The NBA Bourgeoisie Does Not Include Kyrie
January 22, 2018 | Fantasy Basketball Daily Notes | 48 Commentsby: Son
Being in the middle is.....
Bad for a sports team, as perpetual mediocrity permeates. No chance at the trophy and no possibility to draft a franchise-changing player. Bad if you are a piece of lettuce or meat between two slices of bread. I guess everything in that situation sucks as they all get eaten. Bad if you're an avid surfer that lives in Nebraska. There's good, though. You ain't poor. Malcolm did alright. You'll never be first or last. In the NBA, being a part of the bourgeoisie is great. You're not the worst of the 1% of the ballers on the planet. But, imagine if you are a part of the 1% of the 1%? Kyrie Irving doesn't have to imagine because he's living the dream. Yesterday, he went:
The Celtics lost to the Magic, 103-95. That should've been grounds for automatic disqualification from being the lede, but....a 40-burger is a 40-burger. You drop one of those and you're always going to be a contender. Now, it's felt like Kyrie has been a relatively quiet member of the fantasy elite, as he hasn't been messing around or going nuts on a nightly basis. He's the 14th player for fantasy and his numbers are almost identical to last year. Imagine if he was on a shitty team that didn't play any defense?
Here's what else I saw yesterday:
| PTS | REB | AST | STL | BLK | TOV | 3PT | FG | FT |
| 40 | 7 | 5 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 5/7 | 14/23 | 7/8 |
Check it out! That weird, slippery ball they used briefly!
Okay, so the 'Cats never really went anywhere, though Morrison did have some fun 3-point shooting streaks. I still love the snubbed and rightful 2012 Las Vegas NBA Summer League MVP and two-time NBA Champ (true). And, I still wear my Bobcats hat proudly (also true). Why am I going on and on about a player who only played in 161 career games and was out of the NBA four years after he was drafted? Because, he's the theme of today's strategy: The 'Stache! I guess it's The Stash, but at least I got to talk about Adam Morrison and Victor Khryapa.
This is a good time to stock up on and stash the players that might take off toward the end of the season and lead you to a championship. 
When watching Kyle Kuzma play basketball, all I can think about is the Notorious B.I.G. One of my favorite songs is Juicy.
Many in the NBA thought Kuzma wouldn't amount to nothin'. Now he's in the limelight 'cause his hoops game is tight. Now honies play him close like butter played toast. Ha! What a line. Biggie Smalls was the illest. Anyways, Kuzma went from negative to positive and it all started when he was drafted 27th overall in the NBA Draft. The Summer League followed, where he dominated and led the Lakers to hoisting the trophy. Then the regular season started. He scored double figures in five of his first seven NBA games. It was on, baby bay-bee. In fact, there's only been one other game in which he failed to score double digits. What's even more remarkable is that he's played 27 games, yet only started 11. Kuuuuuuuuuuuz! It all came to a culmination last night against the Rockets.
In my younger days, I used to run with a pretty deep crew. Most of them were older and more experienced than me. Most were better looking and had more charisma then me. Emphasis on most. Not being the man was just fine. You'd be surprised at how many layups you'd get by just being. All of this happened on the basketball court as well. Anyways, with so much attention on the alphas, dudes like me would be afforded all sorts of opportunities to score. At some point, the stars would align and everything would come to a climax. Whether it be on the court or at the club, there's always that moment. Last night, Clint Capela had his moment.
I try not to use the same player twice as the lede for this post. You'd think with over 300 players in the NBA, that wouldn't be a problem. Unfortunately, teams do not play every day and most of the players are not worthy. Sure, I could write up Nik Stauskas and how he didn't score, rebound, assist, steal, or block in eight minutes of run. I could go into detail how he turned the ball over twice and picked up a personal foul, but even Momma Stauskas would be like, "I had to pause the curling match for this crap?" So, as much as I try not to use the same player for the lede, sometimes a performance is just too good. Last Wednesday, Devin Booker was 
In the Batman movies, Commissioner Gordon is portrayed as a subservient, damsel in distress character. "Oh no! There's trouble in Gotham. Let me run up to the rooftop to signal the Batman so that he can take care of everything." I kid. Commissioner Gordon was old and needed the youth, strength, and resources that Batman could provide. But, before he became a useless POS, Jim Gordon served in the US Marine Corps and was a Special Forces veteran who could kick some serious ass. That's where we are at with Aaron Gordon of the Orlando Magic. He's only 22 years old and 6' 9" 220 pounds. He can dribble, shoot, rebound, block, pass, jump like a flea, and run like a gazelle. He's basically the new and improved version of Blake Griffin. Sad to see the Matrix slowly phasing out Blake for Aaron. Anyways, last night the NBA's Commissioner Gordon put up the first 40-burger of his career:
The Chosen One showed up last night in Washington to restore balance to The Force (The NBA). LeBron is still awaiting the return of his Padawan, Isaiah Thomas, and he made the Wizards look like Younglings in that scene where Anakin massacres all the Younglings. Yeah, I watched some Episode III earlier in the week…Anyway, last night I caught a bit of the NBA action and this is what I saw: 
Copyright 2017 NBAE (Photo by Joe Murphy/NBAE via Getty Images)[/caption]
Last week, I talked about ways to find advantages by removing certain stats your team doesn't need for various reasons and shuffling up player values so you have a better idea of who's actually the most helpful for your team during drafts. That'll be a theme as the season goes on, because it really leads us to trades that can help us a ton, while helping the other team enough that they pull the trigger. But we've got another weekend of drafting to go, so I've compiled a list of a few more places to take advantage of what I see as market inequities. If you've already drafted, maybe this can spark some trade proposal ideas, too. 
After Worm gets them beat up with all their cash stolen for having been caught cheating, the gloves come off in an overdue shouting match between the old friends.
Mike McDermott: What the F*** were you thinking?
Worm: I was trying to give us an edge... ...I don't think like that.
Mike McD: No, you don't THINK!
Worm: No, I don't think like YOU! You always think you can beat the game straight up. That's not me. I told you, I'm always gonna look for that edge. Always.
As much as Mike is the better role model, if you're picking from the two gambling addicts, in fantasy basketball you want to be like Worm. Even if you tried, you can't cheat in most leagues, but you want to be the one thinking differently, finding your edge. Last week, I mentioned ways to make your league more engaging. From here on out, I'll give you ways to get an edge in your league by using the numbers to your advantage. These next two weeks leading up to the season, we'll talk drafting. 
Hi, my name is Tad, and I'm a new writer here. I'm a bball geek and a statistical nerd. My goal is to provide you with as many advantages as possible so that you can win your league(s) and love fantasy basketball more than ever, even if you don't. I'm going to run the numbers for you and show you where you can get an edge in drafts, trades, and acquisitions. Let's start with a relatively simple example. Using last year's ESPN 8-Category Player Rater data, adjusted for a free throw punt team, you might only be mildly surprised to learn that LeBron James was the 2nd most valuable player on a per game basis. But, can you believe that, per game, Dwight Howard would have been more valuable to your team than Isaiah Thomas or Kyrie Irving? And, you probably could've gotten LeBron and Dwight for Isaiah at just about any point last season once Mr. Irrelevant took it to MVP-candidate levels. Hopefully, I'll also inspire you to run some numbers of your own so that you can customize player values to your specific leagues and teams. But this week, as the season draws near, I first want to get you and your league more excited and invested than you've been in a while.