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Hey Razzball Nation!  Adam Miller here!  I'll be on board for the rest of the season writing the weekly waiver wire article as well as some other fun stuff.  I'm currently a Junior at USF getting a degree in IT to work towards a career in sports analytics.  Basketball and stats in general have always been a love of mine, so this career seemed like a perfect marriage of the two.  Anyway, this is my first article so I'd love some feedback on what to improve, or what I did well, before the kick-off of the regular season.  Enough about me, lets get into some early round sleepers and busts!
Ah, the almost-studlies.  The "still can't quite miss, but you can start reaching round."  ...Almost sounds like I said reach around... This is where the sommeliers really can knock their drafts out of the park - it's all about the pairings.  You don't serve red wine with fish, you cro-magnon!  But what's great about fantasy hoops as opposed to a pretentious French restaurant is there's very few pairings that can go wrong.  I mean your first rounder is awesome and your second rounder awesome with it!  I know a lot of people like the FT punt builds, but really the only pairing I can't see doing is going big-big.  There's a ton of FT-punt bigs littered through the first 4-5 rounds, so I think you can still punt, but start with a LeBron James/Draymond Green pair, then PG/C in 3/4.  I'm sure Slim and I will work on more culinary pairings as we go through the ranks and do some mocks on the Podcast, as we attempt to put together the best fine dining experience...  I just wanna avoid the friggin' snails!  Here’s the Top 20 for the 2015-16 Fantasy Basketball Season.
The ranks are here!  JB & Slim talk the top 10 fantasy basketball ranks for the 2015-16 season including a disagreement at #1, our high thoughts on Damian Lillard, and who is the best choice for 10th overall.  It's a wide open spot!  We also rank our top 10 rookies for dynasty leagues, with some very different opinions on how rookies will fare in their careers. Download in iTunes
Woooo, here we go Razzball Nation! The 2015-16 Fantasy Basketball Season is nearly upon us, well, kindasorta, in the same way that I "kindasorta" liked Michael Carter-Williams last year!  OK, that might be 100% false, DON'T LOOK AT LAST YEAR'S FINAL PRE-RANKS!  Dammit, who linked that?!  MCW's agent hacked Razzball... So here's to hoping I can avoid the pitfalls of last year, avoid the bone density issues, avoid good players moving to Cleveland, and avoid falling for adorable Latin Lovers!  You just can't help from having your balls near his face!  Why couldn't you have avoided getting a kankle, whyyyyy?! As we did last season, we'll have a master rankings post (which I... I mean, aherm, MCW's agent will link when it's live) which will be updated all through the preseason, along with Slim's 9-cat and MPG projections.  Let's get this shizz started!  Here's the Top 10 for the 2015-16 Fantasy Basketball Season.
The Summer League has wrapped with the Spurs taking home the crown, and Slim and I break down all of the performances from summer including the meteoric rise of Myles Turner, the catastrophic fall of D'Angelo Russell, and how, well, none of the summer ball stats mean too much...  We also talk the Ty Lawson trade and where we'll have Emmanuel Mudiay ranked for 15-16, along with a ton of other rookies and young guns and how they looked this summer. Download in iTunes
Summer is here!  And what else do you think about during summer than campy dancing shark mascots?  Or Sharks trying to dance campy?  Or campy shark movies!?  "Tequila's on you guys, and I'm super thirsty!"  Maybe that should be the tagline for my new donate button... While it's way too friggin' hot to do anything constructive outside, we get to go the great indoors to get our first look at NBA rookies in Summer League!  And there's almost always one surpriser, one Shyamalan twist...  Except, well, in a good way.  Myles Turner already had the ingredients to be a fantasy beast heading into the draft (which we mentioned in our mock a month earlier), then he landed in one of the most ideal situations to a team needing a big man contributor right away.  On top of his already fantasy-friendly skill set, Turner murdered it in summer ball for a 18.7/8.3/0/0.7/4.3 slash line over three games, hitting 8-10 from the stripe and 2-3 treys.  Ibaka-lite might actually be more fitting than I jokingly quipped!  Even Larry Bird has chimed in saying Turner is better than they thought, and his only real competition for minutes is Jordan Hill.  While Turner did have an 8 foul game in there (it's comical it takes 10 to foul out), it's about the only knock on a guy who took 11+ shots every game and made at least half of them every time, averaging over 60% from the field.  Plus only 3 total TO.  It's easy to dismiss popcorn stats like that in Summer League, but the opportunity is there and I think he might be the #1 rookie big off the draft board in 9-cat leagues, as crazy as that sounds.  If Jahlil could just make an effin' FT!  Where's a good FT coach like Andris Biedrins when you need them...  Here's what else went down through Summer League action, which wrapped up over the weekend:
"Dude, you can't make a title caps to make the pun work, or else it's a stupid lazy joke!"  Well, ya know I'm pretty effin' rusty out here catching back up with Summer Ball and this final batch of free agency moves!  I'm as old and as rusty as Deron Williams, who completed his buyout with the Nets, turned it into piles of gold he buried in his backyard, and will be eating Mulligan's steak with Mark Cuban.  The rich stay rich, just with the richer!  Wait, did that make any sense?  While D-Will has just as much risk as an active Claymore mine sitting on your desk (and giving it a fourth grade girl), I think I might actually buy in a bit.  He's in a steady decline, but when looking at his numbers last year, it's easy to forget he came off the bench for a bit - and his bench numbers were horrific.  As a starter he was 14.3/3.6/7.1 with a steal per and only 2.4 TO.  And interestingly enough - nearly 33 minutes a game while staying [mostly] healthy!  Must be the new bacon and eggs diet.  He shot pretty horrible - sub 40% as a starter - but it was 39.6% vs. 32.3% as a sub.  Couldn't figure out how to get it done off the pine!  Sounds like a merit badge the Pawnee Rangers would give out.  Moving to Dallas, he's surrounded by SO MUCH better talent that he should have no problem falling into comparable numbers as his starting days in Brooklyn, maybe even with a few more dimes, a few less TO, and playing as the starter all year (if he stays glued together).  This is likely D-Will's final chance to be on a winner, and after a very sub-par 14-15 I think he could be a draft day value.  Either that or he'll be a hot spinning cone of meat!  Here's what else has gone on in the past week of fantasy basketball:
We're back with the free agency edition of the Razzball Hoops Pod, where we chat up all of the big moves since the window has opened with DeAndre Jordan's decision, Greg Monroe's value in Milwaukee, and some sleeper candidates with an open window like C.J. McCollum.  Now with extra phlegm in his name!  We also talk some other upside guards like where D'Angelo Russell will rank and the possibility of Pierre Jackson starting for the Sixers. Download in iTunes
The NBA really is Jordan Belfort.  The Wolf of Fantasy Sports!  It's tantric and never slows down, from the Finals ending less than two weeks before the draft, free agency hitting a week later and we're already starting summer ball.  And the NBA will soon revel in the excess that is the 16-17 salary cap boost with a TV deal that put Seinfeld reruns to shame.  I need my ludes to get me through! Even the Spurs couldn't avoid the world of excess and massive free agency signings, bringing in LaMarcus Aldridge for a cool $80 million.  Loosening up the purse strings!  My first thought was, "dammit, Kawhi is never gonna be the guy!"  Then again, he got over $90 mil with his extension, so there's that!  But Kawhi Leonard sometimes struggles with the mid-range and long-distance shooting, so L.A. should help Kawhi by opening up some lanes and keeping him in his game.  This is going to be a crazy offense, with Tim Duncan moving to center and likely being his solid old self.  Which leaves us with what to expect from Aldridge...  And, me no likey for fantasy.  After being really durable early in his career, he's had a few bumps and bruises (I know, I know, playing through a torn thumb tendon gets mad props) and the Spurs - as we all know - love to limit the minutes.  I also don't think he quite gets to 20 shots a game like we've seen the past few years.  I had him 20 in my way too early rankings, but the move drops him a few spots at the least.  L.A. in S.A. is not OK!  Here's what else has gone on through the first few days of free agency and rookie ball: