Usually in the open I talk about the team in first, but that seems self-serving and weird right now… Did I veil that gloat at all?! No, no, in all honesty, I have matchups against the 2-4 seeds still to go, so still have some work to do. Dynasty leagues are never on cruise control! Which was also the lesser-preferred subtitle to “Speed 2”. A lot of squads got some reinforcements off the wire this week, but not big money splashes… The trade deadline should see a nice big wad of cash thrown on the wire, like during a Pacman Jones lap dance!
Here’s how week thirteen in the 2016-17 REL went down, and how we’re looking heading into week fourteen:
| RAZZBALL ELITE LEAGUE STANDINGS | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| League Link | |||
| 1 | JB Gilpin – Razzball | 81-34-2 | Waiver Adds Past Week: |
| FAAB Remaining: | $31 | Paul Zipser Chi – SF,PF $1 | |
| Whew! Nail-biting week, with 5 categories coming down to the wire, and I was very fortunate to go 4-0-1 in those cats. It certainly was a bit of a down week, but that was expected on a 2-game OKC schedule. Stupid schedule gods! That said, I won TO for only the 3rd time this season, despite Russell Westbrook still trying to ruin it with 14 TO in 2 games. Well, tis to be expected these days… Only 2 games from him and Dipo (plus a really important X-factor in Jerami Grant) really hindered my output. Luckily I got just enough dimes to squeak by with a 5 AST win. FT% came down to the wire as well, and I held my breath starting Tyson Chandler on Sunday, but 2-2 FT and .846% FT% this week from big Tyson! Man, he’s been a revelation this year… My hope for another 8-1 win came down to blocks, where I had a 2 block lead before KAT got another 2 more swats (4 last night) in the last game, giving us a tie. That said, KAT had 6 TO – if he had only 1, that would’ve tied too… So I’m obviously happy with how it turned out…
I also had to grind through a couple injuries for the first time in a while (you’re not 1st in the REL unless you’re EXTREMELY lucky avoiding injuries), but thankfully Luol Deng got back just in time for 2 blocks yesterday (thanks brah!) and KCP sounds like he’ll be back either tonight, or early this week. Just coast for the next 6 weeks, fellahs, save it for my fantasy playoffs! With KCP on the INJ list, it opened up a roster spot, and the only guy I threw any money at, I actually got. Look at that whopping bid! I was actually up to $5, but there were so many usable vets that I would’ve been fine with, that I lowered it to a mere buck. At only 22 yrs old, he’s off back-to-back double-digit scoring games (13/4 with 3 treys last time out), and getting run even with everyone healthy. Actually led the Bulls bench in minutes in a 3-point win against SAC over the weekend. Plus with rumors Nikola Mirotic is being shopped, Zipser might join McDermott as the proverbial 6th men. If Miro is dealt, we all know Wade isn’t exactly a pillar of health, so I may luck into some big minutes here. And, well, “Zipser” is probably the coolest name in the NBA, couldn’t pass on that… Good luck to everyone this week, and hopefully you commenters out there in Razzball Nation will cheer for your’s truly to finally pull out an REL title! |
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| 2 | Scurry to the Left | 80-36-1 | Waiver Adds Past Week: |
| FAAB Remaining: | $93 | n/a | |
| 3 | Yappers | 80-36-1 | Waiver Adds Past Week: |
| FAAB Remaining: | $26 | Kris Humphries Atl – PF,C $2 | |
| Well I had last week’s matchup with Slim circled on my calendar as a checkpoint to see where my team stands.
But as it happens I had a significant injury advantage (I will let Slim rant on this) over Slim, my loss of Pau Gasol notwithstanding. So as it turns out maybe the win was not that indicative of very much. But I will take the 6-3 win anyhow. But being the one to find a dark cloud in every silver lining, losing both ratios was a disappointment. But maybe this is just karma given my past luck in FG%. Player of the matchup just has to go to $1 Sam Dekker and his 6 threes / 30 point game on Saturday. Now I have an idea of his ceiling, and any thought of trading him in a win now trade has been squashed. But with Ryan Anderson returning I view that like as sort of a fluke. Anyhoo, we made a yuuuuuuuuuge trade this week. My Patrick Patterson for Niko’s Roy Hibbert. Now truth be told, I would rank Patterson a smidge higher than Hibbert. Plus his $4 cost made him an arguable keeper. And I owned Hibbert last year (having bought him at auction time for $12), and came to hate him with an eternal hatred. But truth be told I need Hibbert’s blocks much more than Patterson’s threes. And arguable keeper or not, I was not going to keep him (Yappers already has about 15 keepers give and I want at least 2 openings to play FAAB next year). So trade offer accepted (as I figured it would be). And the injury bug finally caught with us as Pau Gasol is down 4-6 weeks. So much for my stash of Lance Stephenson (one would think I had learned from Festus Ezeli but whatever). So seeing that I am on the ration stage of FAAB, I decided to set a cap of $2, which in the end net me Kris Humphries. All I have to say on this one is that he now seems to be getting 16-20 minutes and doing his usual thing in rebounds. Murphy’s law says it will now go back to five minutes per game. Another tough matchup this week with Greg Kite (as a Celtics fan I remember that name) and his three headed monster of Harden, Curry, and Whiteside, each with 4 games this week. I |
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| 4 | Slim – Razzball | 74-39-4 | Waiver Adds Past Week: |
| FAAB Remaining: | $45 | Randy Foye Bkn – PG,SG $3, Reggie Bullock Det – SG,SF $2 | |
| I started to count how many games I missed this week but I ran out of fingers. Oh well, it happens, at least they started filtering back in late in the week. As of right now it looks like only Fournier and Richardson are looking at extended absences, but I lost games this past week from Rubio, Adams, Gary Harris, Taj, Goose, and even Sergio and McClellan although the last two don’t appear to be injury related. So 9 out of 18 guys missed at least one game, yikes, I’m not sure I would have beaten any of the other 19 teams this past week. Moving right along…
We knew Sergio had to go eventually so he’s gone, and since he was my 4th PG I needed to replace him with a PG eligible player. Enter Randy Foye. He’s been getting about 20 minutes per game over the past 5 and has been a pretty decent Thragnoffer in that time (2.4 3s per game). Throw in 3.2 assists per and he’s a completely reasonable deep league add. Then there’s McClellan, he was getting solid minutes, I add him, and the minutes disappear. Weak. With KCP down and Bullock finally returning from injury, Bullock has been getting massive minutes and even when KCP returns I’d gamble on him maintaining some kind of role, and at 25 years old there’s still enough there to perhaps even be kept. Now it’s all just a matter of staying healthy. When healthy I don’t lose, but that’s only happened once. I’m not looking to move any of these injured guys since they are young keepers so now it’s just wait and see if I can get healthy in time for my next matchup against a top 3 team, that would be against JB in 2 weeks. I guess it’s possible… |
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| 5 | Hard-N-Tha-Paint | 73-41-3 | Waiver Adds Past Week: |
| FAAB Remaining: | $10 | C.J. Watson Orl – PG $8 | |
| 6 | Martyball – IFBL | 70-44-3 | Waiver Adds Past Week: |
| FAAB Remaining: | $66 | Ed Davis Por – PF,C $5 | |
| 7 | High as Greg Kite | 69-45-3 | Waiver Adds Past Week: |
| FAAB Remaining: | $9 | Quincy Acy Bkn – SF,PF $4 | |
| 8 | Niko-Cola | 66-50-1 | Waiver Adds Past Week: |
| FAAB Remaining: | $98 | Brandon Bass LAC – PF,C $0 | |
| I said last week in the recap that we had to go 14-4 over the next two weeks to stay in the hunt for a playoff birth. The good news after 1 week we are 7-2. The bad news is that we gained no ground. The other bad news is that we did quite poorly against the rest of the league. It’s starting to feel like we don’t have it this year, but I have played fantasy sports long enough to know that when you get into the playoffs it’s any mans game.
This week we are looking at a matchup against foreign affairs. We have matched up well most of the year. We need an exceptional week though a simple 5-4 or 6-3 win just won’t do in our current standing. After this week we pretty much okay top 10 teams from here on out so every matchup is going to be a critical one.
A brief recap this week. Next week we will know much more about our potential fate. I look forward to over examine every angle trying to rationalize our playoff hopes. Good luck all.
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| 9 | HateUsCauseTheyAnus | 63-52-2 | Waiver Adds Past Week: |
| FAAB Remaining: | $0 | Ron Baker NY – SG $3 | |
| 10 | No Glove No Love | 56-53-8 | Waiver Adds Past Week: |
| FAAB Remaining: | $57 | Shelvin Mack Uta – PG $2 | |
| 11 | Heat Apologist | 58-59-0 | Waiver Adds Past Week: |
| FAAB Remaining: | $42 | n/a | |
| 12 | The Chosen Ones | 50-62-5 | Waiver Adds Past Week: |
| FAAB Remaining: | $3 | n/a | |
| 13 | Hoopus Alleyoopus | 49-68-0 | Waiver Adds Past Week: |
| FAAB Remaining: | $65 | n/a | |
| 14 | Kap’s Team | 48-67-2 | Waiver Adds Past Week: |
| FAAB Remaining: | $94 | Salah Mejri Dal – C $0 | |
| 15 | I Ain’t No Jok(ic) | 48-69-0 | Waiver Adds Past Week: |
| FAAB Remaining: | $39 | Noah Vonleh Por – PF $11 | |
| That was the best week of the season so far for my team. Not just in score, which at 8-1 it easily was, but also in team stats. That was close to the kind of week I expected to get on the regular coming into the year. Funny that I get it now when I’ve traded a bunch of my top guys away and still have a bunch more injured or not currently in the NBA. Looking at the stats for the week it turns out I would have actually knocked off 2 playoff teams this week, including #1 JB. That would be a stark contrast to what I would have done any other week versus a playoff team.
Somehow despite getting nothing at all from 4 roster spots, only 1 game from my recent acquisition Bebe due to injury, and neither Tyreke nor Noel playing over 23 minutes I still managed to score the 2nd most points of any team in the league this week! Well done boys! This was led by my top 20 trio of IT2/3 at the point, PG13 on the wing, and of course Jokic manning the center spot. Those are some solid pieces right there that combined for an average of 11/110/29/14/4/2/12 on over 50% from the field and 90% from the line. They’re not alone though. There’s also a bunch of other guys who are contributing right now. It’s nice to see finally. On the farm I’ve been keeping my eye on Guerschon Yabusele and he has been playing pretty damn well lately. I know it’s China, so the competition isn’t really even close to elite, but you can only play who they put in front of you. In his last 3 games he has put up lines of 65%/88%/0/33/16/3/3/0, 57%/75%/3/33/16/6/0/0, and 65%/69%/3/34/15/5/0/2. Those look like pretty good numbers in any league. Even before that when he was getting about 15-20 less minutes per game he was still putting up solid numbers, regularly throwing up 20+ points and double digit boards. I can only hope he keeps getting the minutes and that he can improve his defense enough to where he’s passable on that end in the NBA. Next year it sounds like he’s coming over and there’s a real good chance he gets in the rotation for Boston. Overall he looks pretty damn good and definitely someone to keep an eye on in dynasty leagues. This week I get HateUsCauseTheyAnus, a team that despite my good week I still would have lost 3-6 against last week. With my only wins coming in percentages and turnovers. That doesn’t bode well for this week, nor does a quick look at the expected games played for the upcoming matchup. Here’s hoping it’s at least close. |
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| 16 | Hardenoutherr4apimp | 39-75-3 | Waiver Adds Past Week: |
| FAAB Remaining: | $100 | n/a | |
| 17 | Foreign Affairs | 39-77-1 | Waiver Adds Past Week: |
| FAAB Remaining: | $1 | Brice Johnson LAC – PF $0 | |
| Hello Darkness my old friend, Mudiay and Russell are hurt again. Well the week started off fantastically with two big games out of Mudiay, Zubac beasting in extended run against the Nuggets and some support from the other rookies to help me actually take an early lead over 6th place Martyball to start the week and hang in there for another day or two. But I was quickly overwhelmed by both the number of games Martyball’s roster was playing and an absolute dud week out of Russell and Mudiay fall back to earth at the end. My team just doesn’t have the games played or fire power if my lead pg’s are having a bad week for put a run together and get myself out of the bottom tier of the league.
Bender continuing his limited role and Zubac 17min per this week are positive signs though since its still January so I can see both of them getting into the mid 20s post allstar break. The Kings losing Rudy is a sad news(for Rudy that is to the King’s it was just a normal day) but a plus for my team since it should put the kings out of the playoff hunt since they were 2-7 before the injury and have lost the last 2 after, and after riding the pine for awhile Malachi has gotten 6 and 8 minute stints since the Rudy injury. Temple, Afflalo, Barnes and Tolliver are the only ones in the way right now so the minutes should be there as the season goes on, plus there not likely around next season and I don’t see them getting a great draft pick since the currently red hot Sixers have the rights to swap picks with the Kings this year thanks to the Vlade doen’t know how to GM trade Hinkie made with him to get Stauskas/Landry/Thompson +2016/2017swap rights and a future protected pick so Vlade could have room to sign Rondo last year…..man I’m glad I am not a kings fan. I put acy/noah on my wire list but missed out on them as I thought I would so I got my “number 1” choice in Slim’s drop from last week in Brice Johnson, he’s injured and I have an open IL spot so he can fit right there and i’ll just handle the lost Russell games. Paul’s injury and Griffins injury along with both having player options this year with the expanded cap makes me think they’ll be free agents this summer and there are enough rumors circulating about the Clippers blowing things up after this season that he feels like a good add. Plus Slim was interested for a week at least so I figured I should trust his instincts and swoop in on the one he let go in pursuit of a championship. |
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| 18 | The Nature Boy | 37-78-2 | Waiver Adds Past Week: |
| FAAB Remaining: | $100 | n/a | |
| 19 | Pete Nice – Razzball | 35-79-3 | Waiver Adds Past Week: |
| FAAB Remaining: | $90 | n/a | |
| 20 | Cigar Smoking Monkey | 33-84-0 | Waiver Adds Past Week: |
| FAAB Remaining: | $100 | n/a | |
