Week 3 is in the books, and I gotta say, looking at this week’s FAAB bids is why I love the weekly REL recaps. Several of the awarded players were “deep league” mentions in this morning’s daily notes, and can be a great way to keep an eye on the emerging guys from the wire a week or two earlier than 12ers. Since I prematurely shot my wad on what hopefully ISN’T a dry run, I have a mess on my hands! And the Elites didn’t let any of the big names fall through the cracks. Lewis Black couldn’t catch it! Here’s how week 3 went down in the REL:
1. Kap’s Team (21-5-1)
FAAB Remaining: $100 FAAB Moves this week: Darrell Arthur ($0)
I beat High as Greg Kite 7-2 this week, putting me at 21-5-1 for the season. My team has been mostly healthy this season (knock on wood), but I didn’t have Bradley Beal, Avery Bradley, or Michael Carter-Williams for a few games this week. I got a huge game from Kris Humphries (23 points, 5 rebounds, 5 threes), Zaza Pachulia gave me a few double doubles, and Chris Bosh and Carmelo continue to carry the team. Although I’ve been satisfied with my team so far, I’m a little concerned that my strong start has been due to an easy schedule. We’ll see how I do this week against Hardenoutherr4apimp, the first team I’ve played with over a .500 record.
2. Slim – Razzball (21-6-0)
FAAB Remaining: $62 FAAB Moves this week: n/a
2nd place will do… for now. 6-3 wins are fine and dandy but it could have been better. FG% is punted, and for good reason. I could list who hurt but that would be listing out nearly my whole team. The only person to actually attempt to help was Wiggins. It’s a start. FT% wasn’t pretty but fortunately my opponent was worse. The one guy who made the biggest difference was Burks who is finally looking like the top 100 guy I’ve been waiting for for 2 years. Lillard takes 3s, shocking I know, but tied for 1st on my team was Burks, did I mention he looks good? As for points, the torch has been passed. Wiggins finally outscored Lillard for my team lead and it may very well continue for a very long time. My leading rebounders this week was one part the usual, Porzingis, and one part surprise, Sullinger. Steals are still a need but it wasn’t a bad week. Marcus Morris has been on a steal tear to lead me again this week but solid contributions from Sullinger and Trevor Booker went a long way in winning the category. Blocks are no fun for me. Adams with the team lead and even Henson and Dedmon chipped in a smidge, but it wasn’t enough to compete with my opponent. I need more, I need Nurkic! TOs were a horrific loss and possibly the worst in the league for the week. There wasn’t one or two guys who sank the category, it was more a case of a whole lot of youth getting a whole lot of minutes.
I made a trade this week. I picked up Larry Nance Jr last week and the guy who dropped him immediately wanted him back. He’s getting minutes, and has upside for a tanking team but I’m not convinced he can play anything but PF this year and he’s locked in behind Randle. I lost Nance and Jeff Green, who I can’t stand and have been trying to get rid of even with being short SFs, for Gerald Green and Austin Rivers. Maybe I jumped the gun with Jeff Green a bit, oh well, we all make mistakes, at least he wasn’t a part of my future at $13. Gerald was the main target here since the Heat seem dedicated to him despite whatever it was that went down with him a week ago, and the Chalmers trade opens up a few more minutes. Rivers is still only 23 years old and $1 to keep. He’s the direct backup to two positions and both starters are over 30, and currently injured. His competition for backup minutes is Crawford at 35 and Prigioni at 38, and Rivers is signed for another year beyond this one. So I feel comfortable that he has season long value baring a trade, and upside for 30 minutes. But if a tanking team is interested I’d be more than willing to move him for some SF depth.
The injury ward had been filling up over the 1st couple of weeks but it seems to have settled down a bit. Everyone but Nurkic returned this week, OK besides Gerald Green too since he’s on my team now, but he’s practicing. Unfortunately Beverley turned an ankle in his 2nd game back from a concussion and will miss some more time. I’ll survive. I still like the upside for an eventual Lawson injury or ineptitude and Beverley to see more than the 20 or so minutes he’s currently slated for. For reference sake Lawson is shooting 31.9% FGs and according to Y! ranking is currently just inside the top 200 with 37 minutes per game, including a big fat donut in 34 minutes vs his old Denver team.
The bottom of my lineup had a solid week. Booker did his job with boards and defensive stats while Gobert was down. Tolliver hit some 3s and was just useful overall, especially at my weak SF position. Dedmon did what I was hoping in a bench role, boards and blocks, and to act as the Nurkic place holder, we have one IL spot. All 3 of these guys are solid holds for me. Which means with the addition of Gerald and Rivers I don’t have a guy to drop for a roster move this week. Although Beverley is getting dangerously close to being in that conversation. With that there was not even a single waiver claim out of me this week. I’ve made a few low end trade offers but I’m having a heck of a time even getting a counter, or even a conversation going. It’s still early in the year I guess. Me and JB had a trade nearly accepted but he backed off because he didn’t want to lose Wilson Chandler, the day before it was announced he was done for the year. Phew, I think I dodged a bullet there.
My opponent this week is another team near the bottom. He drafted a ton of expensive youth and made a few good cheap draft day buys that have worked out nicely, but with that said he will struggle to match my minutes.
3. HateUsCauseTheyAnus (18-9-0)
FAAB Remaining: $82 FAAB Moves this week: n/a
4. Scurry to the Left (18-9-0)
FAAB Remaining: $100 FAAB Moves this week: n/a
5. I Ain’t No Jok(ic) (16-10-1)
FAAB Remaining: $97 FAAB Moves this week: n/a
Once again my matchup came down to the final games on Sunday night. This time with points, rebounds, and steals up for grabs. My three Raptors trying to come back in all three cats vs D’Angelo Russell trying to hold on for Breaking Batum. As it turns out my boys completed the comeback in steals and boards, but JV didn’t pull his weight to complete the comeback in points unfortunately.
Injuries killed me this week, and if not for guys going down I don’t think there’s much question its a 5-4 victory. I missed 3 games from Oladipo, 3 games from DMo, 2 games from Noel, 2 games from Carroll, and another 2 games from Dunleavy. 12 games lost to injury in one week is huge in this league, especially when 5 of those games are from your 2nd and 3rd best players.
The early part of this season is definitely gonna be a stiff test for my guys as its chock-full of tough matchups. There are no gimmes in the first half as far as I can tell. So two victories and an injury plagued close loss is alright with me. Here’s hoping Oladipo gets over his concussion quickly.
JaMychal Green, whom I originally picked up to stream for a week, looks like he’s gonna stick around as he’s just been playing too well these last couple weeks. It helps that the Grizz traded away Jarnell Stokes and really seem to like what Green gives them. I’m liking what Jokic is showing too as he’s racking up the steals and boards while showing he can score. Now if only some of the minutes going to Hickson/Arthur would go to Jokic. The other spot at the end of my bench is getting inconsistent minutes as well. Ajinca has some board/block skills but he’s alternating between 20 minutes and barely getting on the floor. No consistency there. I took a shot at swapping him out for Dinwiddie, but my $4 bid was eclipsed by about $16 surprisingly. I don’t think anyone else bid even $1.
Looks like we get Foreign Affairs this week, which I’m sure will be another tight matchup that goes down to the wire. Good luck!
6. JB Gilpin – Razzball (15-10-2)
FAAB Remaining: $1 FAAB Moves this week: n/a
Whew. Nice 6-3 win against a quality team. I am going to try and not sound too ranty, as the ghost of Patrick Patterson and his 3 3PTM last night swung 3s by a single triple. But Heat Apologist should change their name to Schedule Apologist. There were 4 teams with 2-game weeks, of which I owned, wait for it, a grand total of 7 players. 7 players on 2 game weeks! More than a third of my roster! Then after all my Wolves whining, Rubio sits 4 outta 5 games. Apologist had a brutal injury week, but all those light weeks, Rubio DNPs, and a Kawhi DNP in there were infuriating. I took a 9-0 lead late Thursday night, only to struggle to hold on. Even with Apologist’s injuries, Andrew Bogut decides to come back exactly last Tuesday to play all 4 games last week, after only playing in the season opener and missing 2+ weeks. Then caps off that somehow healthy week with an 18 REB game Saturday, giving Apologist a team-high 40 REB, swinging the cat by 11. A normal schedule week with some health, and I think I could’ve pushed an 8-1 win. Crazy I keep losing AST/STL as those were supposed to be my lock cats, but Apologist bludgeoned me in AST and is a G build like I am…
After being against adding an IL spot this year, I lost Wilson Chandler for the season. That definitely hurts, but at least I have the IL to stash. At $11, I hope I stay healthy enough to stash him without it costing my roster. Rebuilding teams liking that contract can feel free to shoot some offers, but he’s certainly worth that price a few more years, as long as this surgery works and all…
Pivotal game against a similarly ranked team this week. Hopefully Rubio’s hammy will allow him to play, but shows why stacking positions with their backups can be pivotal in deep leagues. Without LaVine, I probably fall 4-5 last week. Kawhi will be back and only Kelly Oubre, my main stash, is on a 2-gamer. I threw out waivers on 4 of the 6 guys that went for $7+, so obviously came up empty. But no big, my drop was going to be Lance Thomas, and while scrubby, he still is in the rotation and has a role. All my crazy spends in week 1 remain pretty big contributors. Look at RayRay Felton chipping in! No, I didn’t say chocolate chip cookies, Felton!
7. Yappers (15-12-0)
FAAB Remaining: $55 FAAB Moves this week: R.J. Hunter ($3)
So this week I decided I have been approaching this whole back end of my roster issue totally wrong these last three years.
Instead of investing heavily and early in the FAAB wars in a dude that seems to have a defined role at the beginning of the year only to see it evaporate (this years fiasco being $26 Ryan Kelly who as soon as he appeared on my roster went into DNP-CD land) my major investments at this stage of the season should be long term upside for the final two or three roster positions. I figure that with the proper team build, I still should make the playoffs this way (barring injuries ) and if necessary there would be players available to fill short term needs as there were last year with Chase Budinger and Tarik Black. I hope that if I am successful at making at least two long term strategic investments per year with the back end of my roster, I can achieve my objective of competing every year while attaining cost effective roster turnover of aged veterans as needed.
So looking the free agent list this week I found five primary targets and I decided to focus on three: R.J. Hunter, Christian Wood, and Montrezi Harrell. I put in what I thought reasonable bids on these three and came away with the one (R.J. Hunter for $3), who actually was my most coveted target (being a Celtics fan who knows how much the organization loves him). Welcome to Yappers R.J. and I promise patience as I recognize the long term upside you should bring to our organization. The move does leave me thin at the PF position which I will need to address at some point (looking at you Joe Ingles), but I don’t want to spend big money for a purely tactical move.
The biggest highlight of my 6-3 victory this week was Mason Plumlee’s .714 FT %. This is important because it is looking like my team build is emphasizing FT% at the expense of FG%. I think we can absorb a .500 to .550 FT% from Mason, but much worse may be a problem.
Oh, for grins and giggles I checked, and this week I would have defeated the six teams ahead of me in the standings, some by more than 6-3. This with the final four roster positions producing about nothing.
8. Martyball – IFBL (15-12-0)
FAAB Remaining: $100 FAAB Moves this week: n/a
9. Foreign Affairs (14-13-0)
FAAB Remaining: $93 FAAB Moves this week: n/a
Another close 4-5 loss and I am starting to realize I might be standing in the middle of a forest that’s on fire, its not stopping Kobe from chucking away though. It’s looking like I was a year too early to go for the veterans play with too many holes on my roster starting off to give me a chance at competing for the championship. Sure I’ve turned this bottom place team into a competitive middle of the pack that could get lucky and make some noise but right now its looking like I don’t have enough fire power without some lucky breaks to have a shot at the title. Ladies and Gentlemen I am your late 2000s Milwaukee Bucks!!
On a player note I’m incredibly disappointed in Gordon Hayward this year, nothing has really changed with the team from last year so I’m hoping it’s just a slump that he’ll get out of but I was expecting better then this and if not for his cheap $22 cost I would have no patience for him. Gorgui is fine with me though…sure its massively disappointing so far, but he only costs $1 and his coach is Sam Mitchell…I’m a Raptors fan and have residual angry for him, so I’m not remotely surprised by his decisions at this point and don’t blame Gorgui.
Mario looks great with the Grizz so far so that’s been a great pick up and he could have a bigger role with this teams given that the teams starters are starting to look like they are at the end of the road.
I play 5th place I Ain’t No Jok(ic) this week so that’s going to be a tough match up for me, have to see if I get lucky but I’m officially putting up the I am rebuilding flag so the vets are on sale, I still feel like my teams competitive (hey who knows what injuries might happen) so I’m not in a rush to move them especially for a few that I’m hoping rebound some value, looking at you David Lee, but that is the direction I’m heading in.
So hop on board the Tank and lets see if we can drive this machine safely to the championship express and not do Donuts in the parking lot like Hinkie, light our Tank on fire like Vivek is doing, In Brooklyn’s case drive your Tank safely then hand it over to the Celtics since you sold that tank and the next 2 tanks to them and in the Lakers case drive into a swamp and tell your rookies to get out and push while Kobe fires the cannon endlessly at father time.
Lets Go Saric 2016!!
10. Hardenoutherr4apimp (14-13-0)
FAAB Remaining: $92 FAAB Moves this week: Marcelo Huertas ($2)
11. Hoopus Alleyoopus (13-13-1)
FAAB Remaining: $98 FAAB Moves this week: n/a
12. Heat Apologist (13-14-0)
FAAB Remaining: $76 FAAB Moves this week: Dante Cunningham ($6)
Uggghhhhh. Somehow squeezed out a 3-6 win in a week where I lost 16 games to injury, all to players who would have logged at least 20 minutes. Lost 3ptm by one, and points by 47. I was fortunate to miss a five game week from Rubio, winning steals convincingly. If I can survive the early season injuries, I swear this team could compete. I’ve managed to avoid the catastrophic injury, but lingering annoyances or recovering from surgeries have derailed me. Unfortunately, I have a tough early schedule.
On the FAAB front, I really wanted Wood (that’s what she said). I watched the highlights from his big game, then was glad to see he had a mediocre follow-up. I had a bid for $21 on him, and was considering raising it. I then went and watched his draft evaluation video. Long, decent shooter, good ball handler for a big, basically a wing in a bigs body. Then watched his weaknesses and they were all character. Poor decision making is a hard habit to break. After watching these, I capped my bid at $21, knowing I would love to have him on my team, but would also be glad to have him on someone else’s team. The other thing I really wanted to come out of FAAB bidding was for Miles Plumlee to be off my team. I should have dropped him instead of dinwiddie of course, but i needed blocks and I still remember when he was a thing in Phoenix. As an aside, Dinwiddie should still be on my team, if yahoo he correctly labeled Bimbo, I mean Norris Cole injured as he obviously was. He would have fit very nicely into my IL spot and I would have had an open roster spot. But what does yahoo do? Change his out designation to injured the day after waivers run. I told Slim dinwiddie was gonna go off after I dropped him. I was just a week late. Rant completed.
13. The Nature Boy (12-15-0)
FAAB Remaining: $80 FAAB Moves this week: Spencer Dinwiddie ($20)
14. Greek Freaks (12-15-0)
FAAB Remaining: $53 FAAB Moves this week: James Johnson ($7)
15. Breaking Batum (11-15-1)
FAAB Remaining: $100 FAAB Moves this week: Jonas Jerebko ($0)
Holy awesome week Nicolas “Batman” Batum, you turned out to be the hero we needed this week. Lets hope you don’t allow us to live just long enough to become the villain. Arguably our Robin was none other than Mr. Lamb coming in and cleaning up Batums slopping seconds on our team and for the Hornets. All of this awesomeness accounted for a 5-4 win over what we believe is one of the teams to beat this year. What we are more excited about is how we stacked up against the rest of the league. Top 3 in FG%, 3 PTM, (weird combo there) and AST. Then top 6 in PTS, REB and STL. We would have beat 18 of the 19 teams with Slim being our only loss. Mr Green was tied for the second worse matchup for us.
We continued to horde our FAAB money this week. There were 7 guys we had bids on, but none we felt were going to be the next waiver wire wonder. We ended up with Not a Jonas brother Jerebko for $0. He was approximately 43rd on our list of 7 guys we wanted, but when a big injury strikes we will be ready to play the Joker and steal that new 15 minute contributor. Our waiver wire has not been fruitful so far this season outside of McConnell, but we have hit on several guys in the draft or at the end of last year: Barton, Lamb, iggy, and Crabbe 3 of which are top 70 players on the season.
Lastly we are in need of a trade. Greatly over rostered and SG and SF we left stats on the bench last week as we did not have enough PF/C eligible players to fill our lineup. We have engaged several owners, but have not found the right match. Even with our slow start and 15th place rank we hold out hope that we can make a move once our schedule becomes more favorable and slip into the 5th or 6th seed. We have witnessed big second half moves previously and believe we can do the same. Great Week Mr. Green and good luck to our opponent this week Big Time Timmy Slim Jim.
16. Pete Nice – Razzball (10-17-0)
FAAB Remaining: $83 FAAB Moves this week: n/a
17. No Glove No Love (10-17-0)
FAAB Remaining: $96 FAAB Moves this week: Kevin Seraphin ($0)
18. Cigar Smoking Monkey (7-20-0)
FAAB Remaining: $100 FAAB Moves this week: n/a
19. High as Greg Kite (7-20-0)
FAAB Remaining: $87 FAAB Moves this week: Montrezl Harrell ($10), Kevon Looney ($1)
20. The Chosen Ones (5-22-0)
FAAB Remaining: $41 FAAB Moves this week: Christian Wood ($28), Archie Goodwin ($19), Chase Budinger ($10)
