Tough week for me, but such are injuries as is life. “Shrek is love! Shrek is life…” Made quite a shake-up amongst the top 6, with the jokes that are Ain’t no Jok(ic) making a strong mid-season push. Jokic going ham lately! Pretty busy week on the wire in terms of number of moves, but several FAAB budgets remain untapped. Some people know how to save their wads for what didn’t end up being dry runs! Here’s how week 13 went down in the REL:
1. HateUsCauseTheyAnus (76-39-2)
FAAB Remaining: $27 FAAB Moves this week: n/a
2. Yappers (71-43-3)
FAAB Remaining: $49 FAAB Moves this week: n/a
Despite losing 3-6 to what I consider to be the best team in the league (Slim), this is not going to be a “Woe is me my team sucks” post. Instead there are reasons for cautious optimism as well as concerns.
Concerns:
We were even in games played. Slim’s missing games were due to injuries (Beverly, Nurkic, Adams). Mine were due less to injuries (Mayo) and more to DNP-CD from NBA 2015 draft picks (Hunter, Mickey). Thus Slim can improve just by getting healthy. I need to make at least one trade.
Grounds for optimism:
We split the positive counting stats (in fact I was fairly close on the ones I lost). The difference was the ratios and turnovers where I lost all three. As far as the ratios go, Slim and I have similar teams (strong FT%, weaker FG%) and since these too were quite close I figure by the law of averges most times we would split on those. Turnovers I do not worry about. I ended up losing Treys by three, assists by one and blocks by 5. Maybe if I were playing with a full deck I could have won a couple of these.
C.J. Miles and Jeff Teague are slumping badly now. Miles is known streaky, maybe he will be hot come playoff time and give me 10 treys to win the playoffs, but then again maybe not. Teague may be injury related (or so I hope).
Tyson Chandler had a monster rebound week (61) to pace my team in that category. Maybe he is bouncing back at just the right time.
At least Kevin Martin is playing decently in the minutes he is getting. Maybe he gets traded and starts getting more than 15 minutes a week.
Action Plan:
Right now Sam Dekker and R.J. Hunter are on the block. My figuring is that if Slim got Larkin and Bogut (and the arguable upgrade from Sullinger to Hood) for Tyus Jones and Rashad Vaughn, I should get at least comparable value from comparable 2015 draft picks Sam Dekker and R.J. Hunter. I will be going through rosters and making offers this week. However, I can’t add somebody that I consider to be a net ratio negative (hurts me on both of them… see Josh Smith).
I could even consider trading Jordan Mickey and Mason Plumlee. But not now. If I do that, it would be near the deadline and I would expect a significant piece in return. If Jordan Mickey is getting even 15 minutes a game by then, he is probably a hold.
3. Martyball – IFBL (70-46-1)
FAAB Remaining: $76 FAAB Moves this week: Beno Udrih ($7)
4. Slim – Razzball (70-46-1)
FAAB Remaining: $9 FAAB Moves this week: n/a
5. I Ain’t No Jok(ic) (69-46-2)
FAAB Remaining: $41 FAAB Moves this week: n/a
Hold on just one second…….just a moment longer……sorry, almost there……..ahhhhhh. Okay. I just needed a couple minutes to soak in the fact that my team is in a playoff spot for, I’m guessing, the first time ever after week 1. It feels good, it does. I can’t lie.
A no-doubt 8-1 victory this week taking me into 5th place, and only a half game out of 3rd. A quick look around and to me it seems like 2nd place, and with it a first round bye, is a possibility at this point. My guys put up over 700 points this week, to with shooting 49%/81%, 250 boards, 50 steals and 30 blocks. At this point it looks like the only category my team isn’t competitive in is turnovers, which my guys are pretty epic in. Other than that I have a winning record in everything so far.
There were of course double digit games lost to injury again, but it was a little less concerning at this point in my schedule. The waiver wire was quiet for me this week, I did make one $0 bid but, the upgrade wasn’t much and I didn’t expect to get him.
Bring on The Chosen Ones!
6. JB Gilpin – Razzball (67-45-5)
FAAB Remaining: $1 FAAB Moves this week: n/a
Yeah, yeah, yeah… I talked a mad confident game last week, but go from healthy to losing Hassan Whiteside, Brandon Knight, Ian Mahinmi, and Jeremy Lamb, all for virtually the whole week with early-week injuries. In a 20er, especially with light big man depth, you just can’t win losing Whiteside. Luckily all of the injuries aren’t too major. All of this on a 2-game Kawhi week, where he only plays 50 minutes due to atrocious Spurs matchups. On top of that, my opp got 3 triple-doubles from MVP calibur weeks from Harden and Curry, and damn if High as Greg Kite isn’t the scariest team in the league the next 5 years. A ton of cheap contracts next to those two. Curry goes 99/22/27/6/1 with 18 treys in three games, with – wait for it – 5 overall TO. I do find some sweet irony that my only win was FT%, the cat I thought I was punting when I traded Ibaka two month ago…
…but all of that is secondary, because MOTHER F PANTHERS! I wasn’t even mad that FG% and TO that could’ve been swung barely missed. SUPER BOWL BABY! I’ll have more focus this week.
The scariest of those injuries has got to be Brandon Knight, with the Suns so bad he’s a shutdown candidate. So I was ecstatic to pick up Archie Goodwin in a trade last night for Richaun Holmes ($1 keeper, but who knows if he’s even in the Sixers plans next year) and Wilson Chandler ($11). Chandler was still a keeper for me, but it opens up my INJ spot which I had been contemplating as the season moves on. I was bound to have injuries at some point, just wish it wasn’t to 3 key guys and one decent contributor all at once… Oh well, Shrek is love Shrek is life…
7. Kap’s Team (65-48-4)
FAAB Remaining: $98 FAAB Moves this week: Jonas Jerebko ($0)
8. Scurry to the Left (65-50-2)
FAAB Remaining: $98 FAAB Moves this week: n/a
9. Niko-Cola (64-51-2)
FAAB Remaining: $80 FAAB Moves this week: Salah Majri ($5)
After a couple of good weeks we have been able to keep ourselves in the top ten and make up some serious ground on the playoff spots. Winning 7 straight weeks with a 73% win percentage during that stretch we have moved to within 5.5 games of third place. It looks like we have 9 teams competing for the last 5 playoff spots. HateUs is definitely not locked into first, but it’s hard to imagine him falling all the way out of the playoffs, but it is certainly possible.
Last week we came away with a 8-1 victory and had 9-0 within our reach, falling only 1 steal shy of the tie. We were really lucky last week as some of our big names Batum, Ibaka, and Barton did not perform as expected. While guys like Lawson, Asik, and Iggy helped to pick up the slack. We also decided it was time to cut bait with David Lee. This means he will be traded tomorrow and start playing 25-30 minutes per game. We added Mejri for his humongous upside… Compared to David Lee anyways. At 29 he’s limited in development and the previously mentioned upside, but has been playing and will continue to get some run with Zaza nursing an Achilles. Overall it feels great to be out from under the David Lee rock.
Looking ahead we really need output from all of our guys. This week we play High as Greg Kite he is in 10th and every much in the playoff battle as us and this week will be pivotal in decided who remains firmly entrenched. The bad news for us is that he owns Curry and Harden (5 total players from those two teams) and they both have 4 game weeks. All while Batum will likely miss all 4 of his games this week. Tough scheduling, but hopefully our depth will allow us to keep it close and maybe steal one on Sunday.
10. High as Greg Kite (62-52-3)
FAAB Remaining: $13 FAAB Moves this week: n/a
11. Hard-N-Tha-Paint (61-55-1)
FAAB Remaining: $13 FAAB Moves this week: Toney Douglas ($2)
12. Heat Apologist (58-58-1)
FAAB Remaining: $40 FAAB Moves this week: n/a
13. Hardenoutherr4apimp (58-59-0)
FAAB Remaining: $82 FAAB Moves this week: n/a
14. Foreign Affairs (50-67-0)
FAAB Remaining: $91 FAAB Moves this week: Quincy Pondexter ($0), Bruce Caboclo ($0)
15. Hoopus Alleyoopus (47-68-2)
FAAB Remaining: $26 FAAB Moves this week: Alonzo Gee ($12)
16. Pete Nice – Razzball (44-71-2)
FAAB Remaining: $83 FAAB Moves this week: n/a
17. The Nature Boy (44-71-2)
FAAB Remaining: $80 FAAB Moves this week: n/a
18. The Chosen Ones (39-78-0)
FAAB Remaining: $12 FAAB Moves this week: Tyler Zeller ($0), Mike Dunleavy ($0)
19. No Glove No Love (37-80-0)
FAAB Remaining: $65 FAAB Moves this week: Amar’e Stoudemire ($0), Dewayne Dedmon ($0)
20. Cigar Smoking Monkey (36-80-1)
FAAB Remaining: $100 FAAB Moves this week: n/a
