Wise man once said, “if nobody talks about a fantasy league, it no longer exists…?” Well, I certainly wish that was the case for the REL league! But alas, even if it’s a little late for this glorious Monday, we take a look back to our Razzball Elite League with our first place dominating Martyball – IFBL putting up the immaculate 9-0 victory. An unstoppable run! Here’s how the rest of week 12 went down in the REL:
1. Martyball – IFBL (81-25-2)
FAAB Remaining: $80 FAAB Moves this week: n/a
2. Barking BassetHounds (74-31-3)
FAAB Remaining: $69 FAAB Moves this week: n/a
First the trade.
Last year I made a trade I deeply regret in an attempt to upgrade my team for the present. The trade was my Monroe and Mason Plumlee for Pekovich and Enes Kanter. In the end Pekovich was injured for the finals (surprise, surprise), Enes Kanter was..well..Enes Kanter..and I got my butt kicked in the finals by Slim. I ended up not keeping Pekovich (good move as he was replaced by Pau Gasol) and in a semi-controversial move after finals dropped Kanter (who was not being kept for $30) for an injured CJ Miles..who for $1 is useful to me (and I suppose a $1 Kanter is useful to somebody else). But still lesson learned. H2H playoffs are just too flukey to mortgage your future too much on.
I said that to say this. This year I thought through my limit for future – present trades and decided John Henson would be it. So I was quite pleased that it net me an $8 Kevin Martin, who should be useful for a couple years anyway. Now John Henson may still develop into a beast (and I am now weak in blocks) but this year he was just not getting the minutes, and outside of an injury I don’t see that changing..at least this year.
So now the wing position (led by 14$ Wesley Matthews, $8 Kevin Martin, $11 Paul Pierce, $12 JR Smith with $11 Gallinari, $1 CJ Miles, and $1 Sefolosha is relatively strong now and a trade at some point in time may be in order (am thinking JR Smith) for a PG or a big. No hurry and I might wait a little to get a feel of my team post trade.
My matchup was a pedestrian 7-2 victory where I lost one ratio and turnovers. We are now entering a part of the schedule where I play relatively strong teams for the next 5-6 weeks, so this should be a good test.
3. Scurry to the Left (71-31-1)
FAAB Remaining: $68 FAAB Moves this week: n/a
4. Slim – Razzball (70-37-1)
FAAB Remaining: $25 FAAB Moves this week: Bojan Bogdanovic ($13)
After these past couple of weeks I might have thought this team was unstoppable, but as the fantasy gods giveth, the fantasy gods taketh away. First and foremost the overlord took Mike Conley away from me on only his 2nd day with my team. That hurt quite a bit and all I can do is grin and take it, by the way that sound you hear is my teeth clinching and grinding through that aformentioned grin. Oh well, “Injuries happen”, says Alec Burks from the fiery depths of my final roster spot.
The real smite to my squad though came from the bottom end of my roster. Marvin Williams, P.J. Tucker and Marcus Morris only played a 2 game week so the final weekly stats look much worse than they probably were. Tucker has been a top 80-100 guy for the year and Marvin and Marcus are hovering around top 150 overall. All 3 get a free pass, especially the last 2 since they represent 2/3rds of all of my PFs. Solomon Hill, Jusuf Nurkic, and Steven Adams all struggled this week but they are young and the ups and downs are expected. For reference, the top teams have 2 or 3 players age 25 or younger while half my team, and all of my keepers, are under that mark. I don’t expect to finish the regular season with a 1st round bye, I just have too much inconsistency with youngsters figuring out their role.
Norris Cole is not one of those youngsters figuring out his role. Wade goes down and instead of Cole getting 30+ minutes Shabazz Napier goes from DNPs to starting and playing all of Wade’s minutes. The problem for me though is that Norris Cole is my 4th PG. He gave 12 assists last week which turned out to be pretty useful with Conley down. However since Cole is 26 years old, lacks upside, and is $8 to keep he doesn’t fit any of my long term plans. Not that Bojan Bogdanovic does either (25yo – $1) but Bogdan is playing reliable minutes right now and should contribute in 3 categories I’m looking to improve, 3s, FT%, and TOs.
And for your weekly Nurkic update… He can’t stay out of foul trouble. Period. The Per36s however still read like they’re straight off the tablets of law themselves, 16.4/13.4/1.8/1.8/3.0.
5. Kap’s Team (63-43-2)
FAAB Remaining: $87 FAAB Moves this week: n/a
6. Youth Movement (60-47-1)
FAAB Remaining: $46 FAAB Moves this week: James Michael McAdoo ($11), Mitch McGary ($5)
As expected, I took a beating. Tobias Harris missing the week didn’t help, but that would have only made the numbers look cosmetically better. I traded my last old-head away in Kevin Martin, receiving John Henson. My existing bigs are shooting stretch-4/5’s, and I needed the shot blocking big. Hopefully Larry Sanders pulling a Ricky Williams will open up time and Zaza will realize he is old and will go spend more time with the captain and Joey in a Turkish bathhouse. I also grabbed two new youngsters in McAdoo and McGary, just now realizing the irony of their obvious Irish heritage. Jon Leuer just isn’t going to get the chance and he wasn’t going to become a keeper. I imagine this is my last week in the “playoff hunt”, as other top 12 teams are getting healthy and surging at the right time.
7. Breaking Batum (57-50-1)
FAAB Remaining: $57 FAAB Moves this week: Larry Drew II ($1), Robbie Hummel ($1)
It feels good to be back in the win column. We finished 5-4 against a top 5 team, losing blocks by 2 and rebounds by 7. We lost 2 games from Noah, and Al Jefferson and Shumpert missed the week, so this could’ve easily been a bigger win.
We would’ve lost to our next opponent 2-7 had we played this week, but hopefully we get Jefferson back this week, and maybe the Cavs new starting SG! (one can hope right?)
We again missed out on our top 2 FA targets, Ingles and Bojan. We have definitely mis-managed our FAAB this year. We took flyers on Hummel and Larry Drew II, but I have the feeling we will be looking to add 2 more guys next week.
We are looking to make a big trade. Jefferson, Noah, Batum, and others are available to either help win a title this year, or to be a cornerstone for next years team. Trading is the best part of fantasy, so we are always up for talking trades.
8. Hoopus Alleyoopus (52-47-0)
FAAB Remaining: $30 FAAB Moves this week: n/a
A pretty brutal 6-3 loss to Slim this week. James Johnson with 3 turnovers on Sunday to lose that category for me by 2. I should have benched him with all over the other categories already decided but I had a pretty late night Saturday and didn’t check my team until it was too late. That one game could be the difference between making the playoffs and not.
Mo Williams had a huge week with 91 points, including the 52 on Tuesday. Hopefully when Rubio comes back or Mo is traded, that performance shows coaches that he still deserves a decent chunk of playing time. Jameer Nelson is playing again which means I have somewhat of a chance of winning the assist category again. He shot well last week, but up until the trade he was shooting a pathetic 34%. Maybe now that he will be playing against 2nd units instead of starting his numbers will improve.
9. The Nature Boy (54-53-1)
FAAB Remaining: $88 FAAB Moves this week: n/a
10. Team Tough Guy Town (52-53-3)
FAAB Remaining: $100 FAAB Moves this week: n/a
11. Pete Nice – Razzball (53-54-1)
FAAB Remaining: $40 FAAB Moves this week: n/a
12. JB Gilpin – Razzball (48-59-1)
FAAB Remaining: $0 FAAB Moves this week: n/a
Well, another week another loss. At least I got Kawhi back, but had to bear losing FT% by a single thousandth (one missed) and nothing else really being that close this past week. While Kawhi is back, losing Wroten hurts – might end up being a good chuck of the remainder – and my best player that’s been healthy all year Brandon Knight had only a one-game week. Ouch.
Hey, so I don’t have FAAB, but spending big on Langston Galloway is looking good so far, and I still have Ibaka on the trading block to plan ahead for next year. I’ve got almost my whole team on 4-game weeks, so looking to shock Martyball with a nice “playing spoiler” week. Just needed Rubio back by this point! Ahhhhh! Ay dios mio.
13. High as Greg Kite (45-62-1)
FAAB Remaining: $8 FAAB Moves this week: JaMychal Green ($5)
14. SethDaSportsMan (44-64-0)
FAAB Remaining: $14 FAAB Moves this week: Joe Ingles ($8)
15. Cigar Smoking Monkey (43-64-1)
FAAB Remaining: $100 FAAB Moves this week: n/a
16. Like A Josh – IFBL (42-65-1)
FAAB Remaining: $85 FAAB Moves this week: n/a
17. Ben – RotoGold (41-66-1)
FAAB Remaining: $50 FAAB Moves this week: n/a
18. ChazTop–KevinBottom (40-67-1)
FAAB Remaining: $100 FAAB Moves this week: n/a
19. Mr. Green – Nowhere (38-68-2)
FAAB Remaining: $24 FAAB Moves this week: n/a
This week i think we’ll just focus on a few of my players after a close matchup.
DeRozan is back…..yeah!
Aaron Gordon played his first game for me since I traded for him, and he looked pretty good too…….yeah!
The Knicks made Cleanthony Early inactive so they could play a bunch of 30yr old guys they signed to 10 day contracts…….ummm, not yeah? Booooo?!?!!!
Oladipo is playing like a top 15 player…….yeah!
Noel had his best game in the NBA this week……yeah!
Jonas was on fire with a double double in the first half the other day, going 10/11 from the field. So the Raptors guards and coach decided to reward him by completely ignoring him on offense ever since, to the tune of 21 FG attempts total in the 14 quarters since that great first half. And he hit 11 of them!?! Half of which were probably put backs on offensive boards……not yeah! Booooo!
20. The Struggle is Real (37-71-0)
FAAB Remaining: $100 FAAB Moves this week: n/a
