REL Power Rankings, 2013-14 Fantasy Basketball

Week 12 has wrapped up in our Razzball Elite league, with The Nature Boy continuing his reign of terror over us dynasty-ers. Dynasters? Dynastians? Kardashians! The Razzball brass have all clustered in the middle of the rankings, with the devastatingly injured Pete Nice squad slipping, Slim surging, and me settling. Eh, best “s” word I could think of for staying in the same spot… “Sabre! It began with a bloody ‘s’!” Recaps from owners are below as we head into week 13:

1.The Nature Boy (73-32-3)

FAAB Remaining: $70 FAAB Moves this week: n/a

2. Like A Josh – IFBL (72-34-2)

FAAB Remaining: $61 FAAB Moves this week: n/a

3. Kap’s Team (70-38-0)

FAAB Remaining: $81 FAAB Moves this week: Garrett Temple ($1)

4. Cigar Smoking Monkey (68-40-0)

FAAB Remaining: $6 FAAB Moves this week: n/a

5. Barking BassetHounds (66-39-3)

FAAB Remaining: $20 FAAB Moves this week: n/a

In a league with a player pool of size 340, the relative health of the teams involved goes a long ways to determining matchup outcomes. In week 11, Barking BassetHounds lost a close 4-5 matchup with Scurry To The Left as two key players were out the whole week and several others missed games. However in week 12, we were as healthy as we have been all season and consequently won a 7-1-1 matchup to Martyball IFBL.

We also accepted a trade offer, trading Greg Monroe and Mason Plumlee to I’m a Currian for Enes Kanter and Nikola Pekovic. In my mind this is a classic future for present trade that I thought long and hard before accepting. Mason Plumlee was a $1 WW acquisition that I considered a key part of my long term strategy of getting younger. Enes Kanter, while talented and having value this year, was drafted at $30 dollars and in all probability will only be a rental. He should (I hope) perform at a level of the other $9-$12 complementary players on my team.

I decided to accept the trade based on the following reasoning. First, although losing Plumlee was tough for me, there will be other opportunities next year likely to improve long term via the waiver wire. In fact I tried this week by bidding $16 on Ryan Kelly, but was outbid by Slim. But there will be other fish in this sea. Second as much as I liked Mason Plumlee, I view him long term as more a complementary piece like several of my $9-$12 dollar players. I should be able to recover from this. Third, I do like Pekovic over Monroe this year. He costs $5 more, but for this year it is a freebie, and I should be able to absorb this cost in the future since I consider the $23 cost to be reasonable.. What decided the issue for me however, was number of games in playoff weeks. Should I be lucky enough to make the finals, I observed that Pekovic had 6 games in a week and a half while Monroe only had 4. This was huge for me, and finalized my decision to accept the offer.

This trade does leave my team somewhat unbalanced towards the “big” skill set, which means I will consider an equal trade for a guard type. This does not mean, however, that Jim Henson is suddenly available.

6. Breaking Batum (64-44-0)

FAAB Remaining: $82 FAAB Moves this week: Donatas Motiejunas ($1)

7. Scurry to the Left (58-49-1)

FAAB Remaining: $76 FAAB Moves this week: n/a

8. Slim – Razzball (57-48-3)

FAAB Remaining: $5 FAAB Moves this week: Ryan Kelly ($24), Alexis Ajinca ($1)

The following excerpt was taken from the Journals of Slim, detailing the rise of Ryan Kelly.

Monday Jan. 13th – I woke up today and saw I got the two guys I kinda wanted and I didn’t have to spend much FAAB to get them. That’s a good way to start a Monday. I also saw Ryan Kelly was dropped. Since Shawne Williams was released Kelly might get a few more minutes. He’s worth $5-6 to me. I have $30 left.

Thursday Jan. 16th – When I looked at the box scores this morning I saw Kelly got 30 min last night. He didn’t score much and no one is going to believe those steals and blocks so maybe he stays under the radar. I had to bump my bid up to $10, well I’ve got to beat $10 so it’s at $11.

Friday Jan. 17th – I was watching the Lakers tonight and Ryan Kelly started the 2nd half! Why do you hate me D’Antoni?! Couldn’t you wait a couple more days. $11 won’t get it done now, I had to bump it up to $16. If RKelly starts Sunday then his value is going to fly. Maybe even touch the sky.

Sunday Jan. 19th – Kelly starts… Great! <– Sarcasm. Up to $20. Well gotta beat $20 so, $21. I watched the game rooting for him to fail. I wanted the guy I was trying to pick up, to fail, something isn’t right with that. I know his price tag is bloated but I want him, he’s playing well and he has cheap keeper potential. $23. If I’m willing to go $23 then why wouldn’t I go $24? OK, Now it’s $24.

Monday Jan. 20th – RKelly is mine! After a little bump-and-grind to celebrate I decided to look at the other bids. $16, $13, $12, $11… That’s where I had him if he didn’t start on Sunday. I have no regrets about my overbidding. The price I paid is easily worth the chance at a $1, 22 year old keeper who will help me win now. I’ve managed to avoid having much stock in D’Antoni so far this year but this one has the look of a D’Antoni favorite.

9. Hoopus Alleyoopus (55-52-1)

FAAB Remaining: $67 FAAB Moves this week: n/a

10. Martyball – IFBL (54-53-1)

FAAB Remaining: $79 FAAB Moves this week: n/a

11. Pete Nice – Razzball (53-53-2)

FAAB Remaining: $10 FAAB Moves this week: Jeff Ayres ($1)

12. JB Gilpin – Razzball (52-55-1)

FAAB Remaining: $1 FAAB Moves this week: Dewayne Dedmon ($3)

Well, I promised Slim a good rant if I lost this week, and I lost 4-5. Butttttttttt, I lied, not going to rant too much. It was an absolute dead heat against Breaking Batum heading into Sunday, with both teams having a shot at a 9-0 win. I only got one game from Mike Scott (who, sadly, is one of my better players) but Batum only got one from Lou Williams, so a wash. However Tony Snell and Joakim Noah had a 3OT game while a lot of my scrubs were even scrubbier than their normal scrub lines. The matchup ended up with a 0.020 FT% deficit, loss by 4 threes, 14 Rebs and I had 5 more turnovers. But I eked out a win in points by 6, and while I usually win treys and TOs, I’ll take the 4-5 loss against a playoff team. I don’t think any luck/unlucky factors, like a 3OT game, made a difference.

This is the big kahuna, the golden belt, the game of the century against Slim this week. Slim’s team is good. As in, a lot better than mine. So far I’ve gotten good production and Slim got clunkers from his Raptors, so it’s a lucky start. I’m going to need a lot of it to survive even a 4-5 week. Slim is looking more and more like a playoff team, so while it would be a 3-game losing streak if I lose 4-5, it’s only been 4-5 the past two weeks as well and all to the better teams in the league. Past that my schedule lightens up a tad and I should be able to get a winning season under my belt. I would need some drastic things to happen in order to make the playoffs.

With more the future in mind than this year, I decided to grab Dedmon who has some upside as a 7-footer. He’s still young and could play decent minutes in years to come if he develops with the Sixers younguns. Or wherever Dedmon might end up. Why I didn’t bid on a guy like Devin Harris, who while I think needs to be owned, won’t give me any future upside. So wish me luck Razzball Nation and let’s give Slim a shave!

13. Doug – tdbsports.com (52-55-1)

FAAB Remaining: $98 FAAB Moves this week: n/a

14. Ben – RotoGold (48-58-2)

FAAB Remaining: $98 FAAB Moves this week: Devin Harris ($2)

15. I’m a Currian (45-62-1)

FAAB Remaining: $69 FAAB Moves this week: Hollis Thompson ($11), Thomas Robinson ($7)

16. Mr Green – Nowhere (41-66-1)

FAAB Remaining: $28 FAAB Moves this week: Manny Harris ($3), Brandon Rush ($2), Kyle O’Quinn ($1)

Let’s start by having a quick peek at how some members of my team performed last week. The combination of Otto Porter, Jordan Hamilton, Greg Smith, Nerlens Noel, and Arnett Moultrie managed to put up (a combined) 6 MIN / 0 PTS / 0 3PT / 0 REB / 0 AST / 0 ST / 0 BLK / 1 TO line. Noel was expected of course, but Moultrie and Smith were supposed to be back from injury. It looks like Moultrie is just delayed, whereas Smith is re-re-re-re-injured *shock*. As for Hamilton and Porter, both are seemingly out of the rotation, although as evidenced by the 6 MIN / 1 TO that Porter put up, at least he still has the hope of getting in at garbage time, something Hamilton gave up when he slept with the coaches daughter[††].

So that was 5/17 members who literally contributed nothing. From the remaining group we’ve got Chris Douglas Roberts, who managed to play 10 minutes over 4 games after playing 86 minutes over 3 games the previous week. A big thanks to MKG for taking all his minutes. Neither Quincy Miller, nor Andrew Nicholson managed to garner more than 12 minutes in any game, and Nicholson even threw in one game where he got a big fat 0 minutes.

On a side note here, there are some really messed up rotations out there this season, I’m looking at you Denver, Boston and Milwaukee, but, the one that is the strangest IMO belongs to Orlando. This is a team that has the second worst record in the NBA, so they aren’t playing for anything other than a high pick in the draft and player development. Yet, seemingly every time I look at their box score I see something like I saw on Sunday, which was a 7(!) man rotation featuring nearly 40 minutes for every starter and 2 bench guys who play 20+ minutes. Half of those guys are veterans too, not prospects. Use your freaking bench and play some of your young guys a little so they learn something. Maybe get Nicholson in the game, or let Harkless have a go?? I don’t hear much about Orlando’s strange rotation the way I do Milwaukee or Boston either, which seems a little odd to me.

Alright, I feel a little better about my team after ranting about Orlando. Where was I now, ah yes, half my team managed to produce almost no stats, that’s right. As for the other half of my roster, you’ve got Parker missing a game, Valanciunas playing over 23 minutes once (let the kid learn and gain some experience already!), and Wroten getting himself injured. Other than that my team had a fantastic week! I’m not bitter at all, really.

So, following last weeks 1-8 debacle we’ve got 3 more players moving on, and hopefully 3 players who won’t immediately get removed from their teams rotations coming in to try to help out. Since I go up against the #1 team this week I’m gonna need all the help I can get. Who wants to take bets on the over/under for category wins by my team this week? I’ll set it at 2.5? Anyone? I’m feeling good after getting all that off my chest so I’m gonna have to take the over there, thinking I can come out on top in 3 categories anyway.

Stay positive Razzball, and see you next week…

[††] To the best of my knowledge, technically, this never actually happened.

17. ChazTop-KevinBottom (38-69-1)

FAAB Remaining: $75 FAAB Moves this week: n/a

18. Nashed Potatoes (38-69-1)

FAAB Remaining: $91 FAAB Moves this week: n/a

19. Team Tough Guy Town (32-74-2)

FAAB Remaining: $89 FAAB Moves this week: n/a

20. Kinsey’s Team (30-76-2)

FAAB Remaining: $100 FAAB Moves this week: n/a

Remember REL teams, if you are in the league and want your recap in the post, hit me up any time before Tuesday morning. Good luck in week 13!