Shake-up up top! The king is dead! Crazy 8-1 win for I Ain’t No Jok(ic), bringing down #1 Kap’s Team all the way to third place. It also made the top 5 teams all within 3.5 games of each other. Getting bunchy up top! HateUsCauseTheyAnus moves into first place with the upset win, but will have their first test of being the hunted. A ton of moves this week hit the wire, with one of our biggest cluster of adds since week 1. Here’s how week 11 went down in the REL:
1. HateUsCauseTheyAnus (63-34-2)
FAAB Remaining: $27 FAAB Moves this week: James Johnson ($27)
2. Yappers (62-34-3)
FAAB Remaining: $49 FAAB Moves this week: n/a
So I wake up this morning and find Yappers in second place, 1/2 game out of first. One more block in our 6-2-1 matchup and we would be tied for first. But no complaints about the matchup as it took a rally the last day to pull ahead in FT% and pull even in blocks.
Now I have doubts whether we are really that good, but we are starting a series of three tough matchups that will go a long ways towards determining where we stand. This week’s opponent, Scurry to the Left, is about even with us in FT%, while superior in FG% and Turnovers. So we could easily be down 0-3 in the ratios and turnovers before we even hit the positive counting stats, where Scurry is clearly superior in Treys. Plus our best player, Kyle Lowry, has a one day week this week. Good grief… a one day week????
I was thinking about trades for rentals this week. The players on my team whose $1 contracts should be very attractive to a rebuilding team are Jordan Mickey, R.J. Hunter, Sam Dekker (all 2015 nba draft picks), O.J. Mayo, and Mason Plumlee. Now the rumours around Celticsland is that Jordan Mickey has outgrown the D league and they want to trade dead wood (looking at you David Lee and Tyler Zeller) to give him meaningful NBA minutes. If I have to keep one 2015 draft pick, he would be it. R.J. Hunter and Sam Dekker are possible, but only after the NBA trade deadline. If they are getting meaningful minutes then, I will be most likely holding. That leaves O.J. Mayo and Mason Plumlee who could be had now. But only if I get a clearly better player. My model would be the Iman Shumpert for Zach Randolph trade made earlier this year. If at some point I trade say Mason Plumlee for Zach Randolph 2.0 and then later trade say Sam Dekker and/or R.J. Hunter for Zach Randolph 3.0, I think we would be in very good shape for the playoffs. But then again I could also be happy holding the bunch of ’em and taking my chances with Lady Luck in the playoffs. I view this conundrum as a win-win for Yappers.
3. Kap’s Team (60-36-3)
FAAB Remaining: $98 FAAB Moves this week: Anthony Tolliver ($2)
4. Slim – Razzball (60-38-1)
FAAB Remaining: $9 FAAB Moves this week: n/a
After exiting the prior weeks drubbing with $75 worth of injured players, and another $26 in players with minute limits, I didn’t have much hope for this past week. But then Lillard returned to his usual dominant ways, Nurkic contributed big time in boards and blocks, even Kobe gave a couple of nice stat lines, and with that I end the week having my only injury being Alec Burks who had surgery in an attempt to return to my team even quicker. Marcus Smart has seen his minutes creep back into the 30 range and all signs point to a successful recovery. Sully lost his starting gig with back and wrist issues but he’s been just fine in limited minutes and should more than likely improve even more in the coming weeks. Injuries obviously destroyed me over the past 3 weeks but it looks like I’m finally back in the fold as a playoff caliber team and it couldn’t have come at a more opportune time. Apparently I lied about Alec Burks… now I have Kobe down with an achilles and Marcus Morris down with a knee. Just when I thought it was getting better the fantasy gods strike me down again.
There’s only one category worth talking about from my previous weeks match-up, and that would be my punted FG% hitting a season high .463. A few guys helped more than they should have but the big one was the rarely mentioned Steven Adams who when next to Nurkic in my lineup is usually referred to as just, ‘The Other White Meat’. At all of 22 years old it’s been nice to see the consistent progression. I still have extremely high hopes for TOWM’s future, and despite the lack of fan fair he’s still one of my half dozen or so untouchables.
I put in a few $0 waiver bids (dropping Trevor Booker) and missing out on Willie Reed is the one I regret the most. For the bottom of my lineup I’m mostly focusing on keeper potential now, which is why Booker was my 1st drop. With Lyles playing better, and more minutes, and Withey playing all of the backup center minutes, I’m starting to fear what will happen to the rotation when Favors returns. No need to panic yet, but the writing is on the wall and with Nurkic back a guy like Booker who basically only rebounds becomes far less of a guaranteed hold. Langston Galloway is down to about 20 minutes but at 24-$1 he’s still a worthy hold. Tyus Jones lost his backup gig but he was extremely productive in his limited minutes and after the Clarkson debacle last year (he was added and dropped by 3 or 4 teams) I’m going to hold strong and see if Tyus can earn his minutes back. Rashad Vaughn turned a bit of a corner on Sunday, 29 minutes of 2/10/2/2/1/1 on 50% from the field and without a turnover. Granted both Mayo and Bayless were out but it’s nice to see a small glimpse into the future and I am absolutely sold on Vaughn’s long term outlook. I feel extremely lucky to have him and he really doesn’t deserve to be mentioned in the, ‘bottom of my lineup’ section anymore, and truth be told at this point it would take a small fortune to steal him away from me.
Still in the middle of my toughest stretch of the season and this week I get the #6 team Martyball, fortunately for me though it is sans Bledsoe. It should be a close match-up, assuming of course that my current rash of injured players makes it back in time to contribute.
5. JB Gilpin – Razzball (58-36-5)
FAAB Remaining: $1 FAAB Moves this week: Jonathon Simmons ($0)
Woooo, staying strong with a hard-fought 7-2 win giving me back-to-back 7-2 Ws. But damn if I wasn’t close to getting that immaculate 9-0 victory, losing by 10 AST and 4 TO. I hattttttte Rajon Rondo and faced Hoopus Alleyoopus with his first big week of Kyrie Irving. Without those guys, I think my hopes and dreams of ever getting a 9-0 REL win could’ve been realized.
But the story this week wasn’t that matchup, but two big trades. I sadly broke up with Ricky Rubio this week… Shocking! TMZ was outside my house all week to try and get some disheveled comments, but my new boyfriend Isaiah Thomas is keeping me from feeling any regret. I moved Rubio, Felton and Leuer for IT2/3 and Richaun Holmes. Holmes is meh, it was mostly to keep from needing two wire adds. And fortunately I was able to make an expedient 1-for-2 trade, dealing Noah for Tristan Thompson and Courtney Lee. Mannnnn, it feels good clearing out the big contracts off the books! Here’s how I like to look at the 3 trades I’ve made this year:
SENT:
$40 Serge Ibaka
$30 Ricky Rubio
$1 Jon Leuer (FAAB)
$1 Raymond Felton (FAAB)
$1 E’Twuan Moore (FAAB)
$1 Lance Thomas (FAAB)
RECEIVED
$14 Isaiah Thomas
$11 Jeremy Lamb
$7 Tristan Thompson
$7 Ian Mahinmi
$3 Courtney Lee
$1 Richaun Holmes
After having a terrible lack of depth heading into the year, I turned 2 of my 3 most expensive contracts (and probably non-keepers) and my FAAB budget into 6 potential keepers. The cornerstone obviously being Isaiah Thomas, Thompson is a lock on his contract, and the others are likely keepers as well. We’ll see on Holmes and maybe Lamb is a little too much when MKG is back next year, but he’s signed for a bit with the Hornets and looks good. It certainly came at a cost to build out my depth – spending all my FAAB – but I think I make my depth better for this year while also helping for the future.
On the FAAB front this week, here’s what I said about James Johnson last week: “I lovvvvvvvvvvvve James Johnson, but back-to-back DNPs made him a cut.” Then of course DeMarre Carroll has lingering knee soreness out of nowhere that results in arthoscopic knee surgery and he’ll miss two months. Awesome! Uggghhhhhh. Then to top that nightmare off, Solomon Hill comes off 5 straight 20ish minute games with nice multi-cat, to end last week with 3 DNPs. But fortunately Jonathon Simmons fell to me, as he’s a perfect piece with Kawhi Leonard. If the Spurs blow someone out or give Kawhi a DNP or two, Simmons should get added run. I like the hedge, and he’s still fairly young. At least I got a decent replacement there for now.
6. Martyball – IFBL (59-40-0)
FAAB Remaining: $83 FAAB Moves this week: Ray McCallum ($0)
7. Scurry to the Left (56-41-2)
FAAB Remaining: $98 FAAB Moves this week: n/a
8. I Ain’t No Jok(ic) (55-43-1)
FAAB Remaining: $56 FAAB Moves this week: Tim Hardaway Jr. ($4)
You have to feel good after an 8-1 win against the first place team. Especially after an 8-1 win against the (former) third place team. The only category I lost to Kap this week was turnovers, which I punt, and I lost it by a pretty epic amount. Somehow my team managed to put up an impressive 117 turnovers! That’s 2.2 turnovers per game played on average for my team. Wow! Good thing that’s my punt category, haha.
I’m pretty pleased with my teams stats in pretty much every category this week, turnovers aside. We shot over 50% from the field and 78% from the line for some efficient lines. There were the 684 points, the 277 rebounds, 147 assists, and 54 steals. My guys even managed to put up solid numbers in my weaker counting stats with 46 threes and 37 blocks. There are still things to work on of course. WCS needs to come back healthy, as does Ronnie Price. My waiver pickup to fill the spot of the long term injured DeMarre Carroll, Tim Hardaway, needs to stick in the rotation in Atlanta. They did give up a first round pick to get him, and he’s had some time to forget how to be a NY Knick and learn how to be an Atlanta Hawk, so I think there’s a good chance there. He has played pretty well the last few games when they’ve given him an opportunity.
For the most part things are looking up, and even the schedule gets a little easier here with only one team in the top 9 remaining. I’ve been through what seems to be the worst of it and I’ve managed to come out of it 12 games over 500 and only 3.5 games out of a playoff spot. Deep breathe. Now lets just keep this momentum going and work our way into one of those top 6 spots boys!
9. Hardenoutherr4apimp (52-47-0)
FAAB Remaining: $60 FAAB Moves this week: n/a
10. Niko-Cola (49-48-2)
FAAB Remaining: $85 FAAB Moves this week: Aron Baynes ($3)
This one was closer than it should have been and we ended up sweating out a 7-2 win over the weekend. Batum missed 3 games for us and had us worried, but some strong performances from our on again off again boyfran Super Mario Chalmers closed it out for us. Including 11/13 from the line to win us the cat on Sunday.
We have dug ourselves out of the cellar over the last 5 weeks piecing together 5 straight wins and a combined win loss of 31-13 over that time. I have not compared that to the rest of the league during that time, but I know it’s a .705 win percentage and first is at .646 for the season. We definitely needed some big weeks to make up ground and we have been able to do that.
Looking ahead we play Hoopus Alleyoopus and he seems to be sliding the other way. A lot can change from week to week, but we are optimistic for a 6-3 or 7-2 victory. We will lose TO and likely FG%. FT%, STL, and AST could all be toss ups, but we are confident in the health of our roster and the player match ups to take down the win. If we can win there will likely be 2 more weeks of sub 500 competition before taking on Hardenoutthere in week 15. He is currently locked into the playoff battle with us and it could prove to be a pivotal week.
There are 2 matchups that include two teams ahead of us facing off and several that feature once contenders trying to knock off a top ten team. We are at the point in the season that upward movement in the standings is getting tougher, but it seems like the top 10 teams are much closer this year than previous years. A strong week could see us jump one maybe 2 spots at best, but hopefully picking up 2-3 games on a playoff spot. There is no doubt in our minds that the level of competition this year has definitely taken a step forward. Good luck in week 12!
11. Greek Freaks (49-49-1)
FAAB Remaining: $20 FAAB Moves this week: Dante Cunningham ($3)
12. High as Greg Kite (47-50-2)
FAAB Remaining: $66 FAAB Moves this week: n/a
13. Heat Apologist (46-52-1)
FAAB Remaining: $40 FAAB Moves this week: Willie Reed ($0)
14. Hoopus Alleyoopus (44-53-2)
FAAB Remaining: $38 FAAB Moves this week: n/a
15. Foreign Affairs (44-55-0)
FAAB Remaining: $91 FAAB Moves this week: Chris Johnson ($0)
16. The Nature Boy (39-59-1)
FAAB Remaining: $80 FAAB Moves this week: n/a
17. The Chosen Ones (37-62-0)
FAAB Remaining: $12 FAAB Moves this week: Jodie Meeks ($3), Carl Landry ($1)
18. Pete Nice – Razzball (36-62-1)
FAAB Remaining: $83 FAAB Moves this week: n/a
19. No Glove No Love (32-67-0)
FAAB Remaining: $65 FAAB Moves this week: Joe Ingles ($2)
20. Cigar Smoking Monkey (28-70-1)
FAAB Remaining: $100 FAAB Moves this week: n/a
