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There are a lot of differences between Jimmy Butler and myself. I, for example, am not a five time NBA All-Star. I’ve also never been named the Most Improved Player, won a gold medal, or screamed at Karl-Anthony Towns with such vigor that I had to be sent to Philadelphia. But perhaps the biggest wedge between Jimmy and myself is our feelings toward rear-view mirrors.
See, I’m a look back kind of guy. There’s wisdom (and cars!) back there if you care to investigate. This willingness to wallow, to ruminate, to linger and consider all the roads not traveled means that I signed myself up to do the tedious work of taking long, wistful gazes at how this first ever RazzJam went down and try to glean something useful from it. Son, our fearless leader and fellow RazzJam League 14 draftee, is here to keep an eye on my blind spots. You strike me as a reasonable guy, Son, you’re pro-mirror, right?
For most of the offseason, I've been drafting over at the NFBKC, which are 8-cat, roto format drafts. So, being at one with the universe and maintaining balance is key. Punting is not a viable strategy. Yesterday, I participated in my first Yahoo draft, which was 16 teams deep, head-to-head format, and 9 categories. I ended up punting assists, which I didn't plan to, but I was happy with how it turned out. Here's the play by play:
The only constant in life is change. In the NBA it seems like no place changes as often or as unsuccessfully as Sacramento, where tearing it down and starting over isn’t a one-off project but an organizational credo. A shuffle took place upstairs over the summer and now the Sacramento worm has begun to turn once more. The Kings aren’t taking it down to the studs this time around, though another regime shift ensures that there will be some moving pieces in California’s capitol and, hopefully, some growth.
Another fantasy basketball season is upon us! Can you believe NBA games will be played exactly one month from the writing of this article?
Free agency has been just about as wild as one can expect after the extended layover, and the rookie class has found their homes. Meanwhile, fantasy basketball players are scrambling to find reliable player rankings and doing mock drafts to hone their strategies.
One thing that can really help you as you start your quest for fantasy dominance is to think long and hard about statistical scarcity. This is a pretty easy concept that means when there is less supply of a statistic, its value increases. In fantasy basketball terms, you can think of it as "blocks are more valuable than points because there are fewer players who block the basketball at a high rate".
So which statistical categories are the most scarce, and therefore valuable? Answering this question can help you determine which players you want to target. I've taken a look at the top 200 players in 9-category rankings and used the statistical projections from Rotowire to get a decent idea.
So you want to start a keeper league? Whether you want to convert your redraft league into a keeper league, or start one from scratch, it's a logical evolution if you've been playing the game for any reasonable amount of time. I've been the commissioner of the same fantasy basketball league with some of my closest friends for about a decade now. Three seasons ago we decided to take the plunge and make it a keeper league. I've loved every minute of it.
What follows is a step-by-step guide to starting a keeper league or converting your redraft league into a keeper league. I'll cover the basics and some very important things I learned along the way. It took a lot of research between myself and my co-comissioner to assemble this information. Even then, we learned some things from season one to now that will be important for you to keep in mind.
As a responsible fantasy basketball league commissioner, I was appalled that it took so long to find this info. I was surprised a comprehensive guide didn't already exist. I hope I can save you all the time I wasted.
By any objective measure, the Milwaukee Bucks are a historic team. They have the best record in the league at 41-6, they have the reigning MVP in Giannis Antetokounmpo, and they’re on pace to win 71 games. The Bucks rank first in Defensive Rating and second in Offensive Rating, behind a historic Dallas Mavericks offense. They would pass any old school eye test—they score in the paint (3rd in the league in points in the paint), get to the free-throw line often, and prevent teams from getting to the basket by walling off the paint with a conga-line of seven-footers (1st in the league in opponent points in the paint). At the same time, Daryl Morey would have few complaints with their offense. They are first in the league in fast break points at 18.8 a game, they take the fifth most threes a game at 38.5, and they attempt the fifth most free-throws a game at 24.7. They give up only the least desirable three-pointers and there is a full season’s worth of data validating this unique defensive strategy—they were first in the league in Defensive Rating last year.
The only thing the Bucks are incapable of doing is drawing the interest of the average fan. The Bucks are so dominant in such a specific, ruthlessly efficient way, as to make the outcome perfunctory, eliminating most if not all intrigue.....
There was plenty of basketball to watch on Christmas Day, 13 hours worth to be exact. What figured to be a disappointing slate of easily predictable outcomes turned out to be a surprisingly fun, upset-filled NBA gift. A Golden State Warriors team full of two-way and minimum contract players managed to beat James Harden, Russell Westbrook, and the rest of the Houston Rockets. Joel Embiid played grinch for Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Milwaukee Bucks, leading to fans firing up all of the familiar "Bucks are a regular season team" takes. The solid, wing-heavy Boston Celtics comfortably beat an injury ravaged Raptors team and a newly rejuvenated New Orleans Pelicans squad pulled out a victory against the Denver Nuggets. And in the most anticipated game of the day, Kawhi Leonard and the Los Angeles Clippers outlasted and outshot LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers. I enjoyed myself.
I viewed the Christmas day outcomes as a reminder of all there is to love about the NBA. Star-players duking it out for legacy supremacy and short-lived bragging rights. Yes, the regular season isn't the most accurate prediction of playoff success, but it is still entertaining and compelling nonetheless. Wednesday's games continued to reinforce my belief that, if you're truly interested in the NBA, there is more than enough nightly entertainment to satisfy your intrigue.
It took 171 games, over two seasons, and 5800 minutes played, but Ben Simmons finally did it. He drained his first tres.
I know you have doubts, but tape don't lie....
The fact that I'm making Simmons the lede for making a tres is sad, but what's worse is that it took him 171 games, two seasons, and 5800 minutes! Now, let's not forget that on this historic and momentous night, Simmons actually played a great overall game:
PTS REB AST STL BLK TOV 3PT FG FT
18 7 13 1 1 1 1/1 7/9 3/4
In a whopping 42 minutes! Yes, it was against the Knicks but whatever. Production is production. Beep. Boop. Bop. You know what always provides the production? The Stocktonator. For fantasy, Simmons is such an interesting player because he leads you down the punt one, punt two, punt three category strategy (tres, ft%, and turnovers). But, but, but....he has nightly "mess around" potential and will get his block and steal on. On the season, he's a top 40 player despite his shortcomings.
Here's what else I saw last night:
Assists are one of the more scarce resources in fantasy basketball. According to my projections, there are only 30 players dishing out more than five dimes per game. Three other players are at 4.8 or higher, so if you want to expand the list to 33, by all means. Now, seven of those players are within the top 10, 21 are located in the 11-100 range, and two are outside the top 100. So, much of your drafting strategy will depend on how you approach the assists category. Some choose to punt, others pay up, while the rest go William Wallace and hoooooooooooooooolllllldddd. If you go the William Wallace route, Jeff Teague and Ricky Rubio should be your targets because, after those two are off the board, the pickings get slim.
My beloved Wolves finished 36-46 last year, nowhere near what it took to get into the playoffs in the stacked Western Conference. Towns did his best and did what Towns does, but it wasn't nearly enough. This was largely due to the fact that Andrew Wiggins remained Andrew Wiggins, and Jimmy was shipped out of town. Teague being hurt for half the season didn't help either.
The Wolves return this year not having made any real noise in the offseason. They did draft Jarrett Culver, so that's something. Wiggins promised that he'd play more defense and work on his threes, while Towns should take yet another step forward. The stacked Western Conference just got a lot more stacked, so even with a healthy Teague and a bright young prospect, the Wolves will once again be golfing somewhere nice while the NBA playoffs are going on.
I thought I'd send out a reminder for those of you in keeper leagues. This probably applies more to roto players than head-to-headers, since those in roto leagues aren't scraping and clawing for every last game they can get with their limited moves. I'm talking about stashing some of next year's potential breakouts. Yeah, just about everyone worth taking next year is on a roster already... just about. In my keeper league, I once grabbed this Draymond Green character in the last few weeks of the season, since he'd been on a hot streak. He ended up finishing as a top-30 player the following season. Nearly the exact same story for C.J. McCollum the next year. And if I'd have been on my game at the end of last season, I'd have grabbed Cedi Osman, preventing me from having to waste an early draft pick on him this season (we keep a lot of players). There's a ton of unknown between now and next October's fantasy drafts (gloriously entertaining unknown, by the way), but we can make some educated guesses at this point. Do you have some players you know you're not keeping next season that also aren't making a difference on your team? Replace 'em with lottery tickets, and maybe one or two will pay off. They could at least give you some extra trade value.Some keeper and dynasty leagues don't have a trade deadline, so I'll be including some players here that might be near-universally owned in addition to those who have a good shot at being free agents in your league. Speaking of free agents, that's how we're going to unearth some of our targets. The other aspect I'll look at are rookies and second-year players that could be in line for a bump in playing time and usage. And there will be some nice overlap in who we find from each strategy, I'm sure.
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