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4 weeks in = we’re roughly 20% through the fantasy regular season!  Crazy that we’re about that far already…  Where has the time gone?!  While 4 weeks does start giving you a sample of how your teams are doing, it’s also good to keep in mind your schedule.  I always play the top teams early in the REL, then get the rebuilding teams in the second half.  So before you start selling everything, be sure and check to standings and maybe the schedule just hasn’t been forever in your favor.  Here’s how week 4 went down in the REL:

RAZZBALL ELITE LEAGUE

1. Slim – Razzball  (29-7-0)

FAAB Remaining: $53  FAAB Moves this week: Garrett Temple ($6). Mike Muscala ($3)

Rough week almost to a man, but a good 8-1 win non the less.  The punted FG% reached a new low as the team could barely crack the .400 mark, it’s like I have a team full of Brandon Jenni.  The only guy even attempting to help this week was Porzingis.  FT% was finally solid.  Lillard and Burks did their damage with a high volume but there were very few negatives anyway.  3s go to Lillard of course but it was a pretty down week all together.  Lillard laps the field in points, besides Wiggins of course.  Porzingis and Sullinger chipped in a decent amount of boards but a dozen players in double digits is what I was more or less going for anyway.  Another rough week for assists, this really isn’t getting better and I don’t know what to do to fix it.  For a bit of reference Sullinger is #3 on my team in assists.  Yikes.  Steals have picked up a bit with the return of Smart but he’s down again for a few weeks so I’m back to digging for steals, Beverley should help eventually, especially if starting.  Blocks weren’t good leading into Saturday but you know, Porzingis ain’t too bad.  TOs were solid this week, well Lillard isn’t helping but at least he was the only guy to reach double digits.

I’ve had a bit of negotiations with two teams on the trade front but it’s starting to look like both will fall through.  I’m trying to add blocks, add assists, add minutes, add consistency, and I’m offering keepers to do it, but with so many teams still trying to win now I think I’m better off waiting a few weeks until more teams start to sell.  Either way I’m not negotiating from a position of strength right now so backing off definitely feels like the right way to go.

A few notes from the injury front.  Smart is down again and although it didn’t seem too serious at the time it now looks like it will be at least a couple of weeks.  Beverley seems to be getting closer and with Lawson moving to the bench there’s a good chance Beverley returns some solid value when healthy, I’ve had one person ask about him but I wanted more value out of him than as a throw-in.  Still no news on Nurkic and I’m not exactly holding my breath waiting.  There is a huge hole in my lineup without him and Dedmon simply isn’t filling it anymore.

The bottom of my lineup was absolutely atrocious this week.  From best to worst… Gerald Green is back and his minutes appear to be climbing.  He should be back to a reliable 22+ minute, high USG role in no time.  It’s probably worth noting that Green passed Tyler Johnson in minutes last time out, including crunch time in a close game, and I imagine this continues for the foreseeable future.  The injured Clippers returned this week but Austin Rivers still played 20ish minutes and was fine, he’s a consistent scorer with some 3s and steals, useful and still a potential keeper at only 23 – $1, and it’s not like I trust those old Clippers to stay healthy.  With Gobert back Trevor Booker still did his usual 6ish boards and not much else, but it was only a 2 game week.  He’s a very solid end of the bench guy for me, I’m pretty sure he’ll stay on my team for the entire year.  Anthony Tolliver had a really bad week but he’s still getting 18-20 minutes and he isn’t turning the ball over or hurting my FT%.  He’ll have better weeks but it won’t be on my team.  I dropped him this week for Garrett Temple who even with Beal back still saw 26 minutes of action off the bench, including crunch time in what was a close game against Detroit.  Dwayne Dedmon was doing just fine with Vucevic back but the return of Jason Smith has not been so kind to Dedmon’s minutes as he’s now down to under a dozen per game.  He’s off my team for the upside play of Mike Muscala.  With the oft injured Tiago Splitter going down with a hip I’m thinking there should be some extra minutes opening up for 3s/blocks combo of Muscala.

This week I’m up against Adam.  He traded away some youth and now has a full healthy team with full healthy minutes, and to top it off he’s got Westbrook plus LeBron for a combined 7 games and my Lillard only has a 2-game week.  If I can somehow lose 4-5 then it will be a successful week.  I’m going into the week with no chance at winnings assists, points, my punted FG%, and I’m behind everywhere else since I can’t match his minutes due to injury or quality of player due to schedule.  It seems to me that the trick to making the playoffs in this league (20-teamer with only 6 playoff spots) is 2 fold.  1) You must destroy the teams at the bottom.  2) You cant get destroyed by the teams at the top.  I’ve done a good job with #1 so far but this is my 1st week of seeing how I fare at #2.

2. Kap’s Team  (28-7-1)

FAAB Remaining: $100  FAAB Moves this week: Alonzo Gee ($0)

3. HateUsCauseTheyAnus  (26-10-0)

FAAB Remaining: $82  FAAB Moves this week: n/a

4. Yappers  (22-14-0)

FAAB Remaining: $52  FAAB Moves this week: Wesley Johnson ($3)

My man crush on Mason Plumlee intensifies to the C.J. Miles level. I love my $1 solid
contributors.

No, not that he is the star of my team, but last week he led my team in blocks and had an amazing (for him) .762 FT% in being a solid contributor in my 7-2 victory last week.

7-2 seems to be a ceiling for my team as it seems that we have put together a punt FG% but nail FT% team. And most weeks I will lose TO, since that inversely relates to minutes. I can live with this.

My bench still needs work but it is coming together. I really need another big with PF eligibility, but I was not than enamored with those on the WW and was not going to bid more than $0 for any of ’em. The best player out there to me seemed to be Wes Johnson, but I was only going to go to $3, as I really did not need a wing type of player. I was actually kinda surprised that I got him, but whatever.

Anyway for now I guess I can live with Wes Johnson, Devin Harris, and O.J. Mayo as my bench players with Joe Young and R.J. Hunter as my projects, but I do need another big type with PF eligibility. Patience.

5. Heat Apologist  (21-15-0) 

FAAB Remaining: $76  FAAB Moves this week: n/a

Alright, where to begin. The good, other than buying a new house, my team took a 8-1 win. This was managed by being third in the league for the week in points and assists, and second in steals and blocks. My two old centers, big al and Bogut, had 8 and 7 blocks, respectively. Anybody ever wonder where the use of that word comes from. Would big al be dissed if I said he only had 7 blocks. Eric Gordon and Conley had 8 and 7 steals, cordially. I’m trying to start something new. You can say you saw it here first. When cordially became a thing. No player scored more than 68, but with 4 scoring over 50, and parsons with 49, amiabally. The best part of the week was Shane Larkin. He’s not gonna light up the scoreboard, but 15 and 8, assists and blocks, agreeably, makes for a solid pg4. The bad, though not as a bad as a tire blowout, was the 3ptm. This team should be among the weekly leaders in the category, but Stauskas and pardons only put up 5 and 4, congenially. I expect both of those to increase with increased minutes. The really bad is I would have lost 3-6 to Adam’s powerhouse team. The numbers he put this week would be competitive in an RCL. The relaxing part was the bottom of the lineup, more specifically my FAAB buys. Lavoy Allen benefitted from the turner injury, putting up a respectable 21/21/9/2/3 line. Nine assists from Lavoy !?!? Dante Cunningham went 26/17/2/4/3. With that, I didn’t see anyone that would be an upgrade, so I was quiet on the waiver wire. This week I get Mr. Green’s beautiful team, though I will benefit from his rash of injuries, esp to Mosgov and valanciunas. However, he has Jokic coming on, but maybe King Joffrey can come back and take some of those minutes. Respectively.

6. Foreign Affairs  (20-16-0)

FAAB Remaining: $93  FAAB Moves this week: n/a

Well I got myself a nice 6-3 win to move me up to 6th place and while Dirk, Mario and Deng go through their physical during the week netting me some more games from them it should allow me to take down The Chosen Ones rebuilding squad keeping me in the playoff hunt for another week.  But I’m not deluding myself with championship aspirations this year so after much back and forth and scouting over the week I pulled the trigger on my first trade of $22 Dirk, $12 Deng and $1 Mario for $30 D’Angelo Russell, $9 Paul Pierce and $1 John Jenkins.

Sad to see Dirk go but hes really a win now guy who’s clearly not getting better this year then he is right now, same with Deng who is looking more and more like Winslow is going to make him a bench vet next season or maybe even this year and while I hate to lose Mario at $1 but I’ve got an injured $1 Marshall to slide in there  when he returns and Mario really isn’t good enough to stop me from pulling the trigger to now pair together the big time rookie PGs of the 2015 draft!!!, I’ve now really cemented my back court and wings for the future unfortunately my bigs for the future are criminally underplayed Gorgui Dieng and….Willie…. so that’s a clear area of focus going forward, here’s looking at you 2015-2016 college bigs.

Tossed out 0 bids on Wes Johnson and Lucas Nogueria seeing if I would nab one, thought about spending abit more to make sure I got one of them  but given both players team situations I didn’t think it was really worth it long term, so I still keep horde my budget in case a majestic Unicorn, aka Whitside, suddenly comes out of nowhere.

Goal for the week: hoping someone doesn’t care about fg% and to’s so I can sell them on a one year Kobe rental while praying to the Basketball Gods to revitalize David Lee.

7. Martyball – IFBL  (20-16-0) 

FAAB Remaining: $100  FAAB Moves this week: n/a

8. JB Gilpin – Razzball  (19-15-2)

FAAB Remaining: $1  FAAB Moves this week: n/a

Whew, I’ll take that 4-5 loss just fine…  Given it’s been a ridiculous week for me (if you didn’t check out this morning’s daily notes), so I wasn’t painstakingly following every game during my REL matchup that would otherwise have me rant my buns off…  Nice win for Martyball who has a great deep team, albeit it’s virtually all veterans.  Certainly wish I was playing him in week 18!  Let’s see who makes it that far!  Scola had two 20-pt games, Canaan had 8 treys, and Jordan Hill had probably his best game on the season, but Marty lost Rudy Gay on Thursday and my guys just didn’t deliver.

Another tough matchup against a perennial playoff team in Yappers, so another 5-4 or 4-5 would be fine with me.  Slim is enjoying his cakewalk schedule early, so have fun with that.  I’ll make it public now that I’m still shopping Serge Ibaka.  Whiteside is dominating blocks by himself, so I’m hoping to get a keeper + a rebounder.  I’ve had a few offers that seem to have been close, but if Ibaka is your kind of swatter, drop me a dime.  Let’s do this, Yappers!

9. I Ain’t No Jok(ic)  (19-16-1)

FAAB Remaining: $97  FAAB Moves this week: n/a

Another tough matchup + more injuries = another tough loss.

I guess it could have been worse as I was down 2-7 at one point on Sunday, so 3-6 is like the sun shining on me, or something happy like that. Even with the loss I was still close in multiple categories. I lost FT% by .022, 3s by only 7, points by only 26, assists by 17, blocks by 5, and turnovers by 9. Considering that I lost a whopping 13 games to injury, after losing 12 last week, again, I guess I should be happy that the matchup was as close as it was.

On the injury front, I’ve now lost Jonas for 6 weeks, on top of losing Mozgov for 2 weeks. I still don’t have an ETA on DMo, the ETA on Dunleavy got pushed back apparently, and Derrick Rose is Derrick Rose. I did get Livingston back from injury late in the week, but to dampen that a bit, after getting Oladipo back this week Scott Skiles played him a whopping 20 and 26 minutes, benching him for the whole 4th quarter on Saturday. I get that he’s a defensive coach and tough on players, but isn’t Oladipo your best (at least one of your best) defensive players? While we’re on Skiles, isn’t Aaron Gordon also one of your best defensive players? So why is he STILL hovering between 15 and 20 minutes most nights Scott? [I’m sure he’s an avid Razzball reader, right?]

On the waiver wire I didn’t put in any bids, which I think is the first time this year. The only guy on the hot seat for me is Ajinca, but I just didn’t see anything but wings with a better role, and with Jonas and Mozgov going down I really can’t drop him for anything but a big. Muscala was close, as he has been all season when I make my FAAB bids, but I just couldn’t do it. I don’t know why Alvin Gentry hates Ajinca, I mean, Asik is putting up lines of 2/4/0/0/0 and 1/7/0/0/0 as the starter. Surely that can’t continue, can it? Other than moving AD to the 5 I don’t think they have any other options if they decide Asik is struggling too much. So another week I wait.

On the positive side, I do own Nikola Jokic, so I’ve got that going for me. Plus my REL football team is in first place and looks like it will knock off the second place team this week (come back soon Devonta Freeman, we’ll really miss you if you’re gone). All these injuries and losses aren’t convincing me that my team can’t win it all, though they are testing me. It’s just clearly going to be much more difficult in the first half of the season than I’d hoped for. Which is of course the toughest part of my schedule. And so it goes with another tough matchup this week against Heat Apologist. I’d say good luck but you may not need it with injuries beating me down.

10. Scurry to the Left  (19-17-0)

FAAB Remaining: $100  FAAB Moves this week: n/a

11. Hoopus Alleyoopus  (17-18-1)

FAAB Remaining: $98  FAAB Moves this week: n/a

Forgot to send a recap last week, but I will just say I was surprised to beat a team that was in the top half of the standings. I am just hoping to stay close to .500 until Kyrie Irving gets back, and not getting trounced against the top teams is probably the best way to make that happen. It figures that after that, I would then lose to the last place team. 4-5 is tolerable I guess.

Put in a FAAB bid on Garret Temple and didn’t get it. So I will go another week with 4 guys who are not playing at all and 3 more that might as well not be playing. Will definitely need at least 2 more guys that contribute at least something every week to get into the playoffs.

12. Greek Freaks  (17-19-0)

FAAB Remaining: $41  FAAB Moves this week: Kirk Hinrich ($6), Jason Smith ($6)

13. Hardenoutherr4apimp  (16-20-0)

FAAB Remaining: $88  FAAB Moves this week: Anderson Varejao ($4)

14. High as Greg Kite  (14-21-1)

FAAB Remaining: $83  FAAB Moves this week: Cliff Alexander ($4)

15. The Nature Boy (13-22-1)

FAAB Remaining: $80  FAAB Moves this week: n/a

16. Niko-Cola  (12-23-1)

FAAB Remaining: $100  FAAB Moves this week: Lucas Nogueira ($0)

Holy Shiitake Mushrooms did we get NUKED this week. The good news is that change is on the horizon. We have long deliberated over a name change to a player who should be on our team for years to come. The only obvious player was Nikola Mirotic at $5.  We also enjoy pop culture related names hence the previous Breaking Bad Reference. We are pleased with the name, hopefully it brings good luck, and it might even save us $5 on Batum next year when we throw him back again.

A new name isn’t the only new thing around these parts. We have ourselves a trade (Southern Lawyer Voice) #TheStarters.

 

We Dumped:

DeAngelo Russell, Nothing personal

John Jenkins, Dallas Metro Police have no leads at this time.

Paul Pierce, The Truth is that it’s over for Mr. Pierce. Watching him run makes my knees hurt.

 

We got Back:

Mario Chalmers, We are sorry Rio, we should have never quit you…;(

Dirk Nowitzki, Cheap points at a thin position for us.

Loul Deng, better than The Truth

 

All and all this is an obvious trade for this year. We were not thrilled with Russell’s potential and kind of ended up with him by accident. At some point it will be time to spend on a high profile rookie but while contended is not the time for our build. His hype albeit fading allowed us to bring back cheap producing veterans for him and spare parts. While 2/4 weeks have been pretty awful we are only 7.5 games out of a playoff spot not out of reach by any stretch. This also allowed us to keep with our strategy of having a high upside hold. That was Jenkins (not very high) it is now Nogueira also, probably not the solution. Last year we owned Clarkson for a week about 3 weeks before he broke out. Moving on from him burned us and we realized our roster construction would need to be adapted. This is our simple evolution as a result.

Results, 7 teams would have beat us and 2 others would have tied. Worse yet is we did not place as a top 3 team in any stat category. This week’s opponent Martyball has us 15-19-2 on the season. Hopefully our upgrades can win us the ties and a few other cats to squeak out a 5-4 or 6-3 victory over a competing team. Good luck!

17. Pete Nice – Razzball  (12-24-0)

FAAB Remaining: $83  FAAB Moves this week: Tim Hardaway Jr. ($0)

18. Cigar Smoking Monkey  (11-25-0)

FAAB Remaining: $100  FAAB Moves this week: n/a

19. No Glove No Love  (11-25-0)

FAAB Remaining: $96  FAAB Moves this week: James Michael McAdoo ($0), Andre Miller ($0)

20. The Chosen Ones  (10-26-0)

FAAB Remaining: $35  FAAB Moves this week: Tyler Zeller ($5), Ronnie Price ($1)