Give Me The Rock

While fantasy basketball keeper leagues aren’t totally widespread just yet, those that exist come in all shapes and sizes. The differences between a one-year keeper league and a perpetual dynasty league is so vast that it’s meaningless to offer a one-size fits all guide to keepers.

Instead, I can only offer my experience in a one-year keeper league that has a yearly auction. In this league, you get $75 to draft 15 players and can keep up to 3 players that were on your roster at the end of the previous year (excluding players that already have been kept). The cost to keep a player is what they went for in the last auction + $1.50. After a few go arounds in the league, I’ve managed to categorize keepers into 5 general categories:

Just Done Gone Blowed Up

The winning Powerball ticket of keepers - the chances aren’t great but the payoff is huge. Most years there are one or two guys, usually first or second year players who are a little light on the hype going into the year but become superstars right (or almost right) out of the gate. Chris Paul is the perfect example of someone who received relatively little hype as a rookie but shined out of the gate. He was an absolute steal at the $3.00 or so it cost for his owner to keep him the following year. I don’t know of anyone I’d put in this category this year. Josh Smith and/or Leandro Barbosa would come the closest, but I wouldn’t quite put him such selected company.

The Injured Studs

Personally, my favorite type of keeper because 1) I tend to draft a lot of injured guys and 2) people are wary of injury risks on auction day. In my auction league, Paul Gasol and Amare Stoudemire went for about 50-60% of their normal (healthy) value. Next year, their lucky owners (not me) will get to keep top 25 players under market value. Note that it’s important to differentiate between guys with a one-time injury (Gasol and Stoudemire) from the chronically injured (Grant Hill). The latter does not make a good keeper. I suck a predicting injuries, so I’ll let you make the call on someone like Marcus Camby.

It’s More of a Hop Than a Leap

I wouldn’t put them in the category of blowing up, but there are certainly a larger collection of guys whose game takes a big step forward over the course of the year. Again, it helps to be young: Kevin Martin, Josh Howard, Luol Deng, Brandon Roy, and Monta Ellis will all be much more pricey in an auction next year than the amount they can be kept for. There is value to be had with this group of players.

Rookies

Unlike the rooks that sometimes fall into categories 1 and 3, these guys didn’t make any great leaps forward, but the potential is there. They’re usually cheap too, so there is always the low-risk/high reward angle. LaMarcus Aldridge, Rudy Gay, and Jorge Garbajosa are by no means sure things in 2008, but the price is right.

The Veterans’ Committee

Desperation is setting in now. We’re pretty much done on getting significant value from a keeper. But, sometimes it pays to keep a guy anyway even if he’d cost just as much in an auction. For example, out of better options, I could decide to keep Yao Ming at $14. I’m probably not saving any money, but it’ll help me plan out the rest of my team and ensure that I’ll have a stud center to build a team around.

That’s my view on short-term keepers in an auction league. In case you’ve been wondering, my three keepers for next year are Josh Smith (at $6.50), Luol Deng ($4.50), and Brandon Roy ($3.00). That’s much improved from last year when my one keeper was Jason Richardson.

While I have no experience in long-term keeper leagues, I would assume that rookies and other early career guys become much more valuable the longer you’re able to keep players. If you’ve played in a keeper league, check in and let me know what you think.

Darko was supposed to be my Viagra, but instead he left my teams flaccid, underperforming, and with heart palpitations. It’s unfair to put the blame ALL on him, as this year saw a high on season ending injuries, guys taking off the last month of the season, and teams deliberately tanking for a high draft pick (thanks Doc Rivers, I enjoyed watching).

Was anyone else very disappointed in the NBA this year? Maybe it’s my fantasy teams, because like Nels, I didn’t win a damn thing. Some people only like to brag about what they’ve won, but here at Give Me The Rock, we feel that there is something to be learned from losing. And that means I’ve learned a whole lot this year:

Basketbawful Fantasy League: 3rd place (out of 14). F**k fantasy basketball, f**k this league, and f**k H2H. As described in this post, my team was in first place for most of the year until the H2H playoffs, when I ended up in 3rd. The guys over at Basketbawful called this league (and I’m paraphrasing and/or putting words in their mouth) the demonic love-child of Adolph Hitler and Michael Jackson.

Lesson Learned: I hate leagues with playoffs.

Yahoo Champions League: 2nd place (out of 10). Sadly, this would be my best showing on the year (I have the shiny silver trophy to show for it). Overall, it wasn’t a bad performance considering the league only had four bench spots and I dealt with the aforementioned Darko situation as well as significant injuries to Yao Ming, Michael Redd, and David West. I had high hopes for Steve Francis as my starting point guard at the beginning of the year. This ultimately led me to having a revolving door at the PG position, and employing Francis, Shaun Livingston, Mike James, Delonte West, Sam Cassell, Jose Calderon, Brevin Knight, and Tyronn Lue at various times throughout the year.

Lesson Learned: Don’t underestimate the point guard position in roto leagues. They are tough to find as free agents.

APBR League: 4th place (out of 8th). It was a roto league with about 85 categories (including minutes, FT made, FG made, 3pt percentage, disqualifications, and ejections). It also had 14 positions (2 PG, 2 SG, 1 G, 2 SF, 2 PF, 2 C, 2 UTIL) and was a daily changes league with no games limit, so overall scores were highly correlated with the number of games someone could squeeze out of their team. I did what I could considering I had no idea about some of the categories (quick, give me a player who is good in disqualifications) and the fact that by January, changing in and out 14 players everyday made it feel like I was doing my taxes rather than playing fantasy basketball.

Lesson Learned: Know your categories. And no max games limit sucks the fun out of the festivities.

Maine Hoopsters: 6th place (out of 10th). I’m most disappointed with this finish out of all the leagues I played in. It’s an auction league in which I went for the win last year and traded away most of my keepers (the one keeper I would not trade away was Jason Richardson… you can laugh now). Still, I was hoping for big things partly because this is a league I play in with friends and partly because the winner of the league gets $500+. But, this year I made a dubious auction decision (drafting an entire team of mid-round guys) and was ultimately left without any big guns. The one bright spot this year is that with my team being out of contention, I was able to hold on to some pretty solid keepers for next year - Josh Smith, Luol Deng, and Brandon Roy.

Lesson Learn: Much like Nels’ fabled mid-ball team, I tried to make my own mid-ball team, made up entirely of 3rd to 7th round players. It failed miserably.

As you can see in the GMTR mock draft (more to come on that later), any guy as high on Darko as I was doesn’t deserve to win a fantasy league. But I learned some things along the way and I realize it could be worse. I could be a Wizards fan on the verge of watching my team get destroyed in the playoffs.

With NBA stars falling like Zune sales, just about everyone’s fantasy teams are in need of a waiver pickup or eight. You don’t need me to run through the list (Fantasy Basketball Guy has the full rundown on the injured). But with multiple fantasy teams and even more articles discussing who to pick up and who not to, I’m frozen with information overload. Should I be interested in picking up Willie Green or not? How about Matt Barnes? Mikki Moore? Dare I say the word Nene?

Before I completely spaz, let me step back and try to examine the situation systematically. It’s best for me to look at this step by step.

1. Examine your team.

A Shallow League

In the Yahoo Champions League I’m in (a roto league with 10 teams 11 starters 4 bench players), I currently have Yao Ming, David West, Troy Murphy, and Monta Ellis on my bench. Four bench spots, 4 guys out. I also have Chris Webber hanging on by the cartilage left in his knee and Darko starting as my second center with Ming and Murphy out. The rest of the team is solid, but I currently have no reserve players.

A Slightly Deeper League

The Maine Hoops Roto League has 10 teams with 10 starters and 7 bench players. My team has been struggling all year long – “helped” out by the injuries and bad play of Tracy McGrady, Jason Richardson, Stephon Marbury, and Ron Artest. More recently, Nenad Krstic went down for the year and Josh Smith is out for at least a month. But even when healthy, this team has a major flaw (more on that to come).

2. Examine your situation.

Shallow

I was willing to wait on West when the rest of my team was healthy, but now Ming’s going to be out a while, and who knows with Ellis and Murphy. I’m getting tried of this day-to-day crap with Murphy that has lasted for weeks. Darko’s my team’s weakest link (followed by Larry Hughes), but he’s also healthy, so dropping him for someone else wouldn’t help my injury problems – especially at center. That would leave me with dropping West (with a frustrating lack of updates on his situation) or Murphy (who is aiming to come back next week, so they say).

Deeper

As mabeuf has observed, I’ve come to the point in the season where the flaws in my team have become blatantly obvious. I’m stuck in second to last place because my team can’t shoot. Thanks to many of the guys I’ve listed above, I’m last in both field goal and free throw percentage. Some of the weakest guys on my team include Quentin Richardson, Marvin Williams, and my main man, Darko. This team is in desperate need of a big-time shake-up, including making some tough trades with guys who can’t shoot but game is solid otherwise, like Artest.

3. Examine your options

Shallow

Gerald Green is probably the hottest guy out there on waivers. Rasual Butler, Ruben Patterson, and Sean May (also injured) are available as well. The search for a center isn’t quite as appealing. Since I wouldn’t touch Mutombo with a 10 foot pole, the best choices available are Rasho Nesterovic or Mikki Moore, neither of which is more appealing than Darko. Nene’s taken; he would have been a decent fit until Murphy (hopefully) returned. Of course, I could always try a pull off a trade, but I’m currently in second place, so I’m not in a rush to move injured players for less than full value.

Deeper

As I said above, this team has a problem that can only be solved with a trade. I’ve gotten to the point in the season where just about anyone on my team is available. Unfortunately, this is a difficult league to trade in (unrealistic expectations!). As for the waiver situation, Jannero Pargo is looking like a solid pickup with Chris Paul out for a month. Morris Peterson, Eduardo Najera, Sam Cassell, and Nazr Mohammed are also available. I should probably drop Quentin Richardson (as you can see – I have a problem dropping those day-to-day injured guys) and Darko is a bust at this point in the season.

4. Make a move.

Shallow

I’ve dropped Larry Hughes to ride Gerald Green until Pierce returns from injury. Since the total number of games is capped at 82 per position, I can probably ride out the injuries until Murphy comes back. I don’t feel good about waiting on West, but I’ve made it this far, so I’ve got to suck it up a little more.

Deeper

Dropped Richardson for Pargo. He’ll help with assists and FT% for the next month. I still need to work on trading some of my lower percentage guys, which as shown by RotoPoll, is more important than we all realize. mabeuf has a great list of buy low guys, Ming is a nice target for this team if I can pry him from his owner’s iron grip. I also like Caron Butler a lot, but I’ve been unsuccessful so far in trying to trade for him (And I’m not being stingy, I’ve offered Jermaine O’Neal and been rejected). I’ll keep working the trades for the sake of this team. We’ll see.

That exercise actually helped more than I expected. Give it a try in your league (if you’re a huge fantasy dork, that is).

My third and final fantasy basketball league conducted an auction the other night. Not many leagues run an auction, probably because you have to get everyone in the same room or on a conference call to make it work, but when they’re done right, it’s much more involved and intense than a draft.

The auction went down like this. It is a roto league that consists of 10 teams with 10 starters and 5 bench players each. Teams had $75 bucks to bid on as many or as few players as they wanted – however - if a team ran out of money they have to pick up their remaining players off wavers. So, there is certainly an incentive to not run out of money. Each keeper was $5. Every team took a turn, selected a player, and started the bidding. Bidding progressed until the high bid won. You can see there is some strategy in selecting players, starting bids, and knowing when to bid and when not to.

My basic strategy going into the auction was to go hard after a few of the top guys (especially Marion, Arenas, and Brand) and then fill the rest of my team with role players and sleepers. The rational was that the top guys: 1) went at a discount the past couple of years, and 2) were as sure things as you could get. I figured I could target enough sleepers to fill out the remaining 8 to 10 spots without too much trouble.

The plan did not go as I imagined - here’s what I ended up with:

Jason Richardson (keeper) - $5
Tracy McGrady - $9.25
Jermaine O’Neal - $9.50
Peja Stojakovic - $6.75
Ron Artest - $4.25
Josh Smith - $5.00
Stephon Marbury - $6.00
Ricky Davis - $4.00
Al Harrington - $4.75
Nenad Krstic - $3.25
Darko Milicic - $2.25
Mike Miller - $2.00
Andres Nocioni - $2.50
Luol Deng - $3.00
Josh Childress – $0.25

Total Spent - $67.75 ($7.25 remaining)

For some perspective, the bidding started with Kobe at $12.50, followed by Wade at $12.00, and Yao Ming at $12.25. A little later in the auction, Lebron was won for $15.75, Paul Pierce and Ray Allen for $13 each, Chris Paul for $12, Kevin Garnett for $16.25, and Brand went for $15.50. Arenas’ name didn’t get called until the back end of the auction, and by then a few guys with money to burn (one of whom may have been me) drove his price all the way to $17. Arenas was only the second most costly player though, as Marion went mid-auction for a whopping $17.25.

Despite any planning and good intentions that I might have had, no one wants to be the guy who goes out and blows half their budget right out of the gate. Kobe ended up being a steal at $12.50 and even my own calculations put his value around $14-15, but since he was the first guy out there, I threw in the towel after my bid of $12.25. Instead, I horded my money waiting for Marion and Arenas. Unfortunately, so did a couple of other teams, and a bidding war ensued for those guys. After I lost out on both Arenas and Marion, I was left with a bunch of money and bunch of mid-rounders on my team. Lesson #1: Don’t wait until the end of an auction to spend your money.

Overall, I see three glaring problems with my team:

1. In my fascination in looking for good value, I broke the cardinal rule of auctions: I left money on the table. A lot really, $7.25. That’s just horrible planning on my part. If I had used my money a little better, I could have gotten Kobe or Wade in exchange for someone like Al Harrington.

2. Also notice that I don’t have a single first rounder on my team. I’m not happy about that, especially since I could have had Kobe or Wade with a little better planning (see point 1).

3. The stars and planets need to align in harmony for this team to do well. If McGrady and O’Neal are healthy, if Peja and Marbury bounce back, if Artest doesn’t kill someone, if all the kids step it up, this team might be on to something. It’s never good to have that many things that need to go right for your team to do well.

What am I happy about? Well, I was able to achieve my goal of drafting Darko in each of the three leagues I’m in. I’m feeling the positive vibrations all the way from Orlando. And it’s not actually a bad team; I took enough chances that luck would dictate someone has to step it up, stay healthy, bounce back, whatever. Plus, I have a deep enough team that if someone should be a disappointment (almost guaranteed) I can swap in a decent bench guy like Miller or Deng on not miss out on too much. I just hope I’ll have enough firepower with my starting 10 to make some noise.