Hello Basketbawful readers!
Sorry I've been a complete lazy-ass about these fantasy updates. And by 'these' I mean none at all. Things in personal life had been a-changin' and all that. The season was long, and pretty much active throughout, so I daresay it's been one of the best online leagues I've been in.
Just as a reminder, here were the original draft results, including our 11-cat scoring system with PFs and TECHs. Again, the season was awesome and it came down the the wire; down to the final categories on the final week. Let's get to the results.
Click image for big.
As predicted, Scrappy Coco and his mega team just dominated us in the regular season, Mavericks-style. What didn't go as planned was chris's team going from a predicted 2nd best to 2nd worst. All and all, the transactions throughout made the difference.
***WARNING: This is the section where I blabber on about my team***
At some point in the season, I had 5 simultaneous injured (and essentially non-droppable) players, and even picked up my team's namesake as predetermined by destiny, Hedo. In early December I was running a roster of Hedo, Fat Baron (before he realized Blake could save his career), Darko, Blatche, Bargs, Mayo (pre-stupid), and Salmons. Exchange a dropped Mayo for a non-rebounding Brook Lopez, a Sloan-killing Deron Williams, and Brandon Roy's tendons, my current team heading into the playoffs is a true Basketbawful masterpiece. Also as you can see, I was the ties master, with 7 of them in TECHs.
***END OF SELF FELATE SECTION***
Speaking of TECHs, that was by far the greatest addition made to this league. It really made the difference some weeks, and it was hilarious to see them happen. Of course the crazy trades shook things up too, and my plan to maximize quality games through the playoffs came to a crash.
Clickity for biggity.
Last note, it seemed like there were a ton more injuries this year than any other year. Pretty much every top team is dealing with some current injury issue, and the total GP of the top players has to be lower than recent years.
With that, to the playoffs we go. I invite any of our participants to share their thoughts, experiences, smack-talk, or maybe conjure ideas for a league prize. I offer my Suns Marion jersey to the winner, probably with large portions of my feces smeared on it. And hey, how did the Bawful rejects league turn out? I might just run two of these next year (with better draft planning and invites).
-AnacondaHL
Sorry I've been a complete lazy-ass about these fantasy updates. And by 'these' I mean none at all. Things in personal life had been a-changin' and all that. The season was long, and pretty much active throughout, so I daresay it's been one of the best online leagues I've been in.
Just as a reminder, here were the original draft results, including our 11-cat scoring system with PFs and TECHs. Again, the season was awesome and it came down the the wire; down to the final categories on the final week. Let's get to the results.
As predicted, Scrappy Coco and his mega team just dominated us in the regular season, Mavericks-style. What didn't go as planned was chris's team going from a predicted 2nd best to 2nd worst. All and all, the transactions throughout made the difference.
***WARNING: This is the section where I blabber on about my team***
At some point in the season, I had 5 simultaneous injured (and essentially non-droppable) players, and even picked up my team's namesake as predetermined by destiny, Hedo. In early December I was running a roster of Hedo, Fat Baron (before he realized Blake could save his career), Darko, Blatche, Bargs, Mayo (pre-stupid), and Salmons. Exchange a dropped Mayo for a non-rebounding Brook Lopez, a Sloan-killing Deron Williams, and Brandon Roy's tendons, my current team heading into the playoffs is a true Basketbawful masterpiece. Also as you can see, I was the ties master, with 7 of them in TECHs.
***END OF SELF FELATE SECTION***
Speaking of TECHs, that was by far the greatest addition made to this league. It really made the difference some weeks, and it was hilarious to see them happen. Of course the crazy trades shook things up too, and my plan to maximize quality games through the playoffs came to a crash.
Last note, it seemed like there were a ton more injuries this year than any other year. Pretty much every top team is dealing with some current injury issue, and the total GP of the top players has to be lower than recent years.
With that, to the playoffs we go. I invite any of our participants to share their thoughts, experiences, smack-talk, or maybe conjure ideas for a league prize. I offer my Suns Marion jersey to the winner, probably with large portions of my feces smeared on it. And hey, how did the Bawful rejects league turn out? I might just run two of these next year (with better draft planning and invites).
-AnacondaHL
Labels: fantasy sports, Hedo Turkoglu
The first pilot season of the Basketbawful Fantasy League has begun! Sorry for jumping intbetween the Division previews, but the results had to be posted somewhere, and I was too lazy to finish them until yesterday. As a note, we agreed to expand our league to 11 categories, including PFs and TECHs. For bonus hilarious effect, but probably more out of general apathy, 6 managers let Autopick decide their fate.
Black Belt in Crotty, Epitome of Sadness, Purple Paupers (chris!), Scrappy Coco, Stockton to Ostertag, and Zombie KY Colonels (Dan B!) all couldn't make it. I'll highlight in red picks I thought werereachescrappy, and highlight in green picks I thought were stealspicks I was jealous of or wanted for myself.
Only one major surprise here, which is obviously Rose at the 3rd pick. I thought it was an Autopick error, but in hindsight, it started a trend which will become clear shortly. LeBron dropping to 5 despite his absurdly low PFs and all around game was the steal of the round. And personally I don't like seeing Danny Granger fall this low, but lots of opinions vary on that.
I didn't like Bosh this early, but maybe his low PFs and all around numbers explain the pick. Dwight Howard Autopicked here is awful, and will be killer in FT%, TO, PF, and TECH. Tyreke this early is not only awful Kahn-style Autopicking (vacuuming up PGs), but didn't even give chris a chance to draft his team's rising young star! Again, Scrappy Coco with the steal, somehow getting an incredible FT punting team started.
Danza rebounds with a mini steal, followed by a stream of more Kahn Autopicks. I don't like Westbrook or Wall this high, and Rondo's Jump Shot's decision to reach for Love was curious. He got Z-Bo in the next round anyways, but still that could have been a better pick, if only for Free Mario to have the Gay-Love combo.
"Fuck it, I'm taking the Italians." Also, we're lucky Autopick sucks, as Scrappy passed on Marc Gasol for a pretty damn ultimate FT punt team. Bogut was a little early too, as you can see in the next round, drafting injurious big men was apparently Oliver Thriller's gameplan. Dan B gets the rookie shaft again.
Way too early for Griffin. I dunno if this was the right round to be reaching for injured stars to help the March/April games, so I'm just going to label them all red and let Lady Luck sort it out.
I let the clock run down to 5 seconds or less on this one, as the crowd was egging me on to actually take Hedo, and I was considering it after Aaron Brooks was heartlessly stolen right before me. But alas, I chose my Arizona alum instead, drawing sighs of "ohh, so close!". I was considering grabbing Jeff Green this round too, and seeing him drop all the way to 11th pick was bittersweet. Another injurous center for Oliver Thriller, and honestly look at poor Dan B's team now.
Lou Wolding goes either way too early or way too late, whether you believe the hype of his 3-pt shot with his much improved teammates. As for me, I totally biff the pick, getting lured by the "best available" scent, but completely useless player for my team strategy. Pretty sad that I was even willing to take Ariza here.
Another biff. I really needed a backup point guard, and having forgot Jrue Holiday I went with the stack on 3pt and PTS. I mean, aside from that, look at everyone else drafted this round. Ugh. I'm just going to give every non-Hibbert Center a red tag because I'm more likely to be right than wrong. Vince gets a special purple tag because he's still a raptor in my heart. And also we just need to all watch this again, thank you Dan B.
And there goes Lou right before my eyes. Here's hoping Morrow can up his steals totals this season! Maybe Okur could have fit my team better...
I got a lot of praise for snagging Batum this freaking late (110), I mean after all he's projected with a 2.8 V12 in SCHOENE, ranking him 42. Otherwise, this is getting pretty grim pretty quickly.
Yes, I was even waiting on Jose Calderon. Somehow Reggie Williams is stolen from me in every draft. I think too many people know how to sort by per-minute production. Evan Turner isn't even worth drafting, with his disappointing pre-season showing. I'm going to give myself a pat for stealing Amir "the replacement Bosh" Johnson, but I think he might single-handidly sink my PF category. Boris Diaw gets an F for Fat.
As a recipient of the YES network on my standard cable, I can guarantee that Terrence Williams is straight up both awful in real life and fantasy. However, Wilson Chandler, while pretty horrible in person, is actually a quietly good defensive stats contributor, so I shall toot my own horn. My quest towards the punt assist team turned out pretty successful, despite starting with Deron Williams.
This was the greatest draft round in the history of draft rounds. Just look at that Basketbawful masterpiece. We were all rooting for Free Mario to make an epic draft pick and boy did he deliver beautifully. I'm so proud of you guys.
- AnacondaHL
Black Belt in Crotty, Epitome of Sadness, Purple Paupers (chris!), Scrappy Coco, Stockton to Ostertag, and Zombie KY Colonels (Dan B!) all couldn't make it. I'll highlight in red picks I thought were
| Round 1 | ||
|---|---|---|
| 1. | Kevin Durant (OKC - SF) | Colostomy Bags |
| 2. | Chris Paul (NO - PG) | Purple Paupers |
| 3. | Derrick Rose (Chi - PG) | Tony Danza's Boshmen |
| 4. | Dirk Nowitzki (Dal - PF) | Black Belt In Crotty |
| 5. | LeBron James (Mia - SF) | Scrappy Coco |
| 6. | Dwyane Wade (Mia - PG,SG) | Rondo's Jump Shot |
| 7. | Kobe Bryant (LAL - SG) | Zombie KY Colonels |
| 8. | Stephen Curry (GS - PG) | Stockton to Ostertag |
| 9. | Pau Gasol (LAL - PF,C) | Oliver Thriller |
| 10. | Danny Granger (Ind - SF,PF) | Epitome of Sadness |
| 11. | Deron Williams (Uta - PG) | AHL's Hedo Nightmare |
| 12. | David Lee (GS - PF,C) | Free Mario! |
Only one major surprise here, which is obviously Rose at the 3rd pick. I thought it was an Autopick error, but in hindsight, it started a trend which will become clear shortly. LeBron dropping to 5 despite his absurdly low PFs and all around game was the steal of the round. And personally I don't like seeing Danny Granger fall this low, but lots of opinions vary on that.
| Round 2 | ||
|---|---|---|
| 1. | Rajon Rondo (Bos - PG) | Free Mario! |
| 2. | Brook Lopez (NJ - C) | AHL's Hedo Nightmare |
| 3. | Chris Bosh (Mia - PF,C) | Epitome of Sadness |
| 4. | Steve Nash (Pho - PG) | Oliver Thriller |
| 5. | Amar'e Stoudemire (NY - PF,C) | Stockton to Ostertag |
| 6. | Dwight Howard (Orl - C) | Zombie KY Colonels |
| 7. | Gerald Wallace (Cha - SF,PF) | Rondo's Jump Shot |
| 8. | Josh Smith (Atl - PF) | Scrappy Coco |
| 9. | Tyreke Evans (Sac - PG,SG) | Black Belt In Crotty |
| 10. | Carmelo Anthony (Den - SF) | Tony Danza's Boshmen |
| 11. | Jason Kidd (Dal - PG) | Purple Paupers |
| 12. | Al Jefferson (Uta - PF,C) | Colostomy Bags |
I didn't like Bosh this early, but maybe his low PFs and all around numbers explain the pick. Dwight Howard Autopicked here is awful, and will be killer in FT%, TO, PF, and TECH. Tyreke this early is not only awful Kahn-style Autopicking (vacuuming up PGs), but didn't even give chris a chance to draft his team's rising young star! Again, Scrappy Coco with the steal, somehow getting an incredible FT punting team started.
| Round 3 | ||
|---|---|---|
| 1. | Joe Johnson (Atl - SG,SF) | Colostomy Bags |
| 2. | Chauncey Billups (Den - PG) | Purple Paupers |
| 3. | Andre Iguodala (Phi - SG,SF) | Tony Danza's Boshmen |
| 4. | Russell Westbrook (OKC - PG) | Black Belt In Crotty |
| 5. | Al Horford (Atl - PF,C) | Scrappy Coco |
| 6. | Kevin Love (Min - PF,C) | Rondo's Jump Shot |
| 7. | John Wall (Was - PG) | Zombie KY Colonels |
| 8. | Brandon Roy (Por - SG,SF) | Stockton to Ostertag |
| 9. | Tim Duncan (SA - PF,C) | Oliver Thriller |
| 10. | Monta Ellis (GS - PG,SG) | Epitome of Sadness |
| 11. | Andrea Bargnani (Tor - PF,C) | AHL's Hedo Nightmare |
| 12. | David West (NO - PF) | Free Mario! |
Danza rebounds with a mini steal, followed by a stream of more Kahn Autopicks. I don't like Westbrook or Wall this high, and Rondo's Jump Shot's decision to reach for Love was curious. He got Z-Bo in the next round anyways, but still that could have been a better pick, if only for Free Mario to have the Gay-Love combo.
| Round 4 | ||
|---|---|---|
| 1. | Rudy Gay (Mem - SF,PF) | Free Mario! |
| 2. | Danilo Gallinari (NY - SF) | AHL's Hedo Nightmare |
| 3. | Nene Hilario (Den - PF,C) | Epitome of Sadness |
| 4. | Andrew Bogut (Mil - C) | Oliver Thriller |
| 5. | Manu Ginobili (SA - SG) | Stockton to Ostertag |
| 6. | DeMarcus Cousins (Sac - PF,C) | Zombie KY Colonels |
| 7. | Zach Randolph (Mem - PF,C) | Rondo's Jump Shot |
| 8. | Paul Pierce (Bos - SG,SF) | Scrappy Coco |
| 9. | LaMarcus Aldridge (Por - PF,C) | Black Belt In Crotty |
| 10. | Joakim Noah (Chi - PF,C) | Tony Danza's Boshmen |
| 11. | Marc Gasol (Mem - C) | Purple Paupers |
| 12. | Stephen Jackson (Cha - SG,SF) | Colostomy Bags |
"Fuck it, I'm taking the Italians." Also, we're lucky Autopick sucks, as Scrappy passed on Marc Gasol for a pretty damn ultimate FT punt team. Bogut was a little early too, as you can see in the next round, drafting injurious big men was apparently Oliver Thriller's gameplan. Dan B gets the rookie shaft again.
| Round 5 | ||
|---|---|---|
| 1. | Blake Griffin (LAC - PF) | Colostomy Bags |
| 2. | Darren Collison (Ind - PG) | Purple Paupers |
| 3. | Carlos Boozer (Chi - PF,C) | Tony Danza's Boshmen |
| 4. | Mo Williams (Cle - PG) | Black Belt In Crotty |
| 5. | Marcus Camby (Por - PF,C) | Scrappy Coco |
| 6. | Jason Richardson (Pho - SG,SF) | Rondo's Jump Shot |
| 7. | Kevin Martin (Hou - SG) | Zombie KY Colonels |
| 8. | Troy Murphy (NJ - PF,C) | Stockton to Ostertag |
| 9. | Andrew Bynum (LAL - C) | Oliver Thriller |
| 10. | Aaron Brooks (Hou - PG) | Epitome of Sadness |
| 11. | Andray Blatche (Was - PF,C) | AHL's Hedo Nightmare |
| 12. | Devin Harris (NJ - PG) | Free Mario! |
Way too early for Griffin. I dunno if this was the right round to be reaching for injured stars to help the March/April games, so I'm just going to label them all red and let Lady Luck sort it out.
| Round 6 | ||
|---|---|---|
| 1. | Chris Kaman (LAC - C) | Free Mario! |
| 2. | Channing Frye (Pho - PF,C) | AHL's Hedo Nightmare |
| 3. | Antawn Jamison (Cle - SF,PF) | Epitome of Sadness |
| 4. | Yao Ming (Hou - C) | Oliver Thriller |
| 5. | Raymond Felton (NY - PG,SG) | Stockton to Ostertag |
| 6. | Hedo Turkoglu (Pho - SG,SF) | Zombie KY Colonels |
| 7. | Kevin Garnett (Bos - PF) | Rondo's Jump Shot |
| 8. | Baron Davis (LAC - PG) | Scrappy Coco |
| 9. | Luis Scola (Hou - PF,C) | Black Belt In Crotty |
| 10. | Ray Allen (Bos - SG) | Tony Danza's Boshmen |
| 11. | Jeff Green (OKC - SF,PF) | Purple Paupers |
| 12. | Jason Terry (Dal - PG,SG) | Colostomy Bags |
I let the clock run down to 5 seconds or less on this one, as the crowd was egging me on to actually take Hedo, and I was considering it after Aaron Brooks was heartlessly stolen right before me. But alas, I chose my Arizona alum instead, drawing sighs of "ohh, so close!". I was considering grabbing Jeff Green this round too, and seeing him drop all the way to 11th pick was bittersweet. Another injurous center for Oliver Thriller, and honestly look at poor Dan B's team now.
| Round 7 | ||
|---|---|---|
| 1. | Jamal Crawford (Atl - PG,SG) | Colostomy Bags |
| 2. | Anthony Randolph (NY - PF,C) | Purple Paupers |
| 3. | Luol Deng (Chi - SF) | Tony Danza's Boshmen |
| 4. | Andrei Kirilenko (Uta - SF,PF) | Black Belt In Crotty |
| 5. | Paul Millsap (Uta - PF) | Scrappy Coco |
| 6. | Marcus Thornton (NO - SG) | Rondo's Jump Shot |
| 7. | John Salmons (Mil - SG,SF) | Zombie KY Colonels |
| 8. | Gilbert Arenas (Was - PG,SG) | Stockton to Ostertag |
| 9. | Anderson Varejao (Cle - PF,C) | Oliver Thriller |
| 10. | Trevor Ariza (NO - SG,SF) | Epitome of Sadness |
| 11. | O.J. Mayo (Mem - SG) | AHL's Hedo Nightmare |
| 12. | Brandon Jennings (Mil - PG) | Free Mario! |
Lou Wolding goes either way too early or way too late, whether you believe the hype of his 3-pt shot with his much improved teammates. As for me, I totally biff the pick, getting lured by the "best available" scent, but completely useless player for my team strategy. Pretty sad that I was even willing to take Ariza here.
| Round 8 | ||
|---|---|---|
| 1. | Eric Gordon (LAC - SG) | Free Mario! |
| 2. | Caron Butler (Dal - SG,SF) | AHL's Hedo Nightmare |
| 3. | Rashard Lewis (Orl - SF,PF) | Epitome of Sadness |
| 4. | Shawn Marion (Dal - SF,PF) | Oliver Thriller |
| 5. | Jrue Holiday (Phi - PG) | Stockton to Ostertag |
| 6. | Corey Maggette (Mil - SF,PF) | Zombie KY Colonels |
| 7. | J.J. Hickson (Cle - PF,C) | Rondo's Jump Shot |
| 8. | Samuel Dalembert (Sac - C) | Scrappy Coco |
| 9. | Greg Oden (Por - C) | Black Belt In Crotty |
| 10. | Vince Carter (Orl - SG,SF) | Tony Danza's Boshmen |
| 11. | Roy Hibbert (Ind - C) | Purple Paupers |
| 12. | Elton Brand (Phi - PF,C) | Colostomy Bags |
Another biff. I really needed a backup point guard, and having forgot Jrue Holiday I went with the stack on 3pt and PTS. I mean, aside from that, look at everyone else drafted this round. Ugh. I'm just going to give every non-Hibbert Center a red tag because I'm more likely to be right than wrong. Vince gets a special purple tag because he's still a raptor in my heart. And also we just need to all watch this again, thank you Dan B.
| Round 9 | ||
|---|---|---|
| 1. | Drew Gooden (Mil - PF,C) | Colostomy Bags |
| 2. | Tyrus Thomas (Cha - PF) | Purple Paupers |
| 3. | Andris Biedrins (GS - C) | Tony Danza's Boshmen |
| 4. | Jameer Nelson (Orl - PG) | Black Belt In Crotty |
| 5. | Carl Landry (Sac - SF,PF) | Scrappy Coco |
| 6. | JaVale McGee (Was - PF,C) | Rondo's Jump Shot |
| 7. | Robin Lopez (Pho - PF,C) | Zombie KY Colonels |
| 8. | Lamar Odom (LAL - SF,PF) | Stockton to Ostertag |
| 9. | Louis Williams (Phi - PG,SG) | Oliver Thriller |
| 10. | Emeka Okafor (NO - C) | Epitome of Sadness |
| 11. | Anthony Morrow (NJ - SG,SF) | AHL's Hedo Nightmare |
| 12. | Mehmet Okur (Uta - C) | Free Mario! |
And there goes Lou right before my eyes. Here's hoping Morrow can up his steals totals this season! Maybe Okur could have fit my team better...
| Round 10 | ||
|---|---|---|
| 1. | Al Harrington (Den - PF,C) | Free Mario! |
| 2. | Nicolas Batum (Por - SG,SF) | AHL's Hedo Nightmare |
| 3. | Michael Beasley (Min - PF) | Epitome of Sadness |
| 4. | Dorell Wright (GS - SG,SF) | Oliver Thriller |
| 5. | Mike Miller (Mia - SG,SF) | Stockton to Ostertag |
| 6. | J.R. Smith (Den - SG,SF) | Zombie KY Colonels |
| 7. | Andre Miller (Por - PG) | Rondo's Jump Shot |
| 8. | Tony Parker (SA - PG) | Scrappy Coco |
| 9. | Ben Gordon (Det - SG) | Black Belt In Crotty |
| 10. | Brendan Haywood (Dal - C) | Tony Danza's Boshmen |
| 11. | Rodney Stuckey (Det - PG,SG) | Purple Paupers |
| 12. | Jarrett Jack (Tor - PG,SG) | Colostomy Bags |
I got a lot of praise for snagging Batum this freaking late (110), I mean after all he's projected with a 2.8 V12 in SCHOENE, ranking him 42. Otherwise, this is getting pretty grim pretty quickly.
| Round 11 | ||
|---|---|---|
| 1. | Evan Turner (Phi - SG,SF) | Colostomy Bags |
| 2. | Mike Conley (Mem - PG) | Purple Paupers |
| 3. | Taj Gibson (Chi - PF) | Tony Danza's Boshmen |
| 4. | Ron Artest (LAL - SG,SF) | Black Belt In Crotty |
| 5. | Beno Udrih (Sac - PG) | Scrappy Coco |
| 6. | Leandro Barbosa (Tor - PG,SG) | Rondo's Jump Shot |
| 7. | Boris Diaw (Cha - SF,PF) | Zombie KY Colonels |
| 8. | Reggie Williams (GS - SG,SF) | Stockton to Ostertag |
| 9. | Jamario Moon (Cle - SF) | Oliver Thriller |
| 10. | Jose Calderon (Tor - PG) | Epitome of Sadness |
| 11. | Amir Johnson (Tor - PF) | AHL's Hedo Nightmare |
| 12. | George Hill (SA - PG,SG) | Free Mario! |
Yes, I was even waiting on Jose Calderon. Somehow Reggie Williams is stolen from me in every draft. I think too many people know how to sort by per-minute production. Evan Turner isn't even worth drafting, with his disappointing pre-season showing. I'm going to give myself a pat for stealing Amir "the replacement Bosh" Johnson, but I think he might single-handidly sink my PF category. Boris Diaw gets an F for Fat.
| Round 12 | ||
|---|---|---|
| 1. | DeMar DeRozan (Tor - SG,SF) | Free Mario! |
| 2. | Wilson Chandler (NY - SF,PF) | AHL's Hedo Nightmare |
| 3. | Thaddeus Young (Phi - SF,PF) | Epitome of Sadness |
| 4. | Rodrigue Beaubois (Dal - PG,SG) | Oliver Thriller |
| 5. | Terrence Williams (NJ - SG,SF) | Stockton to Ostertag |
| 6. | Tiago Splitter (SA - SF,PF,C) | Zombie KY Colonels |
| 7. | Linas Kleiza (Tor - SG,SF) | Rondo's Jump Shot |
| 8. | D.J. Augustin (Cha - PG) | Scrappy Coco |
| 9. | Brad Miller (Hou - C) | Black Belt In Crotty |
| 10. | Chris Andersen (Den - PF,C) | Tony Danza's Boshmen |
| 11. | Luke Ridnour (Min - PG) | Purple Paupers |
| 12. | Jason Thompson (Sac - PF,C) | Colostomy Bags |
As a recipient of the YES network on my standard cable, I can guarantee that Terrence Williams is straight up both awful in real life and fantasy. However, Wilson Chandler, while pretty horrible in person, is actually a quietly good defensive stats contributor, so I shall toot my own horn. My quest towards the punt assist team turned out pretty successful, despite starting with Deron Williams.
| Round 13 | ||
|---|---|---|
| 1. | Derrick Favors (NJ - PF) | Colostomy Bags |
| 2. | Wesley Johnson (Min - SF) | Purple Paupers |
| 3. | Grant Hill (Pho - SG,SF) | Tony Danza's Boshmen |
| 4. | Hakim Warrick (Pho - SF,PF) | Black Belt In Crotty |
| 5. | Shane Battier (Hou - SF) | Scrappy Coco |
| 6. | Omri Casspi (Sac - SG,SF) | Rondo's Jump Shot |
| 7. | Darko Milicic (Min - PF,C) | Zombie KY Colonels |
| 8. | Serge Ibaka (OKC - C) | Stockton to Ostertag |
| 9. | Ronnie Brewer (Chi - SG,SF) | Oliver Thriller |
| 10. | Charlie Villanueva (Det - PF) | Epitome of Sadness |
| 11. | Mike Bibby (Atl - PG) | AHL's Hedo Nightmare |
| 12. | Tracy McGrady (Det - SG,SF) | Free Mario! |
This was the greatest draft round in the history of draft rounds. Just look at that Basketbawful masterpiece. We were all rooting for Free Mario to make an epic draft pick and boy did he deliver beautifully. I'm so proud of you guys.
- AnacondaHL
Labels: anal rampage, fantasy sports, Tracy McGrady
Hello faithful readers! The 2010-11 season its almost upon us, with decisions made and the heat of expectations rising. With so much emotion in the air, why not harness it all into lively smack talk for arbitrary glory?
Introducing, Basketbawful's Bawful Fantasy league! For this first league, we'll use standard scoring and rosters. Compete head to head with this blog's witty writers! Spots are limited, of course, but we can let you jump in for the vets minimum.
Think you got what it takes? Write in the comments why you would like to join. Or write something that makes me laugh in general and you're in. Or if you can guess what the witty league password is, you're in. (I guess by that point you could just log in and make a team, w/e.) Of course we ask for active players this season, to prevent shady Summer-2010-esque free agent collusion and all that.
THE LIVE DRAFT IS CURRENTLY SCHEDULED FOR SATURDAY, OCTOBER 16TH AT 9:00 PM EST! That's 6pm PST, 7PM MST, 8PM CST, 5PM AKST, 4PM HST, or whatever other dumb timezone you use! (Draft time subject to change pending massive missed draft responses or Steve Nash getting traded to the Knicks).
Check out the link below, it should be open to view for the public (with a Yahoo ID): (EDIT: ok I have no idea how to make it so everyone can see the results. Possibly after I take off the password.)
http://basketball.fantasysports.yahoo.com/league/bawful
In The Spirit Of Stern, Your Humble Commissioner,
-AnacondaHL
P.S. ProTip: chris is drafting Omri in round 6 based on some insider's info!
Introducing, Basketbawful's Bawful Fantasy league! For this first league, we'll use standard scoring and rosters. Compete head to head with this blog's witty writers! Spots are limited, of course, but we can let you jump in for the vets minimum.
Think you got what it takes? Write in the comments why you would like to join. Or write something that makes me laugh in general and you're in. Or if you can guess what the witty league password is, you're in. (I guess by that point you could just log in and make a team, w/e.) Of course we ask for active players this season, to prevent shady Summer-2010-esque free agent collusion and all that.
THE LIVE DRAFT IS CURRENTLY SCHEDULED FOR SATURDAY, OCTOBER 16TH AT 9:00 PM EST! That's 6pm PST, 7PM MST, 8PM CST, 5PM AKST, 4PM HST, or whatever other dumb timezone you use! (Draft time subject to change pending massive missed draft responses or Steve Nash getting traded to the Knicks).
Check out the link below, it should be open to view for the public (with a Yahoo ID): (EDIT: ok I have no idea how to make it so everyone can see the results. Possibly after I take off the password.)
http://basketball.fantasysports.yahoo.com/league/bawful
In The Spirit Of Stern, Your Humble Commissioner,
-AnacondaHL
P.S. ProTip: chris is drafting Omri in round 6 based on some insider's info!
Labels: fantasy sports
Hello Basketbawful readers! Due to some circumstances, I will be revealing my end of the season fantasy basketball analysis a bit early. Although my writing style is typically humor and sarcasm with some stats thrown in (okay, more like sarcasm and pessimism), today I’d like to take a more refined look at the stats of fantasy basketball.
The Intro:
So another year of fantasy basketball is winding to a close. Maybe your team got pounded by injuries; maybe your team had Dirk, Nash, and David Lee and cruised to victory (like mine). There are many different methods out there to look at and evaluate player performance, and there are lots of ranking systems. Sure LeBron was obviously #1, but what about down the list? Do you really trust those pre-rankings? Today I’m going to talk about a method of evaluating the numbers, so hopefully during next year’s draft you can use your 90 seconds scrambling for injury and team information while having some confidence in the numbers to expect.
The Method:
We are already quite comfortable with using averages in sports stats. LeBron scored 29.9 points per game. Dwight grabbed 13.6 rebounds per 36 minutes. So instead of jumping to PER or RAPM or some other complex analysis, why not go to just the next step with standard deviation? In fantasy, we have the entire population (all players that have logged minutes in an NBA game), and all we really care about is choosing the guy that is better than what the other teams have. Standard Deviation could fit this need!
Well let’s not get ahead of ourselves. For example with Yahoo!, you get all the raw number totals and averages, and even their special “O-Rank” and “Rank”. Why expand beyond that? Well the problem is, when you sort by FG%, or TOV, things start looking strange. Is Marc Gasol’s 58.3% going to help your team more than David Lee’s 55.2%? Just how bad is Dwight Howard’s 60.3% FT shooting going to kill that category? Kinda hard to tell by eyeballing it. Even with the raw numbers: just how much will having Steve Nash on my team dominate the assists category?
The Good News:
Enter: Standardize. If you really don't want to do math, then I’ve still got good news for you: this is all done by ESPN’s Fantasy Basketball Player Rater. In fact, if you are quite satisfied using just the ESPN Player Rater, you probably can stop reading the article now. Here you can see all the Standard Scores in each category, and they are added up to make the final column as a composite score (yes, this makes more sense than adding percentages together randomly *coughHOLLINGERcough*).
For example: LeBron has scored 2033 points as of this post. The league average is 472.5 and the standard deviation is 410.25 pts. So (2033 – 472.5) / 410.25 = 3.8. Meaning LeBron is 3.8 standard deviations above the league average. For those not familiar with standard deviations, a score of 1 puts you above ~84.1% of the population, 2 puts you ~97.7% above, and 3 puts you ~99.9% above, and 4+ is outstanding. Isn’t this what you really want to know on draft day? You can find overall contributors with a glance, and see what needs you are lacking and pickup specialists without having to guesstimate the raw numbers.
Another benefit of Standardizing is the use of negative standard deviations, so you can see when a player is really hurting your team!
The Workarounds:
Okay so the bad news here is ESPN only shows the 8 categories. If you’re playing with TOVs, how does that fit in? Also, how do I calculate the FG% and FT% numbers since they aren’t raw numbers?
Well here’s where we start doing things for ourselves. Pickup your favorite script of choice, or start copying and pasting CSV text from basketball-reference/your favorite website. Now then, turnovers are easier: since it works as a negative statistic, I simply found all the Standard Scores then changed the signs.
For FG% and FT%: I personally believe ESPN doesn’t give enough weight to the amount shot. Shouldn’t LeBron shooting 50.0% at 20.2 FGA/g have more impact than Varejao shooting 57.1%, but only 6.4 FGA/g? Well I think so, which is why I normalized first, then weighted by shots taken before dividing by standard deviation. My FGscore is defined as:
And I standardize the FGscore (average is already zero, so really I’m just dividing by standard deviation). So LeBron ends up with 2.37, and Varejao with 2.07, not that anyone would think of drafting the latter over the former. But in any case, now we can properly rank players by their FG%, so all the lacktators with 1.000% FG% filter to the bottom.
Same thing with FT%: Is Nash's 94.1% (2.7 FTA/g) or Carmelo's 83.1% (9.3 FTA/g) helping you win the category more? ESPN puts Nash over ‘Melo, but using my FTscore, Carmelo scores a 2.67 while Nash scores a 2.36. Of course, Durant and Dirk still dominate the category.
The Advanced Bad News:
Okay, I’ve been far too positive towards ESPN. This sounds almost too good to be true. What are the limitations of this method? Like I said, Z-Score happens to work well since we have the entire population of data. However, a simple glance at the data will show you that we are NOT working with normalized data, one of the assumptions in Standard Scores! Going one step further, I looked at the skew and kurtosis of each category, and they are off the charts, with the worst skew on blocks at 2.2 and kurtosis on FT% at 16.81.
In simpler terms, this means some standard deviations at the far ends may be inflated more than they should be. For example, Dwight gets a near 6 score in blocks, which statistically should not happen in only ~450 people. It’s like one in a million. So as with all advanced statistics, use them carefully!
In addition, I did a Principal Component Analysis (PCA) on the 9 factors. Turns out there’s such a strong negative correlation between Points and Turnovers, and modestly strong correlations between Points and other categories, it’s not even worth bothering looking at the TOV category! Stupid Yahoo!!
The Advanced Customization:
So maybe you hate Turnovers. Maybe you hate my FGscore and FTscore. I think it’s also perfectly valid to try and dominate the 6 raw stat categories! It’s very intuitive, and any wins in FG%, FT%, or TOV is just gravy. In fact, I’ve done just this...
Putting it all together: We can analyze total season numbers, per game numbers, or per (36) minute numbers. I’ve proposed looking at standard scores of the 9 categories like Yahoo!, the 8 categories like ESPN, or the 6 raw stat categories. Well since we’re already working with Standard Scores... why not just add composite scores together? I did this with the completed 2008-09 data. So total season numbers help show how much a player contributed, per game numbers account for some injuries and such, and per minute numbers account for varying playing time. Since they’re all standardized now, I just add them together to get a super-composite score, for a really quick look at who did the best (i.e. which players I should really be comparing during my 90 seconds to draft)!
After doing all this, and comparing it to 9, 8, and 6 category, it turns out there’s lots of correlation among them, but the analysis that made overall sense was... 6 category! Are you serious?! After all that work I did messing with TOV and FG% and FT%, you could essentially ignore them?
Well sorta. Mostly, it’s Steven Hill’s fault. Because he played in only one game with 2 minutes played, his fantasy impact scales to the absurd (remember all that stuff about skew and kurtosis). But looking at only the 6 raw stats, even he can’t escape a more proper ranking!
Another way to avoid this, and possibly help further normalize the data: just take the top 200 player, or top 100, or whatever, and treat that as your total population, because lets be honest: no one’s putting Mario West or JamesOn Curry on their fantasy teams. Hell, to simplify things, take the top 4 players and do a pretend 2 person draft. From there, you can see what categories you’re taking, which you’re giving away, and which analysis to use.
The End:
I hope this gave you some insight into stats and fantasy basketball. Of course, when it comes to injuries and rookies etc., you’re still on your own. This method I presented is highly useful to roto or h2h, and can be expanded or contracted at your liking, despite its limitations. Want to look at the past 3 years combined? The past month only? Go for it. Don’t just trust those pre-built rankings anymore, grab your favorite programming language/spreadsheet/abacus and find those undervalued and steal picks!
Other random notes: Yes, I graphed a ton of stuff while doing this. Tips I picked up:
And finally, in good Basketbawful fashion, how does my ranking compare to ESPN’s for the worst fantasy player of the season so far?
-6.05 Primoz Brezec
-6.05 Jarron Collins
-6.01 Kwame Brown
-5.98 Eddy Curry
-5.97 Lindsey Hunter
For reference, Mario West has a -5.54.
The Intro:
So another year of fantasy basketball is winding to a close. Maybe your team got pounded by injuries; maybe your team had Dirk, Nash, and David Lee and cruised to victory (like mine). There are many different methods out there to look at and evaluate player performance, and there are lots of ranking systems. Sure LeBron was obviously #1, but what about down the list? Do you really trust those pre-rankings? Today I’m going to talk about a method of evaluating the numbers, so hopefully during next year’s draft you can use your 90 seconds scrambling for injury and team information while having some confidence in the numbers to expect.
The Method:
We are already quite comfortable with using averages in sports stats. LeBron scored 29.9 points per game. Dwight grabbed 13.6 rebounds per 36 minutes. So instead of jumping to PER or RAPM or some other complex analysis, why not go to just the next step with standard deviation? In fantasy, we have the entire population (all players that have logged minutes in an NBA game), and all we really care about is choosing the guy that is better than what the other teams have. Standard Deviation could fit this need!
Well let’s not get ahead of ourselves. For example with Yahoo!, you get all the raw number totals and averages, and even their special “O-Rank” and “Rank”. Why expand beyond that? Well the problem is, when you sort by FG%, or TOV, things start looking strange. Is Marc Gasol’s 58.3% going to help your team more than David Lee’s 55.2%? Just how bad is Dwight Howard’s 60.3% FT shooting going to kill that category? Kinda hard to tell by eyeballing it. Even with the raw numbers: just how much will having Steve Nash on my team dominate the assists category?
The Good News:
Enter: Standardize. If you really don't want to do math, then I’ve still got good news for you: this is all done by ESPN’s Fantasy Basketball Player Rater. In fact, if you are quite satisfied using just the ESPN Player Rater, you probably can stop reading the article now. Here you can see all the Standard Scores in each category, and they are added up to make the final column as a composite score (yes, this makes more sense than adding percentages together randomly *coughHOLLINGERcough*).
For example: LeBron has scored 2033 points as of this post. The league average is 472.5 and the standard deviation is 410.25 pts. So (2033 – 472.5) / 410.25 = 3.8. Meaning LeBron is 3.8 standard deviations above the league average. For those not familiar with standard deviations, a score of 1 puts you above ~84.1% of the population, 2 puts you ~97.7% above, and 3 puts you ~99.9% above, and 4+ is outstanding. Isn’t this what you really want to know on draft day? You can find overall contributors with a glance, and see what needs you are lacking and pickup specialists without having to guesstimate the raw numbers.
Another benefit of Standardizing is the use of negative standard deviations, so you can see when a player is really hurting your team!
The Workarounds:
Okay so the bad news here is ESPN only shows the 8 categories. If you’re playing with TOVs, how does that fit in? Also, how do I calculate the FG% and FT% numbers since they aren’t raw numbers?
Well here’s where we start doing things for ourselves. Pickup your favorite script of choice, or start copying and pasting CSV text from basketball-reference/your favorite website. Now then, turnovers are easier: since it works as a negative statistic, I simply found all the Standard Scores then changed the signs.
For FG% and FT%: I personally believe ESPN doesn’t give enough weight to the amount shot. Shouldn’t LeBron shooting 50.0% at 20.2 FGA/g have more impact than Varejao shooting 57.1%, but only 6.4 FGA/g? Well I think so, which is why I normalized first, then weighted by shots taken before dividing by standard deviation. My FGscore is defined as:
And I standardize the FGscore (average is already zero, so really I’m just dividing by standard deviation). So LeBron ends up with 2.37, and Varejao with 2.07, not that anyone would think of drafting the latter over the former. But in any case, now we can properly rank players by their FG%, so all the lacktators with 1.000% FG% filter to the bottom.
Same thing with FT%: Is Nash's 94.1% (2.7 FTA/g) or Carmelo's 83.1% (9.3 FTA/g) helping you win the category more? ESPN puts Nash over ‘Melo, but using my FTscore, Carmelo scores a 2.67 while Nash scores a 2.36. Of course, Durant and Dirk still dominate the category.
The Advanced Bad News:
Okay, I’ve been far too positive towards ESPN. This sounds almost too good to be true. What are the limitations of this method? Like I said, Z-Score happens to work well since we have the entire population of data. However, a simple glance at the data will show you that we are NOT working with normalized data, one of the assumptions in Standard Scores! Going one step further, I looked at the skew and kurtosis of each category, and they are off the charts, with the worst skew on blocks at 2.2 and kurtosis on FT% at 16.81.
In simpler terms, this means some standard deviations at the far ends may be inflated more than they should be. For example, Dwight gets a near 6 score in blocks, which statistically should not happen in only ~450 people. It’s like one in a million. So as with all advanced statistics, use them carefully!
In addition, I did a Principal Component Analysis (PCA) on the 9 factors. Turns out there’s such a strong negative correlation between Points and Turnovers, and modestly strong correlations between Points and other categories, it’s not even worth bothering looking at the TOV category! Stupid Yahoo!!
The Advanced Customization:
So maybe you hate Turnovers. Maybe you hate my FGscore and FTscore. I think it’s also perfectly valid to try and dominate the 6 raw stat categories! It’s very intuitive, and any wins in FG%, FT%, or TOV is just gravy. In fact, I’ve done just this...
Putting it all together: We can analyze total season numbers, per game numbers, or per (36) minute numbers. I’ve proposed looking at standard scores of the 9 categories like Yahoo!, the 8 categories like ESPN, or the 6 raw stat categories. Well since we’re already working with Standard Scores... why not just add composite scores together? I did this with the completed 2008-09 data. So total season numbers help show how much a player contributed, per game numbers account for some injuries and such, and per minute numbers account for varying playing time. Since they’re all standardized now, I just add them together to get a super-composite score, for a really quick look at who did the best (i.e. which players I should really be comparing during my 90 seconds to draft)!
After doing all this, and comparing it to 9, 8, and 6 category, it turns out there’s lots of correlation among them, but the analysis that made overall sense was... 6 category! Are you serious?! After all that work I did messing with TOV and FG% and FT%, you could essentially ignore them?
Well sorta. Mostly, it’s Steven Hill’s fault. Because he played in only one game with 2 minutes played, his fantasy impact scales to the absurd (remember all that stuff about skew and kurtosis). But looking at only the 6 raw stats, even he can’t escape a more proper ranking!
Another way to avoid this, and possibly help further normalize the data: just take the top 200 player, or top 100, or whatever, and treat that as your total population, because lets be honest: no one’s putting Mario West or JamesOn Curry on their fantasy teams. Hell, to simplify things, take the top 4 players and do a pretend 2 person draft. From there, you can see what categories you’re taking, which you’re giving away, and which analysis to use.
The End:
I hope this gave you some insight into stats and fantasy basketball. Of course, when it comes to injuries and rookies etc., you’re still on your own. This method I presented is highly useful to roto or h2h, and can be expanded or contracted at your liking, despite its limitations. Want to look at the past 3 years combined? The past month only? Go for it. Don’t just trust those pre-built rankings anymore, grab your favorite programming language/spreadsheet/abacus and find those undervalued and steal picks!
Other random notes: Yes, I graphed a ton of stuff while doing this. Tips I picked up:
- With the top picks, don’t over-value 3pt shooting. It is easy to pick that up later in the draft, or with waivers.
- As I implied before, FG% and FT% is pretty even down the board. Use Standard Scores to slightly suggest one guy over the other. e.g. If you pick up Dwight Howard, concentrate on FG% guys cause there’s probably no combination of players you can pick up to make up the FT% column.
- Blocks are sparse, but spread out down the board.
- Of the remaining stats, Steals and Points have the strongest correlation, and Steals is usually a close category (so every little standard score counts!). This is probably why drafting bots tend to eat up all the point guards early.
And finally, in good Basketbawful fashion, how does my ranking compare to ESPN’s for the worst fantasy player of the season so far?
-6.05 Primoz Brezec
-6.05 Jarron Collins
-6.01 Kwame Brown
-5.98 Eddy Curry
-5.97 Lindsey Hunter
For reference, Mario West has a -5.54.
Labels: fantasy sports, guest author, standard deviation, statistics, ugh this sucks I'm just going to use ESPN's Player Rater
drafterglow (draf'-tuhr-glo') noun. In fantasy sports, the fleeting (and usually false) rush of euphoria a team owner experiences immediately after completing what he/she assumes was an overwhelmingly successful draft.
Usage example: In 2005, I had a serious case of drafterglow after nabbing Amare Stoudemire in the first round. Yeah, that worked out really well.
Word trivia: Here's a rule of thumb regarding fantasy sports: Almost every team looks like a potential juggernaut before the season actually starts. Every year, I get caught in the warm, fluffy grip of drafterglow while reviewing the Dream Team I just selected. But that fuzzy feeling more often than not turns to sheer terror (and, eventually, berzerker rage) due to unexpected injuries and unforseen decline. Who knew that Amare would blow the hell out his knee, or that Shaun Alexander would crumple into a pathetic heap the season after he was named the NFL's MVP? Or that Jason Kidd would age exponentially, or that Marc Bulger would have his head torn off last year, or that...
That's when drafterglow becomes post-draft regret. And once you've been vicitimized by this phenomenon often enough, one of two things happen: You become a fantasy cynic or develop fantasy paranoia. A fantasy cynic is someone who always (and loudly) expects the worst until they finally win the league championship, and even then they might still be wary that something will go wrong. ("I bet there'll be some sort of point adjustment that'll rob me of the title.") Fantasy paranoia is a condition in which the owner becomes increasingly suspicious and deluded, and it's characterized by bizarre, lopsided trade requests ("I'll give you Mo Williams for Kobe Bryant.") and constant (but laughable) waiver wire pickups ("I'm telling you, with KG out Brian Scalabrine is going to put up big numbers!"). The owner suffering fantasy paranoia will also have a compulsive, even neurotic, need to repeatedly check on his team and adjust lineups during the day. Note that there is no known cure for this condition.
(Evil Ted Contribution Update: "I am officially in full onset fantasy football pananoia. Sure, I got Tom Brady with the fifth pick, but now I have to listen to the twerps around the office mock my Tom Brady fandom, and gloat over the rumor that he has a broken foot. Hopefully a nice 6-touchdown day against the lowly Chiefs will take care of things," he says while sipping from his plastic Tom Brady hologram cup.)
Source: Urban Dictionary.
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