2016-17 REL Dynasty League Update: Week 5

Anyway last week’s matchup was the first this where we won FG%. So I will give my MVP of the week to Jeff Teague, whose .553 FG% probably was the difference. In fact, we would have won turnovers had I stayed home as originally planned to micromanage the team by benching Kyle Lowry. But life has precedence over my fantasy teams, and we were out watching our adopted grandaughter in her school’s production of Beauty and the Beast.

But since Yahoo says I am in first place, I decided it was time to cull the herd of last year’s four 2015 NBA draft picks. The first victim was Jordan Mickey, 2nd round Celtics pick whom I was very high on for blocks last year. But when I observed James Young getting more garbage time minutes than Mickey, it knew it was time to cut the ties.

After having made token bids on Gibson and Williams that I totally expected to get Donald Trumped (I already have made my one big money early pick with James Ennis whom I was perfectly happy with thank you), my next and real target was Noah Vonleh after I observed he would be the youngest member of Yappers despite this being his third year in the league. So lets see, 9th draft pick versus 2nd round draft pick – semi regular minutes versus no minutes – one year younger – better trade value – I’ll take it. Particularly since I thought I should get him in the $5-$10 range (my bid of $6 was too close for comfort. it needed WW priority to break the tie).

So this weeks schedule gets tougher against perennial contender Niko-Cola. Hmm he seems to be totally healthy so it should be close. Predicting 5-4 either way.

Despite the frustration, it was a nice week.  Jae Crowder came back off his kankle, Dirk seems close-ish, everyone else is pretty much good to go.  I like how it’s coming together.  The big move this week was another trade:  I think it got done by pure attrition and annoyance, bothering Pete Nice for his Jerami Grant all year.  We finally got it done, with me sending over Patty Mills.  For the love of swats!  Mills gave me a nice 5 days of ownership haha.  But I highly covet a $1 Grant, who gets blocks, is hitting a couple treys, and I think could develop into a fun, starting SF somewhere.

Yes, yes, I decided to go nuts on the wire.  I bid my lucky number on Jonathan Gibson, since the Mavs are going nowhere, and I think he’s going to play.  I disagree with Slim, I think even with the Mavs healthy then subsequently tanking, Gibson is gonna play through thick and thin.  Why the hell not?!  He’s shown he’s the best guard on the team right now (well, maybe minus Wes Mat), and I love rooting for guys that have been through the ringer to get to the NBA.  He may be 29, but it’s not like he’s been playing 82 NBA games for 8 years while playing overseas – hasn’t had the same grind.  And he’s playing total Yolo ball right now – he knows this might be his only shot.  The TO look like they’ll be an issue, but whatever.  Westbrook is already killing me there.  Alam Williams might have been a better fit for me, but he’s a little undersized (6’8) and the D stats look like an aberration.  I decided to go for Gibson…  Good luck to Anus this week, it should be a good matchup!

Other than that I’m just chugging away. I’ve got the most minutes I’ve ever had and that’s with two guys down and another (Sefolosha) nursing a knee and barely playing. Really there’s only two guys on my team without a reliable role and that would be the brothers Hernangomez. Last week I added Willy and he had an interesting go of it this week. He’s been the 1st big off the bench in the 1st half but then O’Quinn gets all the backup big man minutes in the 2nd half. Annoying for sure but our favorite Irishman is turning the ball over at an alarming clip and from eye level really is not playing well, but with Noah sick on Sunday O’Quinn is the one who got the start against Howard. He played OK in his 17 minutes but it was Willy getting 29 minutes and playing some very solid defense although the final stat line wasn’t much to write home about. Juancho has seen his minutes dip for five straight games but he looks great whenever he’s out there. He’s aggressive, he doesn’t make many mistakes, and he’s a very good defender, the dstats will be there once he gets consistent minutes. Alas that probably won’t happen without a trade or an injury, but considering his massive upside I’m more than willing to wait it out. I got him back after trading him away last week, I gave up my $15 Oubre for the $6 Juancho. The price difference does matter but more importantly I’m all in on the Juancho bandwagon.

There were three major adds this week with Jonathan Gibson, Alan Williams, and Glen Robinson III. I didn’t even bid on Gibson since he’s 29 and just a temporary injury fill-in but he can definitely score and brings a lot to the table in 3s, FT%, and steals, but the TOs are going to be extreme, far too much for me to deal with. I’m sure JB will be happy with the add until either Dallas gets healthy or until Dallas goes full youth movement as I believe either will spell doom for Gibson’s minutes. Williams was a tough loss as I bid $22 and lost out to Las’ $28. Williams is the real deal and at only 23 years old there’s keeper upside too. This is a tough one to lose out on but with all the youth in Phoenix it’s tough to tell how consistent his minutes will be. Finally GR3 is playing pretty well with Miles and George down. When healthy you have to expect GR3 to lose a lot of minutes but at 23 years old once again there’s keeper value to be had here. There’s one more add worth mentioning, AJ Hammons. I was hoping he would stay under the radar for a little longer but it was a great time to add him for $0. He’s a big time shotblocker and rebounder, he’s a very good scorer and can even step out to shoot a 3. I assume he fell to the middle of the 2nd round due to age (24) and durability (never played more than about 24 minutes per year in college) but my gut tells me Hammons is going to be a very solid backup big man at the very least and he is absolutely ready to contribute now.

Dropping to seventh in the standings and 7 games back of first place who happens to be our opponent this week we continue to remain optimistic. We made a big trade last week which should make our matchup this week a juicy one. We traded Buddy Hield, Tristan Thompson, and our would be drop KJ McDaniels for Dwayne Wade, LaMarcus Aldridge, and Ed Davis. This is clearly a move for this year and one we think can bolster our production. Wade is playing with great energy in Chicago and producing more than what we would expect from him on nightly basis. If he is able to keep this performance up GREAT if a little bit of regression occurs that’s okay as well we are counting on it. LA has come full circle for us after trading him year one. We drafted him during the initial draft and he has been kept each year. Ed Davis we thought was better for this year production than anything on the waiver wire and will hopefully replace some of the boards lost with TT leaving town. The contract for Buddy was the main reason for making the trade. Based on early season minutes it was tough for us to imagine his contract being justified heading into next season. We also thought the minutes would drop with Jrue coming back and we seem to be justified in that thought after a few games.

We are still actively shopping guys to improve for this season, but we are more than content holding with Barton finally back. This reduces our non producing active roster players to 1 which is manageable. Yappers is a tough matchup and we don’t really know what to expect out of our newly redesigned roster, but we should be competitive assuming everyone suits up all week. We expect a tight outcome possibly 5-4 going either direction which we would be happy with facing the top team. Good luck everyone!

I don’t have a lot of optimism for my team. It was bad last year, and my offseason additions have been pretty lackluster. Willie Reed it basically the only backup big that the Heat have. Going into the season experts were saying he would get around 20 minutes per game and maybe more given Whiteside’s affinity for getting into foul trouble. He has only played 12 mpg and has sucked. Jeff Green. Holy crap is he bad. Jordan Hill can’t even get on the court. Was hoping for increased roles for Kyle Anderson and Rondae Hollis Jefferson. Anderson has gotten minutes but done nothing with them. RHJ is starting to come around but started out terribly.

Rondo sucks. Rubio sucks. Not looking good for me.

Firstly for Williams about as soon as losing out on him in FAAB last week I decided to see if I could get him in a trade, I had a very set idea of what I was open to moving for him and some good fortune, or bad for me if this continues, he had a pretty terrible week for being the starter, mostly because spo seems to be giving him a short leash….which is hilarious considering the leash he’s giving Dion Waiters when you have Tyler Johnson and Josh Richardson as stronger competition then Babbitt, Reed and James Johnson. But it worked in my favor since at the end of the week I got him for $1 Austin Rivers, I have sf depth issues and my pf depth are all project bigs so he fits a need and next years draft looks promising for guards/wings and he’s starting on a 4-8 team even if there not giving him much burn yet so for me he had more positives then Rivers did. As for Bennett I don’t see anyone on there depth chart that screams I’m so good you can’t demote me so I think the opportunity is there if he can take it. It’s a big if but he showed a little something in garbage time last week which is a start and from what I’ve heard the coach was the one that pushed for the team to sign him this offseason so that is a big positive in my books given what we’ve seen Kenny do with his rotations so far. Plus JB being willing to pick him up makes me feel like I’m not the one loon in the desert insisting it’s not a mirage, and I have a little bit of a personal attachment to redemption stories so it makes it fun to have them on the team and root for them.

I lost 1-8 this past week, at the start of the week when Saric and Embiid had only played I was losing 3-6 with 50% fg and 100% ft so I was thought I could sit my team for the rest of the week here and have a less crushing loss but that feels cheap to me and not in the spirit of true competition so I went all in a almost got swept if not for Mudiay getting his to’s under control at the last minutes. And now I’m against 4th place Hard-N-Tha-Paint this week, going off of last weeks match up it would have been another almost sweep against me with me pulling out stls against him by 1 so after getting to enjoy being 12th the contenders are quickly sending me down the standings. Going by season stats though I’m close in 3’s and to’s and he has Drummond and Deandre so I can’t count myself out in ft%. Here’s hoping things break right and I get stls to give me a respectable 4-5 loss.

Everyone seems to want a piece of Avery Bradley. I have received a handful of trade offers for him, but am reluctant to move one of my cheapest, young players. I made three FAAB bids for Jonathan Gibson, Luc Richard Mbah a Moute, and Alan Williams, but was outbid on all of them so I’ll go into this week without any roster additions.

On the other hand, I did win without Middleton, Tyreke, Noel, George (for half the week), and Casspi (who was DNP-CD all week). I also only got a single point from Malik Beasley, Shaun Livingston did next to nothing (more on him later), and WCS barely played again. That’s practically nothing out of half my team, so I guess there are some positives since I did win despite all that.

Once again DeMar DeRozan led the way for my guys, tops with 100+ points, 6 steals, second in boards, and third in assists. Victor Oladipo even showed signs of life, but still isn’t doing what he did the second half last year. Yet. There may still be hope for this team. If a few guys get their games in order. If a couple guys come back from injury. If I play a team that has some injuries. I don’t know. If, if, if…

On Sunday I picked up Yogi Ferrell off the wire for Shaun Livingston. I figure Livingston is about as boring as they come despite the pretty secure 20 minute a night role. Yogi is basically doing what Livingston is doing or more right now, with way more upside. Of course, he could be out of the rotation tomorrow but at this point it’s a chance I need to take. I had a couple other bids in, specifically on Jonathan Gibson who went for $52. If he stays in the rotation that is gonna be a good buy for a contending team. He is 29 years old though, and there’s probably a reason he’s never really played in the NBA. I did offer up $24 on him but wasn’t really willing to go higher than $30-$35 so I didn’t have a shot apparently.

Trades. I’m considering a couple already, but, I’m open to offers if anyone has some young, cheap, high upside guys that aren’t playing and wants something to help right now. Attention all contenders, haha! I’ve got some very good players I’ll listen to offers on and move for the right price. For the most part they aren’t rentals either as they’re on keepable contracts of their own, and they aren’t in their 30’s yet.