The semis are here! 20 teams enter, 4 remain, and somehow I bested Slim this year! Although, he did win the title last season, and I am easily an underdog against the 1 seed… In the quarterfinals, I was able to knock off Scurry to the Left in a revenge game from a earlier regular season loss, and Breaking Batum bested Slim. After staying healthy most of the year, Slim got all his injuries late! Total flip flop on the phrase “better late than never”. Good luck to the 4 teams remaining, and here’s how the quarterfinals of the REL playoffs went down in the Razzball Elite League:
Quarterfinals:
6th seed Breaking Batum DEF (7-1-1) 3rd seed Slim – Razzball
Breaking Batum: We won! It was a tough contest against Slim, which is not indicated by the score. Sunday morning, it easily could have been 9-0 either way, with no categories decided. In the end, we won by .002 FG%, 6 threes, 10 rebounds, 2 steals, and tied blocks. Too close.
4th seed JB – Razzball DEF (6-3-0) 5th seed Scurry to the Left
JB: Well, streaky teams are staying streaky (in my case at least), as even with horrific injuries I managed a 6-3 win to advance.
Really the only runaways was REB/BLK for me and FT%/AST for Scurry, with all 5 other stats up for grabs through Sunday. Luckily I swung them all except a loss by 1 steal, but Scurry deserves some mad props for making a 5th seed while owning Durant in such a deep dynasty. Fortunately a healthy monster week from Kawhi is a big factor to my late season run and a playoff win, but it certainly looks bleak this week.
Semi-Finals:
1st seed Barking BassetHounds vs. 4th JB – Razzball
BassetHounds: So the games begin for real now as Barking BassetHounds plays JB’s team in the semis.
Having followed his team come on strong the last few weeks, this matchup scares me. I dunno if this means anything but his team last week would have beaten my week 20 team 5-3-1. Looking at injuries, we both have one important “out-for-the-season” guy (his Ibaka, my Wes Matthews). We both have a couple injured players who “should” be returning this week (my Lowry, his Rubio and Knight). Fortunately for him, he owns Rubios handcuff in Zach LaVine. Looking at playoff schedule, I might have a slight advantage, but it seems to be in secondary players. At any rate, I expect a close 5-4 matchup either way. May the Schwartz be with both of us JB.
And now for a brief editorial. I am assuming Ibaka at $40 is a keeper with JB (as Matthews at $14 is for me), but let us assume for a moment he was $60 and not a keeper. In this case it would be totally his best interests to drop Ibaka for at least a warm body. The only reason why he would not do so is because “The Struggle Is Real” (who seems to be paying attention to these things) would have bid his remaining FAAB and end up with a $1 Ibaka. Should that matter to JB in this hypothetical? Debatable. Would it really muck up the league had he done so. Well d’uh. I really think that dropped players should retain their keeper price at the last auction, but that is me I guess.
Anyway, I do notice in this league there were a number of lesser dropped players that will be $1 bargains for their owners next year, the latest being O.J. Mayo. Since I am a contender this year, I felt I could not play in this market, but one of these years I will decide to take a step back and retool. When I do that, I will make it an objective to pick up 3-4 such players using my FAAB.
JB: Yikes. This probably won’t go so well.
BassetHounds has been a monster all year, particularly in the second half, overtaking Martyball who had a huge first half advantage. Both our squads have pretty good balance, but without Ibaka, Mike Scott, and probably a few more without Knight and Rubio I don’t think I’ll have enough vs. a full team of contributors minus Wes Matthews and maybe one or two DNPs from Kyle Lowry. Fortunately I tend to win REB/BLK most of the time, doing so without Ibaka these past few weeks against pretty good teams. If I can keep the ratios in check, I might have a chance to sneak a 5-4 win.
I was also going for Chase Budinger on the wire, but BassetHounds waiver priority awarded them Mr. strawberry blonde. I let go of Beno Udrih who gave me some nice stats with Conley down to fully secure the Wolves PG minutes nabbing Lorenzo Brown. If Lowry misses a few and Jeff Teague gets a few Hawks DNPs maybe I can push for dimes, but it’s doubtful.
Good luck this week BassetHounds, I have no expectations after thinking I wasn’t even making the playoffs in a best-case scenario 2 months ago.
2nd seed Martyball – IFBL vs. 6th seed Breaking Batum
Breaking Batum: Now we get to face Martyball, who was number 1 most of the year. Over the last 8 weeks (not counting his bye), every hypothetical matchup against him would’ve been 5-4 or 4-5, with each of us winning 4 times. That’s about as close as it gets.
We (not surprisingly) missed out on Bojan in the FAAB pickups. That’s what happens when you spend $33 on Joe Harris(!). We were able to get Caron Butler, who will start 3 times for us, vs only 2 starts from Vince Carter. Hopefully they will have similar production, and every game counts this week.
Thanks again to everyone who played in the REL this year, and good luck in your deep dynasties this week!
