Those juggernauts at Martyball are swingin’ around their martyballs like they’re the back of an F350 in the South! Another crushing 7-2 win that, well, smoked the Cigar Smoking Monkey. With an unreal record of 55-15-2, they’re really running away with it. Not until I win 9-0 in week 13! It was a busy week on the wire, as we head into the ninth week and near the halfway mark of the regular season. Here’s how the rest of week 8 went down in the REL:
1. Martyball – IFBL (55-15-2)
FAAB Remaining: $80 FAAB Moves this week: n/a
2. Scurry to the Left (47-24-1)
FAAB Remaining: $98 FAAB Moves this week: n/a
3. Barking BassetHounds (44-25-3)
FAAB Remaining: $74 FAAB Moves this week: n/a
You know its a bad week when the offensive star of the week is CJ Miles. This past week, BarkingBassetHounds lost both ratios, turnovers, threes, and points en route to a very disappointing 3-5-1 loss (tied steals).
This week it is easier to mention the players that were not craptastic, injured, or both. Kyle Lowry, Wesley Matthews, Tyson Chandler, Pau Gasol, and of course CJ Miles. That is it. And I played a 14th place team (albeit one that I think is better than that). This week my current craptastic team plays JB. Ugggghhh.
In a normal league the temptation would be to cut the bottom four out of frustration. In this league the only action is to stay the course. Hopefully this week is a little better. But not if I end the week with 5 players marked injured.
4. Curry burns my ass!! (44-27-1)
FAAB Remaining: $69 FAAB Moves this week: n/a
First, the good news. I managed to pull out a 7-2 victory, losing assists by one (come on Collison, three assists, really) and winning points by three. I was fortunate enough to compete against a team that lost several games by their top contributors, including Rose, Batum and Noah. Scoring remains my weakest category, but my percentages, steals, blocks, and turnovers remain strong. Now the bad news. My brief, but torrid, love affair with Steph Curry is over. Realizing I would need an astronomical series of events to even be competitive with the top teams (including several teams who are currently behind me in the standings), I made the move. I also feared (though I don’t wish for it) Curry getting hurt and becoming an expensive bench spot for me. After talking with several other teams, I realized I needed a cheap, young PG back. Slim and I negotiated a roster-changing 4-for-4 trade. The main piece I received back was a $14 Reggie Jackson. I have visions of sugar plums in my head of Reg in a Lakers uniform next year. Terrence Ross scored 51 points in a game last year, so there is no doubting his upside, though it is a bit of empty scoring at this point. DJ gives me a stranglehold (with Dinwiddie) on the back up point guard in Detroit. Here’s hoping Jennings gets dealt or just benched. Rodney Hood is a project, but he’s 22 and has potential to be a solid contributor at the end of my bench. All together, my roster as it exists, totals $107. I plan to be a big spender next year. I also could see dealing off some of my cheap, young talent. All that remains is to change my team name, as Curry will have to burn Slim’s ass now. My team, other than Kevin Martin, is very young, with half a dozen rookies, so I think we will become Youth Movement.
5. Breaking Batum (42-29-1)
FAAB Remaining: $59 FAAB Moves this week: Vince Carter ($4), Jason Smith ($0)
Not the best week for Breaking Batum. We suffered our first loss of the season, 2-7. In fact, we would have only beaten 3 teams this week. Ironically, we would’ve faired better against Martyball, so too bad this wasn’t our week to lose to him. If we hadn’t suffered 12 DNP’s, the result probably would’ve been different. Our opponent sold Curry for future assets, the trade going through today. Why couldn’t you guys have made that deal LAST week Slim and Curry?
We added Vince Carter and Jason Smith this week, dropping Brandon Davies and Luke Babbitt. Both of these moves should give us some better production from the end of the bench. We will need it against our next opponent, who would’ve beaten us 7-2 last week.
6. Kap’s Team (41-29-2)
FAAB Remaining: $98 FAAB Moves this week: Mike Miller ($1), Landry Fields ($0)
I tied JB’s team 4-4 in week 8. It could have been a better week if I had a fully healthy roster. Jason Terry, Carmelo Anthony, Ersan Ilyasova, George Hill, Taj Gibson, Raymond Felton, and Joey Dorsey all put up some DNPs this week for me. Had I had a few more games played, I could have won steals or points. For week 9, I dropped Felton and Dorsey for Landry Fields and Mike Miller. Felton is behind Barea, Rondo, and Harris in Dallas and still isn’t healthy, while Howard is back in Houston pushing Dorsey to the bench.
7. Slim – Razzball (39-32-1)
FAAB Remaining: $66 FAAB Moves this week: Allen Crabbe ($2)
I imagine I’m going to dwell on what I lost for years to come but for today I’ll try to just focus on what I got. Instead of talking about the actual 4-for-4 trade I’ll talk about what the team looks like now. PGs are now unbelievable for a league so deap: Curry, Lillard, Beverley, Norris Cole, and Alec Burks. This was always a strength but something I focused on in the trade was getting better while lowering my turnovers and I think/hope I accomplished that. This has become crucial for me since I punt FG% and my FT% has been a year long struggle to remain competitive.
Wings are where I took the biggest hit and now they are comprised of: Wiggins, Brewer, Tucker, Solomon Hill, Marcus Morris, and Marvin Williams. While the Corey Brewer trade hurts his value I’m still holding out hope that Wiggins gets that value added onto his stat line. I don’t ask much from this group anyway, hit 3s, give me some boards, and maybe add in a steal.
Bigs almost went unchanged and now they stand as: Sanders, Amir Johnson, Adams, Nurkic, Biyombo, and the last spot on my bench Justin Hamilton. Nothing to see here but I desperately needed blocks and I’m hopeful Biyombo will help. I dropped Hamilton since his minutes evaporated, and he looked over matched when he did play, and finally added Allen Crabbe. He’s capable of chipping in in all categories, especially the rogue block, and he’s an upsidey 22 year old. Which could describe everything I just lost in my trade. Wesley Matthews is in the last year of his contract so who knows, maybe I’ll get lucky.
A quick word on Curry, and Wiggins… At $70 Curry isn’t going to be a keeper for me, he’s just a collection of statistics in which if you can offer me more this year than what he does then you can have him. Most importantly though for any trade involving Curry I will want a fair amount of assists back. After much consideration Wiggins is another guy who I could be convinced to part with. He won’t be cheap since he has superstar potential but I’m willing to at least talk.
8. JB Gilpin – Razzball (37-34-1)
FAAB Remaining: $34 FAAB Moves this week: n/a
So I’ve been maintaining that I want to move steadily ahead at about .500 for a couple more weeks before I play the second half of the season against almost exclusively weaker teams, and I hit that mark to perfection going 4-4-1 in Week 8. Mediocrity encouraged!
Given Kap’s Team has a lot of injuries (then again, he has all old vets), I still think a healthy Kawhi and Rubio would’ve made this a nice win. Steals were tied up and I lost by 2 treys and 22 rebounds. Looks like I’ll be without Kawhi another few games, but if he gets his hand worked out and Rubio comes back at 75% the rest of the year, my team will be looking saucy. I’m also more built for next year+ so I’m not too worried if I don’t bring in the crown this season.
Hmmmm, Josh Smith waived… Lead to the Daily Notes tomorrow! It’s hard to be anything but encouraged, especially if he plays 25-30 minutes primarily against second units. Should rack up some great numbers and hopefully get that FG% up a tad. That said, I traded for him mainly for out-of-position assists and steals, which I have bolstered in the blockbuster Aldridge trade. So he’s on the trading block for a bag of chips. And say what you will with him being a fantasy cancer and all, his 9 steals this week helped my tie a cat and win the category the past month sans-Rubio. And I need those when absolute scrubs like Pablo Prigioni get 10 like he did last week… Some of these lines guys going against me get, sheesh!
For the first week, I didn’t lay out a single FAAB bid. I’m full up, yet almost went for the Birdman and thought about the ghost of Vince Carter. I like Seraphin as he’s still kinda young and can have big games (like yesterday) and even though I’m overloaded in dimes, I couldn’t bring myself to drop Udrih. This league is so deep, dropping Udrih is my Brokeback Mountain. “Why can’t I quit you?!”
9. Hoopus Alleyoopus (37-35-0)
FAAB Remaining: $32 FAAB Moves this week: Phil Pressey ($11), Chris Andersen ($8)
Hey, hey, hey! A 6-3 win while 2 men short for most of the week? I’ll take it. Jameer Nelson, Quincy Acy and Carl Landry combined for 48 points while turning the ball over 17 times. Had I not played them at all I still would have won the same categories and would have also won turnovers, which would have made it a 7-2 win. Starting to think I should just play my contributors and leave the scrubs on the bench. I will have to tinker with that.
I was on vacation in Austin, Texas last Sunday and didn’t have a computer to do a recap or write about my recent trade. I received LaMarcus Aldridge ($36) in exchange for Victor Oladipo ($26), Patrick Patterson ($4) and Zach LaVine ($6). Aldridge is the 10th ranked player in our league on a per game basis. That is good. Patterson is 68th, Oladipo 123rd, Lavine 278th. Not as good. The big reason for the low rankings on Oladipo and Lavine is they turn the ball over a lot. Almost as much as they assist. Oladipo is last in the league in AST/TO ratio for guards. He is good and will probably get better, but I doubt that he will ever reach the level of Aldridge. Lavine has an excuse, he was pressed into starting PG duty WAY too early. He didn’t even start for UCLA last year. But as a Wolves fan who has watched a lot of his play, one thing I have noticed is he makes a lot of mistakes and he can’t shoot. I think best case he is a very good 6th man. I hope I am wrong, but you don’t see a lot of starting shooting guards who can’t shoot in the NBA. I obviously liked Oladipo and Lavine more than anyone else at auction time, but I am willing to trade their upside for the certainty Aldridge provides. Aldridge is the 10th ranked player in our league and tied for 23rd for salary. That’s a good value to me. Oladipo hasn’t shown me that much value and that is what it boiled down to.
Can’t wait to read why someone traded Stephen Curry for a bag of balls.
10. SethDaSportsMan (37-35-0)
FAAB Remaining: $29 FAAB Moves this week: Aron Baynes ($14), Jonas Jerebko ($5)
11. The Nature Boy (33-38-1)
FAAB Remaining: $88 FAAB Moves this week: n/a
12. Team Tough Guy Town (31-38-3)
FAAB Remaining: $100 FAAB Moves this week: n/a
13. Ben – RotoGold (32-39-1)
FAAB Remaining: $50 FAAB Moves this week: n/a
14. ChazTop–KevinBottom (30-41-1)
FAAB Remaining: $100 FAAB Moves this week: n/a
15. Pete Nice – Razzball (30-41-1)
FAAB Remaining: $55 FAAB Moves this week: Cole Aldrich ($10)
16. High as Greg Kite (29-42-1)
FAAB Remaining: $30 FAAB Moves this week: n/a
17. Like A Josh – IFBL (28-43-1)
FAAB Remaining: $85 FAAB Moves this week: n/a
18. Cigar Smoking Monkey (28-43-1)
FAAB Remaining: $100 FAAB Moves this week: n/a
19. Mr. Green – Nowhere (24-46-2)
FAAB Remaining: $56 FAAB Moves this week: Kent Bazemore ($0)
I think that went about as well as could be expected. Played the defending champion, who has a playoff caliber team again this year, and came away with a 4-5 loss. Especially considering I was giving up about 15 or 20 games played this week. I’m a little disappointed in my teams REB but other than that, it is what we thought it was.
I’ve still got 2 more tough matchups before I hit the easier part of my schedule, which lasts for the rest of the year other than a couple matchups. I should be healthy(ier) by that point and then I can take this puppy out for a test drive and see what we’ve got.
20. The Struggle is Real (20-52-0)
FAAB Remaining: $100 FAAB Moves this week: n/a
