The rich get richer, and the burning gets… burnier? The REL clearly has a front-running juggernaut, as Martyball – IFBL notched an 8-1 win against Curry burns my ass!! to widen their dominance to 6.5 games ahead of the field. All while only making one waiver add this season! “Set it, and forget it!” Depth is the name of the game in the REL, and snipping 12 of his 17 players would probably be a contending 12-team fantasy squad. [editor’s note, I didn’t even read Curry’s synopsis before the intro! Pretty funny.] So we tip our caps to you, but I’ll be ready for ya week 13 when I face ya, Marty! Please be back Rubio, pleeeaaaasssseeeeeee! Here’s how the rest of week 7 went down in the REL:
1. Martyball – IFBL (48-13-2)
FAAB Remaining: $80 FAAB Moves this week: n/a
2. Scurry to the Left (42-20-1)
FAAB Remaining: $98 FAAB Moves this week: n/a
3. Barking BassetHounds (41-20-2)
FAAB Remaining: $74 FAAB Moves this week: n/a
When your ratios for the week are .439 and .761, then you have a good chance of losing your ratios for the week. And that is exactly what happened as Barking BassetHounds lost both ratios, turnovers, and blocks (by 1) en route to a kinda disappointing 5-4 victory.
Not much to say here. This is strange to say but I find myself missing Jim Henson’s block per game in 5 minutes per game or something like that. The highlight of the matchup was my $1 CJ Miles leading my team in treys (most in one 30 point outburst which will probably be his game of the year). I notice my man Spencer Dinwiddie got picked up in FAAB. I remember bidding on him at auction time when I had $4 of auction cash left, but lost out when he went for $5. I think he may turn to be a nice long-term investment, but unfortunately I do not have a slot for him. Anyway, on to the next week.
4. Breaking Batum (40-22-1)
FAAB Remaining: $63 FAAB Moves this week: Jae Crowder ($4), Luke Babbitt ($0)
We had our closest matchup of the year this week. The battle was fierce and came down to the late games Sunday night. Thank to Wilson Chandler and some timely assists we escaped with a 5-4 victory and actually advanced our place in the standings. We had poor weeks from Noah (injury) and Jefferson (being on a crappy team) so we were pleased with the result. We suffered another recasting injury as one of our cheap swing men in Iman Shumpert dislocated is shoulder. No surgery is required so hopefully his absence will be one the short end of the time table. We are excited about the free agent pick ups we were able to make but disappointed our waiver priority was used. We did not consider this as a possibility and have learned to consider this moving forward. We need our stars to contribute more moving forward if we expect to remain in playoff contention.
5. Kap’s Team (37-25-1)
FAAB Remaining: $99 FAAB Moves this week: n/a
I beat ChazTop-KevinBottom 6-3 to move into 5th place in the standings. I benefited from Chaz not checking his lineup to capture some close category wins (assists, steals, and threes). Taj Gibson returned from his ankle injury and Luis Scola continues to play well in limited minutes. I have a tougher matchup against JB this week and hope that George Hill and Ersan Ilyasova will return to the lineup soon.
6. Curry burns my ass!! (37-25-1)
FAAB Remaining: $69 FAAB Moves this week: Spencer Dinwiddie ($0)
Brutal week as expected… I believe Slim said the first week if you wanna know how good your team is, compare it to Martyball. Well, I did, and as a result, I’m walking a little funny today. Martyball’s team would be competitive in some 12-team leagues. Plagued by shooting slumps, DNPs, and random injuries, I find myself in 6th, though I think I have a little further to fall. The Mekel gamble didn’t pay-off with two DNP-CD, so I decided to go a different route, grabbing the big point guard from Detroit of waivers and looking to build my nucleus for next year. I have made it known on the trading block that Steph Curry is available, and with the best fantasy playoff schedule, I hope he will find a good home on a team that is contending.
7. Slim – Razzball (34-28-1)
FAAB Remaining: $68 FAAB Moves this week: Justin Hamilton ($7)
Since my blurb comes before JB’s I think I’ll go ahead and clear the air before he muddles it. A 5-4 win by yours truely and without a single category being close. I imagine he’s going to talk about the categories he lost so I’ll do that too. 1st, I’m 2nd to last in the league in FG%, I’m punting it, I’ve been punting FG% since draft day last year. JB can have that one. 2nd, Last year I was a high end FT% team but this year I’m in the bottom half of the league and in dire need of improvement. Shockingly my biggest FT% drag so far has been Wiggins. OK, fine, the rook needs more work. Nothing I can do but wait for it to get better, it will. 3rd, JB got me in TOs. My turnovers weren’t out of hand and it’s actually a decent category for me but my guys played a bunch more minutes than JB’s so it goes with the territory when you win assists by more than 50. Finally and highly unfortunately I lost blocks. I’m not OK with this, granted I was against Josh Smith, Ibaka, and Dedmon (5 blocks) and my top shotblocker, Larry Sanders, only played 2 games but still this should at least be close week-to-week.
The top of my lineup does their job every week and there really isn’t much to say about them this week either. Instead I’ll talk a bit about the bottom end. My last PG, DJ Augustin, averaged 25 minutes per game and gave me 6 assists per game this week. Moving right along… I have two low end wings, Rodney Hood who did very little but averaged 19 minutes per game this week and barely turned the ball over. I expect more 3s but at least he’s in the rotation. The other was my pickup last week Marvin Williams. In a 3-game week he played 21 minutes per game and gave me 3 3s, 2 steals, and 2 blocks. I’ll take it, but please Marvin don’t go 1-for-3 from the charity stripe anymore, it is simply uncivilized. I also have two low end bigs. Tarik Black gave me some boards the past couple of weeks but Howard is back so it’s time to moveon.org. So I move on to another big getting minutes due to injuries, Justin Hamilton. He’s no ‘A’ prospect but he was solid in the D-League last year, 19/9/1.5/1/2, .490 FGs, .800 FTs, and 0.8 3s per game, which all adds up to making the all Defensive 1st team and the all D-League 1st team (alongside Robert Covington). At eye level he’s the energy guy the Heat sorely need, but just to be clear, he’s no Jusuf Nurkic.
It seems like every week I finish with talking about Jusuf Nurkic. Maybe I’m showing too much REL bias here but to me he has all the makings of a future all-star. Granted he hasn’t played too many minutes, fouls too much, and has too many turnovers, but he also just turned 20 years old last August. Compare that to Gorgui Dieng who turns 25 in January, or Mason Plumlee who turns 25 in March. I have a few numbers I’d like to share. 1st his current per 36s read as such, 15.1/14.4/2.2/1.4/3.2. Wowsers. That line is just like Drummond’s per 36’s but with an extra block per game and a couple of assists. 2nd his line on Saturday was 9/5/1/2/3 without a turnover and fouling out in 18 minutes. If only he got 18 minutes every night. Finally when he does play he has a USG% of 26.8, who else has a USG% that high? Chris Kaman does but Nurkic wins in nearly every other metric there is, TRB%, BLK%, STL%. I feel confident saying that if Nurkic got as many minutes as Kaman he would outproduce him, and that is at the ripe old age of 20.
8. SethDaSportsMan (34-29-0)
FAAB Remaining: $48 FAAB Moves this week: n/a
9. JB Gilpin – Razzball (33-30-0)
FAAB Remaining: $34 FAAB Moves this week: Sergey Karasev ($8)
Slim is a talent-less, all luck-driven terrible fantasy player! Everything he said is wrong and illogical, and I shoulda won 9-0!!!!!
Hah, while I use REL to whine about my favorite league, none of that this week. Slim and I’s matchup was a bloodbath with Slim crushing in 3PTM/Pts/Reb/Ast/Stl and me crushing in FG%/FT%/Blk/TO. So basically, his team walloped me, but I survive “only” a 4-5 loss. Which I’m fine with! Just need to survive until Rubio is back. Steals were actually solid for me as well, but Corey Brewer had 16 on the week. Sheesh. That said, I did protect my ratios by benching everyone but Serge Ibaka on Sunday, which included Kawhi’s redonk 18/8/4/5/6 line. Nothing was close, but just something to note if anyone is looking at my year-long stats or comparing their matchup last week to my team.
Despite more-or-less a boring week where the 4-5 loss seemed decided by last Tuesday, probably my most exciting week as I pulled off a huge trade. Moved my LaMarcus Aldridge ($36) for Victor Oladipo ($26), Patrick Patterson ($4) and Zach LaVine ($6). I love this trade on so many levels. I had about 3-4 really scrubby spots I was filtering in-and-out waiver moves, and my depth is vastly improved. All with players I love and are keepers. As a Rubio owner, having LaVine for insurance for the next half decade is huge. I’ve talked about my Pit-Pat love several times and RainbOladipo is another favorite. The only hit I take is probably FG% and TO, but as a Josh Smith owner as well, I’m usually going to lose those.
For the first time this year, I’ve put together my keepers and budget and I have possibly 15 of 17 spots filled for $183 with all solid/upside players under 26 next year. A few duds then not keeping Josh Smith, but really excited with the team as it’s assembled now. I included Sergey Karasev as one of those guys – he’s sorta a “who knows” but is 21, starting, and on a admittedly rebuilding Nets team. Should get some nice minutes there.
The big trade won’t go through until Wednesday, so I won’t have a full barometer of my new look until next week. I’ll need solid showings against Kap’s Team, but then full strength against Barking BassetHounds in Week 9. Then through weeks 10-20, I play virtually all sub-.500 (or probably will be at that point) teams other than Martyball. Should be a second half Serge!
10. Hoopus Alleyoopus (31-32-0)
FAAB Remaining: $51 FAAB Moves this week: n/a
11. Ben – RotoGold (28-34-1)
FAAB Remaining: $50 FAAB Moves this week: n/a
12. Team Tough Guy Town (27-34-2)
FAAB Remaining: $50 FAAB Moves this week: n/a
13. The Nature Boy (28-35-0)
FAAB Remaining: $88 FAAB Moves this week: n/a
14. Cigar Smoking Monkey (26-36-1)
FAAB Remaining: $100 FAAB Moves this week: n/a
15. Pete Nice – Razzball (26-37-0)
FAAB Remaining: $65 FAAB Moves this week: Alonzo Gee ($30)
16. Like A Josh – IFBL (25-38-0)
FAAB Remaining: $85 FAAB Moves this week: n/a
17. ChazTop–KevinBottom (25-38-0)
FAAB Remaining: $100 FAAB Moves this week: n/a
18. High as Greg Kite (24-38-1)
FAAB Remaining: $30 FAAB Moves this week: Donald Sloan ($8)
19. Mr. Green – Nowhere (20-41-2)
FAAB Remaining: $56 FAAB Moves this week: Matthew Dellavedova ($7)
Well, that went exactly as I’d hoped it would. Leading in FG%, REB, BLK, and TO. Within striking distance of FT%, and STL. A potential 6-3 or 5-4 win against one of the top teams was sitting right in front of me. Right up until the Friday games when my team decided to adopt a litter of Labradoodles. They shot themselves out of FG%, blew the BLK lead and never caught up in STL or FT%. A solid week turned into a 2-7 loss!
I think my team is in a similar situation this week matching up against Slim. I’ve got the edge in FG%, REB, BLK, and TO. We’re close in FT% and somewhat close in STL. I’m still without DeRozan, although I’ve got Wroten back now.
If things break my way I’ve got a shot at an upset here. Then again, Slim looks to be 100% injury free and his guys like Nurkic are gonna be in the rotation with McGee down. So I could lose 2-7 again.
For the WW I grabbed Dellavedova since I could use another PG, and hopefully his illness doesn’t cost him any games this week. I had to drop Baynes, who was steady even if he was boring. The Spurs got Splitter back which may cut into Baynes playing time so, without much upside, he was the first to go.
Here’s hoping my guys put up another fight this week and don’t blow it on the weekend!
20. The Struggle is Real (16-47-0)
FAAB Remaining: $100 FAAB Moves this week: n/a
