2016-17 REL Dynasty League Update: Week 16

Not only do I have this “yuuuuuge” matchup, but things got a little wild over the weekend…  I got the gut-wrenching news one of my cheap emerging stars, Zach LaVine, tore his ACL…  Within mere hours, I had two different offers for him.  He wasn’t even cold yet!  Vultures.  Hah, I keed of course, but through a long set of negotiating with Niko-Cola, finally arrived on a big deal.  I sent over LaVine ($6 – wahhhhhh that great value will be missed), Luminscent Lithuanian ($29 – thanks for your, like, 3 weeks of service) and Michael Beasley ($1, my last guy/woulda been drop pretty much) for Love ($37), Zbo ($11), and Allen Crabbe ($3).  Starting from the bottom up, I really like this Crabbe value.  He’s a low-TO ThrAGNOF with great %s, who is on a long contract.  Mmmmmmm, daddy like.  Zbo is kinda Zbo.  Meh, it was nice to bolster my bigs.  Then of course the main get, Kevin Love at a maybe-keeper/maybe-rental $37.  He’ll help bolster the lost 3s, I think I’m dominant in rebounding now, and also helps FT to entrench that as a win.  The only hesitation I have from calling this a win-now slam dunk, is Love getting rested in the playoffs.  If I only get 1-2 DNPs from him, I think it’ll be a win.

Awesome week as well in the standings, as I beat #3 seed Scurry 6-3, and with a shocking upset, The Chosen Ones were able to beat #2 seed Yappers 5-4, giving me a nice little lead for that #1 spot.  It sucks to give up a budding superstar (well, hopefully) in LaVine to keep my run going, but like a vampire, I just need the life blood of anyone still breathing!  Good luck to everyone this week (everyone except Slim that is)!

Anyway, since Hibbert is now the third or fourth center on the bucks behind Monroe and Henson, my choices were (1) be patient and see how this plays out or (2) there are two centers (Salah Mejri and Miles Plumlee) right now on the WW who are at worst Hibberts equal but trending up. Since I can not assume I would have a similar opportunity like this later on this season. I went with the second option. I actually had my bids set up so that if the stars were aligned properly, I could get both of them, but being outbid on Plumlee (who was plan A on being a little more predictable) I got plan B in Mejri (who has maybe a little more upside).

So where does this leave us now. Well the only player on Yappers who currently is an issue is Chris McCullough (who seems to be tearing up the D league). My assumption with him has always been that the Nets would give him a chance to develop in the D league for most of the season, but then to give him minutes in the show near the end (replacing say useless Luis Scola). But if this is not the case, he will be available maybe a week before trade deadline unless say Marc Gasol comes down with a season ending injury (see last year).

PGs are a little slim these days with Lillard, Reggie, Rubio, and the newly acquired Jason Terry for just this week. Lillard is doing his thing, as is Rubio. Reggie on the other hand had a week to forget. Overall I guess it’s OK, but I could use another one if I’m going to contend in March.

Wings are a strength with Gary Harris, Gordon, Fournier, Marcus Morris, Thabo, and Richardson. That is when healthy it’s a strength… The top 4 are solid 12er types so I’m not looking to do anything here but get healthy.

Bigs tend to fluctuate heavily in production but Goose, Adams, Chriss, Taj, JaMychal, Zeller, Dwight Powell, and the newly signed LaVoy means I’m trying to win boards and blocks by sheer volume alone. If I could lose a big for a PG I’d probably be a much more rounded team.

Sure there’s plenty of top 100 types in there but the real fun lately has come from Chriss. He is going to be such a beast one day (March). Last time out against MIL Chriss went 27/6/0/0/2 with 3 3s and not a single TO, in all of 24 minutes! The steals have been massive, the TOs are way down, the 3s and blocks are consistent even when the minutes are not. JB kind of scoffed at my analysis but I believe one day soon we will be asking the question, “Who would you rather own, Goose or Chriss?”

So what happened? We aren’t entirely sure maybe poor roster construction, maybe bad injury timing, maybe we were wrong in a few guys Monta cough cough. Who knows it’s probably a combination of a lot of things. Once we knew it was over we acting quickly to try and make trades for next year. To tell that story we have to start with a trade we made earlier in the year.

On November 17th we traded KJ McDaniels($1), Tristan Thompson($7), and Buddy Hield($32) to HateUs for Dwayne Wade($20), LaMarcus Aldridge($36), and Ed Davis($1) who we ended up dropping for Nik Stauskas($1). The first trade we made yesterday was with HateUs and we sent Dwayne Wade($20), LaMarcus Aldridge($36), and Nik Stauskas($1) for Demar Derozan($20), Bjelica, and Ron Baker. Alright so that’s a lot of moving parts we we traded things back and forth. Here is essentially what netted out of that deal…

Tristan Thompson ($7)
Buddy Hield ($32)
Nik Stauskas ($1)

For

Demar Derozan ($20)

Needless to say we love the result; Demar at that price will be a bargain over the next 5+ years even as his production begins to drop. This will give us a fair amount of wiggle room to buy nice players going forward. We also made a second deal which may be more noteworthy. We traded JB Kevin Love ($37), Zach Randolph ($11), and Allen Crabbe ($3) for Zach Lavine ($6), Jonas Valanciunas ($29), and Michael Beasley (it doesn’t matter). This one was tougher to come to terms with as all 3 players we sent to JB will go for more in next years draft if thrown back making them reasonable keepers in our opinion. However we got a lot younger in this deal and gained considerable upside which was lacking on our roster.

We also WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY over spent on Fred Vanvleet and one of the Plumlee brother in fab to fill out our roster. Vanvleet I don’t understand why there was not more action. He was a four year guy at a mid major who is getting playing time currently and proving himself capable (sound familiar). Lowry is opting out and CoJo’s contract is up at the end of this year. Friday night against Orlando the Raps were actually playing Vanvleet at point with Lowry at the 2. If the Raps cannot sign Lowery or CoJo then Vanvleet will be primed for a huge role. He likely won’t start as they would go find a veteran to play, but he would have the opportunity to win that spot. Even if Lowry does resign we expect Vanvleet to assume back up duty next year as the first guard off the bench. It won’t take much to earn his $1 keeper value and I am pretty confident he can do it.

Everyone else we are still dealing a lot of our good steady cost controlled guys are producing this year and we are willing to move them for better contracts/production. Good luck to all of those chasing down the final playoff spots!

But! This week I hear that Khris Middleton is coming back. Hallelujah! If he’s not owned in your league for some reason, pounce quickly! Rodney Hood’s injury last week sounds somewhat minor, no not that injury, the one after that other one. So it’s entirely possible that he comes back at the end of next week as well. If he’s not owned in your league, it’s because nobody trusts him to stay healthy, and for good reason it seems. IF, and it’s a big capital I capital F if, nobody else gets injured between now and the end of next week, I could have my first healthy day of the season by next weekend. The only guys missing would be Omri Casspi who I just grabbed to stash as he was already injured, and Guerschon Yabusele who’s in China (tearing it up I might add). Cross your fingers and say a prayer for me as I think I’ve been punished enough for winning the REL title last season. End the curse already! Let me be healthy for a day at least!

Last week was another solid performance by my guys, though not quite as good as the prior couple weeks. Either way, these are huge improvements on what this team was doing up until recently.

Week 15: .480/.815/46/582/178/104/37/28/79
Week 14: .485/.824/50/684/216/162/38/28/80
Week 13: .500/.835/52/645/206/120/45/18/83

Probably the best part of all of this relates to my situation going into next season. Those stats above come from a group of guys that take up 53% of my teams salary. Right now my keepers next year are looking like P.George ($31), A.Gordon ($15), I.Thomas ($14), T.Evans ($13), N.Jokic ($12), N.Noel ($12), R.Hood ($4), D.Schroder ($3), K.Middleton ($1), L.Nogueira ($1), and T.Hardaway ($1). That’s 11 solid guys for $107, leaving $93 for the other 6 roster spots. I’ve also got a few other potential guys in Henson ($12), and a few $1 rookies that I can choose from if anyone looks like they might break out. The future is bright!