Fantasy Basketball Jedi, 5-4 (by ONE turnover), in a classic big ball vs big ball matchup. I highlighted the details of our roster matchups in this post on Points in the Paint.

Finals

PWNAGE! Inc. defeats Skeeter/Obama 2012, 5-4, by ONE block. The reason that I did not have a more definitive win the block category was because I cycled out majority of my big men and plugged in an assortment of small guys with the intent of stealing away either FT% and/or steals from my small ball opponent. Even though Patrick was attributing my win to the defensive blocking efforts of Brook Lopez, I really have to thank Dirk Nowitzki for shooting 16-17 from the line on the second to the last night of the fantasy playoff week. It was that huge clump of made freethrows that allowed my big ball team to steal away the FT% category from a small ball team .822 to .806.

~0~

I’m sorry if this post came out as late as it did. It can still be a good reflection for next season’s draft for new and hardcore managers alike. I originally came up with this recap idea when I was considering to do a post about the presence of TOP 5 players in fantasy playoff teams. Alas, I felt too Stephon Marbury to do that and came up with this – already too long – post instead. So I figure I should let Patrick or Nels be more Joakim Noah and provide you readers with those statistics and analysis in a future post.

Cheers to the 2008-09 fantasy season that was! And to everyone that participated in the GMTR leagues, GG.

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• The GMTR Hot List: Top 10 Fantasy Small Forwards (1)
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The GMTR Readers League

The 10 12-team reader’s league was won by PWNAGE! Inc – managed by Erik of GMTR fame (as well as Points in the Paint). PWNAGE! Inc beat Skeeter/Obama 2012 in the finals matchup by a score of 5-4. The blocks category was won 30-29 by PWNAGE! Inc , so a mere 1 block won him the league (make sure Brook Lopez gets that fruit basket you sent, Erik).

The GMTR Monster League

This 20-team monstrosity of a league was won by Dennis Velasco, a man of many talents (few of which we can actually discuss without the possibly of getting arrested) and his aptly named Banana Hammock. Dennis was the 6th and final seed going into the playoffs, but rode insane weeks by J.R. Smith and Joakim Noah to a victory over why so serious? in the finals.

A huge thank you to everyone who participated in the GMTR leagues this year. I hope you had as much fun as we did and you better come back for some punishment next season! Gilbert Arenas and I will extract our revenge…

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Nels, who is clearly out for blood this year after I won the 07/08 Readers League, finished the regular season in first place thanks to some key three point shooting from Matt Bonner (ok, he happened to have Chris Paul too) and earned himself a bye this week.

Here are your Monster League playoff teams, with regular season records in parenthesis.

1. Beastmaster (Nels) – (115-72-2)
2. the Drunk Knight – (114-75-0)
3. Ain’t Never Scared – (113-75-1)
4. why so serious? – (110-77-2)
5. Cliffy – (102-80-7)
6. Banana Hammock – (98-86-5)

As always, it’s a testament to our readers that this league was so damn competitive. Four teams were within 5 games of first place and the last place team was only 78-109-2, which when you think about it, is not bad at all for a 20 team league. Best of luck to all the teams involved and hopefully the brutality of a 20-team league didn’t scare anyway away from fantasy basketball.

Bonus First Round Breakdown! Here’s what has gone down in the first round so far.

(3) Ain’t Never Scared vs.
(6) Banana Hammock

We could have a first round upset as Dennis is currently up in this matchup 7-2. He owes his lead to having an absolutely on fire Antonio McDyess in his lineup (good time to peak) as well as getting 5 games this week out of Joakim Noah. Considering the size of the league, I’m going to guess Dennis either drafted or traded for McDyess, so credit to him there. Andy, on the other hand, is in a tough spot with Not So Tough Juice in his lineup. Butler is not likely to play for the rest of the year – never mind this week – so he’s already down a guy. Still, 4 of the categories he’s currently losing in are close enough so that he could make an amazing comeback, especially if he can somehow get 2 amazing games out of the amazing Kevin Durant.

Verdict: The Banana Hammock sees another day

(4) why so serious? vs.
(5) Cliffy

Cliffy is currently up in this one 6-3, but it’s VERY close, as I see at least 7 of the 9 categories still in play. Due to some unfortunately scheduling, why so serious is only getting 2 games out of 40% of his lineup: Yao Ming, Aaron Brooks, and Spencer Hawes. That’s a huge hole to climb out of in a H2H league, but 4 of those 6 games are still to be played, so there is a still chance. Cliffy has a better schedule going for him and a solid lineup (minus the injured Andris Biedrins, who he started for some reason) – his problem is that he’s received some badly timed crappy performances out of Charlie Villanueva Rodney Stuckey

Verdict: why so serious? squeaks out a win despite all the short weeks

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Line of the Night: Poor Dwyane Wade (1.54). When Kobe goes for 50, the Lakers win. When LeBron goes for 50, the Cavs win. When Wade goes for 50, the Heat lose by 23. I guess when a guy who has only played 54 games (Michael Beasley) is your second leading scorer and the only other player to get into double-digits, it’s hard to pull out the W. Wade also had 5 rebounds, 5 assists, a steal, and a block while shooting 56.7% and 93.3%. From a fantasy perspective, though, he helped me run away with PTS and FT% in the GMTR Readers League this week.

Honorable Mentions: Al Harrington (1.08) had 31. Delonte West (1.04) returned for Cleveland and scored 25 point on 5 three-pointers. Charlie Villanueva (1.02) continued his run with 7 three-pointers, ending up with 36 points. Andrea Bargnani (0.96) had the first double-double on the list with 28 and 10, followed by Lamar Odom with 25 and 14, and Troy Murphy with 27 and 14.

Waiver Wire Line of the Night: I guess Shane Battier (0.65) qualified since he’s only owned in 46% of leagues. Since McGrady should be out for the rest of the season, there is plenty of opportunity for Battier, and his minutes have gone up to almost 37 per game in the last 3 games.

The Biggest Loser: Kendrick Perkins (-0.75) is only owned in 61% of leagues, so the impact of his bad game wasn’t as widespread as someone like, say, Luol Deng (-0.42), but with Kevin Garnett out, I think we can expect more than 6 points and 5 rebounds. I mean, he’s playing alongside Brian Scalabrine! (Don’t kill me, Patrick) Not only that but he’s playing the Phoenix Suns who are averaging 104 possessions per game since the All Star Break. I know, with the Celts shooting 63% and the Suns at 50%, there weren’t a lot of rebounds to get, but there were a lot of shot – and Perk didn’t block a single one of them!

All Eyez On Me: Boston takes their Garnett-less game into Denver for another test against a playoff contender. The door is wide open for the Cavs this year. Please, NBA, let there be LeBron v. Kobe in the Finals.

What was the over-under on Atlanta and Utah having the same record when they play each 56 games into the season?

The Golden Ticket: Golden State is at LA for the Clippers tonight. We know that the Clippers can give up 140 points, so let’s see how many the Warriors can hang on them.

Indiana heads to New York today where Larry Hughes will almost certainly continue to make up for lost time (and shots). I’m scared that I might almost grow to like Tim Thomas more than Hughes now that Larry is off the Bulls.

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Anyway, I’m going to Roast my Battle of the Bloggers league team since they’re currently 8th out of 10 teams in the league. And I’m playing against Bloggers here! or…

Nels: you’re in 8th place out of only 10 teams and you’re playing against bloggers. Boom, roasted.

Here’s the rundown…

Al Jefferson: Career low in games played. Boom, roasted.
Joe Johnson: I have a Big Ball team, so can you decide if you want to make field goals or free throws for me. Thanks. Boom, roasted.
Manu Ginboli: You still don’t start and you’re playing only 27 minutes now. Boom, roasted.
Derrick Rose: You may be starting in this league, but you’re on the bench in the Readers’ league. Boom, roasted.
LeBron James: Chris Paul has been injured and you’re still number 2. Boom, roasted.
Corey Maggette: How the hell do you get to be eligible at PF? Only in Golden State. Boom, roasted.
David West: You’re a bizarro big man with your low FG% and high FT%. Maybe stop shooting so many 18-footers, and step inside the key. Boom, roasted.
Marc Gasol: You and Pau both have way too much hair. Boom, roasted.
Ronny Turiaf: I only have you on my team because all my supposed big men can’t block any effing shots. Boom, roasted.
Ramon Sessions: I think I regret dropping Greg Oden for you. Boom, roasted.
Drew Gooden: I just dropped you to get Greg Oden back. Boom, roasted.
Greg Oden: I know I’m going to regret dropping Drew Gooden for you, even though you both have so many letters in common. Boom, roasted.
Jeff Green: I just picked you up, so I have no beef with you. Boom, roast beef.

And since I’m enjoying this a little too much right now… I’m finna roast the other managers in the league. (All in good fun, of course, hence the links to people sites. Nothing personal. Links = Love, right?)

The other bloggers in the league are:
Dennis of About.com Basketball (1st place): Sellout. Boom, roasted.

Zorgon of Blue Blitz (2nd place): You stole IBM’s font. I may or may not know people at a company whose font you stole who could sue you. Boom, roasted threatened.

Ethan of NeswSports.com (3rd place): I had your URL wrong in my original post about this league and you never corrected me. Thanks for reading. Boom, roasted.

UtesFan89 of The Utah Jazz (4th place): I’m pretty sure Wordpress.com has other themes. Boom, roasted.

Scott of Waiting for Next Year (5th place): Your blog name wont be so cute after the Cavs win the championship. Unless they can’t beat the Lakers at home. Boom, roasted.

Erik of Points in the Paint (and Give Me The Rock) 6th place: You have way too much time on your hands. Boom, roasted. Also: Sellout. Boom, roasted.

Mookie of A Stern Warning (7th place): Do people really even care if Chris Brown is at All Star Weekend? Also: Sellout. Boom, roasted.

Ryan of Hoops Addict (9th place): You may be awesome at blogging, but the same cannot be said about fantasy basketball. Boom, roasted.

Zach of Talkhoops.net (10th place): It’s probably time to drop Elton Brand. Boom, roasted. (You have Danny Granger and Tim Duncan for crying out loud. Get your game on!)

Any just so we’re clear that I can take it as well as dish it out:
Nels: the first joke you think of is pretty much never funny. Boom, roasted.

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As I write this, I am at the bottom of the Mock Draft barrel. Well close to it, currently 11th out of 12. Nels broke down his reality check of his analysis in this post. Now it’s my turn… Here are the reasons (not excuses) why my team is where it is right now.

Things tend to not do well for your fantasy team when your TOP 3 picks are performing below expectations…

Allen Iverson, PG/SG Detroit Pistons (Picked 1st round, 11th overall; current Yahoo! Season Rank:93) – Clearly, the Pistons-A.I. is but a fraction of the Denver-A.I. I drafted him thinking that he would go ga-ga (statwise) to land arguably his last contract of his Pro Ball career next year. I didn’t see him getting traded to a team that has an established, if not locked in chemistry. My first round pick is functioning like that of a guy that should have been picked in the 8th… go figure.

Deron Williams, PG Utah Jazz (Picked 2nd round, 14th overall; current Yahoo! Season Rank: 141) – He is back but I had to struggle through those games where he was sidelined with his ankle sprain problems. I didn’t expect him to bust his ankle. Well, for that matter, who did? He is returning close to his old (pre-injury) form. His comeback is partly the reason is why I am now 11th in the Mock Draft League and not dead last. He is currently averaging 15 PPG, 10 APG, with 1 trey and 1 stl per game as well. He still needs to up his FG% to offset his high TO rate. I expect his fantasy value to climb rankings as he gets more games under his belt.

Rudy Gay, SF/PF Memphis Grizzlies (Picked 3rd round, 35th overall; current Yahoo! Season Rank: 55) - While his value is not as far off as my first 2 picks, but nonetheless I am still dealing with roughly a 2 draft round value discrepancy. His stats are down across the board from last year, save for his FT% and his TOs which are both up. Brendan of 2RR broke down his disappointing performance so far quite well as early as late November. A lot of his take still holds true to tis day. I still feel Rudy’s got some upside left in him. I drafted Rudy expecting him to have a season that would arguably comparable to that of Danny Granger’s. 2 months into the season, there is NO ARGUMENT. Unless your name is Chris Paul, Kobe, LeBron, Dwyane Wade, or Dirk; don’t bother comparing your fantasy value to that of Danny Granger’s. I knew Danny would have an edge, but this is ridiculous. In fairness, their difference is more because Danny is doing so great.

Bright spots on my team:

Paul Pierce SG/SF, Boston Celtics (Picked 4th round, 38th overall; current Yahoo! Season Rank: 24) – He was a steal as a 4th round pick. He started off the season a bit slow in the flickering shadow of Ray Allen’s on-fire beginning. I believed in PP. I still do. He’s a true passionate trooper and still a fantasy stud as of late. He’s even currently playing through the discomfort of a lingering injury. I even traded for him from Nels in the GMTR readers league for my David West, but I’ll discuss that move in greater detail in some other post. It’s a good thing Paul’s value is far above what I drafted him at, otherwise my team might very well be dead last. Although his stats across the board are smidgets off last year’s par, he’s been collecting a good string of monster games that are slowly but surely pulling Pierce’s value upward.

O.J. Mayo PG/SG, Memphis Grizzlies (Picked 10th round, 110th overall; current Yahoo! Season Rank: 47) – It’s a good thing I opted to hedge my Rudy Gay pick by picking up some OJ in the 10th. Ironically, OJ’s performing at far above his expected draft value. He’s keeping me afloat, not unlike how he sometimes valiantly tries to do the same for the Grizzlies. It’s a good thing one of the reasons that Rudy Gay isn’t as hot as he should be is, as Brendan so eloquently put it, “OJ freakin Mayo.” This is fine example of hedgin draft strategy as I discussed it over at Points in the Paint some time before the season began. In a similar vein, people who own BOTH Paul Pierce and Ray Allen can capitalize on whoever has the better game for the night. Anyway, going back, I pretty stoked at landing one of the leading candidates for the rookie of the year.

Al Harrington PF/C, New York Knicks (Picked 8th round, 86th overall; current Yahoo! Season Rank: 120) – 9 more PPG and 0.7 more 3PG to average 2.7 3PG compared to last season’s numbers over at GSW. He may be a brat in real life, but from a fantasy perspective it’s a good thing that he landed himself a trade to the New York Knicks. Under the coaching leadership of God’s gift to fantasy basketball, Mike D’Antoni; he’sbeen a great offensive grunt. While currently off the bench for the Knicks, Al’s been able to curb his TOs a tad.

Charlie Villanueva SF/PF, Milwuakee Bucks (Picked 11th round, 131st overall; current Yahoo! Season Rank: 99) – He’s had some injury problems so far. I expected that when I picked him. I was also expecting some upside and so far I’m glad that my team’s been getting the best of it when he does get to play. He’s been a bit of a fantasy conundrum due to his very volatile production and fantasy value. He and Luc Richard Mbah a Moute have been playing tug of war with starts and playing time so far this season. 13.3 PPG, 6.3 RPG, 0.5 SPG, 0.7 BPG, 0.7 3PG at only 1.8 TOs allow him to flirt with the 1 trey/steal/block club every now and again. As he gets healthier and stays away from further injury, I feel that he will eventually win the bigger share of playing time between the both of them.

Late picks that have just killed me:

Samuel Dalembert – Add him to the list of Philly boys that suffered from the fantasy fall out of the Elton Brand acquisition. While Andre and Iggy have recovered some value in Brand’s absence, Sam has not been as prolific to leap back into fantasy 2nd to 3rd string relevance.

Cuttino Mobley – Heck, the L.A. Clippers didn’t spot his heart condition. How the hell was I supposed to know? He’s now N/A and is simply a dead spot on my roster.

Chris Quinn – I thought he would be the starting PG over at Miami. I was wrong. This is was a bad pick.

Ricky Davis – I drafted in him in just about 268,351,079 of my leagues. This was also a mistake. A bad pick. Ricky Davis has just joined Ron Artest and Jermaine O’Neal on my “Don’t ever draft list.”

Round out my team with…

Peja Stojakovic – I drafted him to win treys in most matchups. Now that he’s healthy, he’s helping me do that.

Michael Beaseley – I actually drafted him higher than OJ Mayo. I thought he would be a nice Marion-lite. Well he is, unfortunately he is more like the Miami Marion-lite than the Phoenix kind.

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Below are the 13 steeds that I hitched my chariot to at the beginning of the season in the GMTR Mock Draft; from which was created the Mock Draft League. The league starts each of the 13 players and no trades or free agent pickups are allowed, and is intended to be a representation of true drafting talent.

Image via Wikipedia

You got-dam rite I did. I was just lucky enough not to have been able to pick Brand in any of my other leagues (I was tempted to say “leagues that count” but this Mock Draft League does go on my Yahoo Profile, so it counts all right). With the exception of that 254 pound weight around my neck, my drafting isn’t looking all that bad. Yeah, Caron Butler isn’t performing as well as I’d hoped, but Antawn Jamison is making up for that. (He’s looking even sweeter on Patrick’s Readers’ League team where Give Me The Rondo picked him up at 44)

Michael Redd is also underperforming (massively, according to Yahoo, which brings up a whole different train of thought as far as the outcome of this post is concerned). But again, Vince Carter is making up the difference there (or at least, he’s trying, according to Yahoo).

Francisco Garcia is up to 81 in the past month now that he’s returned from injury, and the last 3 picks of the draft are basically sleeper-gambles who’d probably all be off my team for a better free agent pickup (like Eric Gordon) if I could swap them out.

Of course, when you look at the other first round picks I could have had after Brand, you’ve only got a 60% chance of getting someone better. Dirk Nowitzki and Kevin Garnett are both at least coming close to expectations (Dirk is playing slightly above, while Garnett is slightly below). But then there’s Josh Smith, who’s still getting his mojo back, and Carlos Boozer, who may have never had any in the first place. Allen Iverson is at 78 on the season (for Yahoo), so really, while you technically have a 60% chance of beating Brand in the next 5 picks, you’re not going to have a hugely successful season with Iverson unless your next couple of picks are playing about 10-20 spots above where you drafted them.

Empty The Bench has a list of the 10 Biggest Fantasy Hoops Headaches, and – surprise, surprise – Elton Brand trails only Shawn Marion for the top spot on the list.

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In the Carnival of the NBA Battle of the Bloggers League I have somehow managed to compile an 8-10 record two weeks in (but don’t worry, it’s all downhill from there).

In this league, we have only 2 bench spots, and on my team those two spots are reserved for Manu Ginobili, since he’s a decent Big Ball SG, and Greg Oden, who was taken down, as we all know, by a Laker team knowing that foul play was its only chance at going 82-0.

Now having my bench filled with injuries before the first week is even over wasn’t the end of the world in this league (okay, it was the beginning of the end), because we – like in the GMTR Monster League (which I promise I’ll get around to blogging about at some point, but in the mean time you can read some gloating from the first place team here) – only start one Center. And being as I have five Centers on my roster: Al Jefferson, Spencer Hawes, Drew Gooden, Oden, and Shaq, putting another Center into Oden’s spot was not a problem. I mean, really, I consider that a pretty daunting Big Ball front line, and when you add in the fact that I have LeBron as my SF, it almost doesn’t matter who I have at the Guard positions. As mentioned, though, I will have Manu as my SG when he returns. Until then, though, I’ve got… Corey Maggette! Oh! Injured!

And then there’s Drew Gooden, who is out for… well, who knows? He’s currently in the fantasy owner’s arch-nemsis state of Day-to-Day.

Oh, and did I mention that Shaq was rested for 1 of his 4 games last week, and only played 12 minutes in one of the others. I know, I’d probably have some actual right to complain if I hadn’t just dug him out of the free agent pool in exchange for Joakim Noah (another Center!). But still, when you’re already down 2 starting positions in an H2H league, having another guy miss games due to “resting” is not cool.

Just as a reminder, the other bloggers in the league are:
Dennis of Dropping Dimes, TEAM: Bout it Bout it.
UtesFan89 of The Utah Jazz, TEAM: Suicidal Penguins
Ethan of Newsports.com, TEAM: The Ollie McClellans
Mookie of A Stern Warning, TEAM: …a stern warning
Zach of Talkhoops.net, TEAM: Kev Ollie’s Mustache
Ryan of Hoops Addict, TEAM: Hoops Addict
Scott of Waiting for Next Year (and DroppingDimes), TEAM: WaitingForNextYear
Zorgon of Blue Blitz, TEAM: Blue Blitz

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