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DaLoot did more than scratch and claw his way to a Championship.  He got incredibly lucky.  The ship was definitely sinking by January.  I could not buy a win.  I gave it a whirl with the likes of Chris Douglas-Roberts and Yi Jianlian.  I battled through draft day mistakes like Tony Parker.  I endured season ending injuries to Blake Griffin and Tony Randolph.  Nasty injuries like the concussion to Tyreke Evans, and a Hot-Carl Landry tooth in Dirk’s elbow (yes, that was on a Friday night 10 minutes and eight fantasy points into the game).  I side-stepped a dead relative of David Lee, and a trade of Trever Ariza for Luis Scola (who proved he was capable of five fantasy points on a Sunday and 62 fantasy points on a Saturday).  Somehow I peaked when I needed to peak scoring a combined 508.5 points in the final two games (and scoring more than 211 fantasy points in eight of the last night games – including playoffs) .  Championship shirts are on the way.

Ha.  Why fantasy basketball can be fun and frustrating?

• Week #1 of playoffs: DaLoot played Dr. Copperfield.  A month or two ago the good Dr. proposed a trade.  Luis Scola (F) for Tony Parker (G), Trever Ariza (G) or Devin Harris (G).  At the time all three were averaging about the same number of fantasy points.  DaLoot needed a forward and Dr. Copperfield needed a guard.  DaLoot parted ways with Ariza, who had the highest average of the three (Parker, Harris, Ariza).  For whatever reason, the trade woke up Luis Scola.  In Week #1 of the playoffs Scola had 44 fantasy points, Ariza had 19 fantasy points.  DaLoot won 216-209.5.  That is just simply luck / bad-luck, depending on which side of the Ariza / Scola trade you were on.
• Week #2 of the playoffs: DaLoot and Royz Boyz had a battle for the ages.  DaLoot felt pretty comfortable Friday night when David Lee went off for 68 fantasy points (37-20-10-0-1).  And then Saturday night I got nervous after seeing Iguodala go off for 58 fantasy points (33-8-11-5-1).  Royz Boyz tallied 237.5, which is very impressive.  Somehow DaLoot snuck out a win with 252.5.
• Week #3 of the playoffs (Championship): DaLoot vs. The Fur.  The Fur sent an email midday on Friday stating he was doing research and would have a lineup in by 5pm.  By 7pm, we assumed he was satisfied with his previous week’s lineup.  We had a ball game anyway.  It came down to Mrs. Carmela Anthony needing 40 more fantasy points than Tyreke Evans.  Tyreke only had 18 fantasy points vs. Royz Boyz.  Anything was possible.  As it turned out, Carmela had an off night and got ejected half way through the fourth quarter and Tyreke Evans had a great game.  DaLoot went off for the second week in a row, winning with by a score of 256-208.  David Lee follow up his 68 fantasy points with a season worst 20 fantasy points.

What does all of this mean?  It is mostly about being lucky and a small part about not drafting five of the best six white guys in the NBA.  Chris Paul getting hurt probably was the single biggest break for DaLoot.  It resulted in Darren Collison getting substantial minutes which directly translated into fantasy points.

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Look out for 36DD!  Out of nowhere and making a charge comes 36DD.  He has had high score of the week for three straight weeks.  You knew it was coming, it was just a matter of when.  He pulled out an exciting win in Week #9 vs. Rokers 233 – 230.  In Week #10 Antawn Jamison went off for 58 fantasy points (guard, Luol Deng had 25).  Week #10 also kicked Royz Boyz in the loins.  Royz Boyz had 237.0, which is a very impressive score, but it was not good enough for High Score of the Week.  That went to 36DD with 238.5.  As lineups were submitted for Week #11 DaLoot told Rokers that they should start Andre Miller over Chris Bosh.  Rokers did not listen.  As it turns out Andre Miller had 46 fantasy points and Bosh had 29 fantasy points.  It didn’t matter.  DaLoot’s team is terrible and lost 176-164.

Poor DaLoot.  Looking at the season stats for DaLoot’s eight best players, he should be averaging 205.85 fantasy points per week (five starters and three subs).  In fact, DaLoot is only averaging 191.82 fantasy points per week (a difference of over 14 points / week).  If I find the time, I should figure this out for all teams in our league.  Somehow I think I’d feel better knowing I am getting the business end of a baseball bat more than any other team.

Dr. Copperfield and Dirty Sanchez top the standings at 8-3.  The Fur follows at 7-4 and Fore! is 6-5.  36DD, Royz Boyz, DaLoot and Rokers are all 5-6.

To continue my praise of Kevin Durant.  He has now scored 25 or more points in 25 straight games.  This has only happened four times in the past 25 years.  Michael Jordan had two runs of 40 games in the 80′s and Allen Iverson scored 25+ in 27 straight games at one point in his career.  On January 31st, Durant had 45 points on 21 shots.  That is impressive.  To put it in perspective, LeBron James had a really good game a few days ago.  He scored 47 points.  He needed 31 shots to do so.  LeBron finished 17-31 from the field, 6-12 from three and 7-7 from the line.  Durant went 16-21 from the field, 2-3 from three and 11-11 from the line.

Kevin Durant won’t turn 22 until September, 2010.  He is, without question, my favorite NBA player.

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How good is LeBron James?  Currently LeBron James is the #1 ranked fantasy player averaging 46.80 fppg.  #2 is Dwayne Wade and Kevin Durant at 41.10 fppg.  There is a 5.7 fppg difference between #1 and #2.  How big of a spread is that?  That is the same difference as there is between #2 and #14 Dwight Howard.  It is the same difference as #12 Danny Granger and #36 Josh Smith.  Crazy.

The gap (9.4 fantasy points per game) between #1 LeBron James and #10 Chris Paul is the same as #10 Chris Paul and #47 Trever Ariza.  It is the same gap as there is between #50 Nene and #150 Kirk Hinrich.

A team definitely needs one of the top players to be competitive in fantasy hoops.  There just isn’t enough of a difference between #30 and #50.

Why was I thinking of this?  I have Dirk (#8), Deron Williams (#15), David Lee (#17) and Tyreke Evans (#26).  Four guys in the top 26 fantasy players should equate to some wins.  Any one team should only have four of the top 36.  The problem is #26 is Tyreke Evans, averaging 32.60 fantasy points per game.  #36 is GUARD (BS) Luol Deng is averaging 29.2 fppg.  A difference of 3.4 fppg isn’t enough to win games.

What does this mean?  If you draft LeBron James, you really need to try hard not to win the league.  I mean, you REALLY have to try hard to lose games.  To the point where you’d draft Andre Iguodala and Joe Johnson in the 2nd and 3rd rounds.  You’d follow that up by taking Paul Pierce, Josh Smith, OJ Mayo and Rashard Lewis in the 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th rounds.

The drop from LeBron James to Chris Paul exactly the same drop as Ray Allen to Flip Murray.  It’s the same difference between Andris Biedrins and Travis Diener.

We may have to ban LeBron from the league next year.  But we all know what happens when we ban a player from the league….

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We have the first trade since the late 90′s.  I think the last time the league had to worry about a trade Mookie Blaylock was involved.

Dr. Copperfield has traded forward Luis Scola’s ugly hair to DaLoot for guard Trever Ariza’s 37% field goal shooting.

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Just a quick recap of Weeks #5 – Week #8…

• Dirty Sanchez scored 252.5 in Week #5 (beating Royz Boyz, who scored 219.0
• Captain Mo scored 185.5 in Week #6 and had two DNPs
• Chris Paul had 59 points in Week #6 and it wasn’t the high score of the week nor was it enough to beat Dr. Copperfield, who posted a 62 from Gilbert Arenas.  Wow.
• DaLoot beat Captain Mo in Week #8 by 60.5.  Captain Mo had four DNPs (two starters).
• The Fur also had DNPs from two starters in Week #8
• Through eight weeks there have been 18 individual totals of 50 or more, three of more than 60
• Kevin Durant is fun to watch – In his last 11 games he is averaging 32.5ppm, 6.7rpg, 3apg, 1spg, 1bpg….He turned 21 just before the season started!  To put this into perspective, Dirk Nowitzki (31 years old and has just short of 20,000 career points in 875 career games) has 14 career 40+ games.  Tim Duncan and Chris Webber have five career 40+ points game each.
• Fore! and Rokers may want to check the boxscores for Week #8 again.  As it stands now, the Rokers beat Fore 193.0 – 192.5.  Kevin Durant had ZERO assists in his game.  That would have made the difference.  Of course, the Rokers totaled only eight assists between five combined starters.  That is the selfishness you want in Fantasy Basketball.  The average assist totals for the other 40 starters in our league in Week #8 was 21.8.

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65 Fantasy points

During the draft there was a collective “wow” after Fore! drafted Brandon Jennings with the 20th overall pick.  After Week #1, Fore! appears to have been the owner “in the know” on draft day.  Brandon Jennings went off for 65 fantasy points.  Fore!’s starters would have beat four other teams totals in Week #1.  Not surprisingly, Fore! had the high total of the week with 242.0 points.  DaLoot, on the other hand, started Deron Williams, who had as many fantasy points as a dead man. DaLoot definitely did not go into Week #1 hoping Deron Williams would score 30 points less than Brook Lopez on their way to losing by 21.5 points.  I doubt DW would have score 15-5-2.  I hate fantasy sports.

The game of the week belonged to two of the three lowest scores of the week.  Rokers fought out a win vs. Captain Mo 156.5 to 149.0. The Rokers had Shaq and Captain Mo had Troy Murphy equal Ben Wallace’s dead brother’s fantasy total of ZERO.

36DD struggled to find healthy bodies only recording totals for only six players.  His five starters totaled only 110 points.  It is especially surprising when you consider his starters are Derrick Rose, Zach Randolph, Rudy Gay, LaMarcus Aldridge and Emeka Okafur.  Those are not bad players.  With any luck, they all had their bad weeks during the same weekend.

Guard Luol Deng had 33 fantasy points in Week #1.

Studs:

Brandon Jennings – 65

Duds:

Deron Williams, Shaq O’Neal, Troy Murphy, Andris Biedrins, Michael Redd – Dead

Richard Jefferson – 12

Zach Randolph – 17

LaMarcus Aldridge – 18

Manu Ginobli, Chauncey Billups – 19

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The first games that count begin on 11/14/2009.  Scores will be published very soon.  There have been some very nice games that have counted (Brandon Jennings 65 fantasy points) and some not-so-great games (Deron Williams and Shaq as many fantasy points as a dead man).

Updates will be posted soon!  The site has been updated including transactions, rosters, schedule, etc.

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Thanks to Dr. Copperfield for hosting the 2009-2010 draft.  Good times had by all except the Iowa football fans (including Nile).  Thanks to our out of town teams for making the trip to draft a squad in person.  There were two big collective “wows!” during the draft.  The first was Fore! having Brandon Jennings rated #18 on the big board.  Fore! apparently knows more than most because Jennings went off for 65 fantasy points (55-5-5-0-0) in his first game that counts.  The other “wow” was when The Fur drafted Luol Deng as a guard.  Very strange, but a guard he will be for this season.

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The draft is scheduled.

When: 1pm, Saturday, November 14, 2009

Where: AT’s house

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