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When I asked Son if I could write for Razzball he said I could on one condition: More. Kings. Content.
Regretfully being the man for the job, I accepted his terms and spent much of the days around the holiday soaking up some of that quality Sacramento basketball product. I also caught a few non-Kings games and took notes, opened some gifts (alpaca socks for our first Wisconsin winter), finished watching The Young Pope (quite good), and then looked through my scribblings for a single shard of wisdom. And while I can’t promise that I found any, I do have some thoughts on this first week of NBA basketball.
I've been running the same fantasy basketball league with roughly the same players for nearly a decade now and a while back we converted it into a keeper league. This past Tuesday we had our fantasy draft. We are like most leagues in that there are a few players nearly always on the top and the rest of the league is a mixture of people who don't care nearly as much or are just novices trying to learn. If you're in a casual league, it probably looks a lot like this.
One important thing to keep in mind is that this is a KEEPER league, and as such 41 of Yahoo!'s top 50 players were kept and unavailable to be drafted. You'll see them pop up in rounds much later, in most scenarios, as they were kept on the cheap. It's a 9-cat H2H league as well with nothing to play for but a trophy we have engraved every season. We added two more teams this season that did not play at all last season and held an expansion draft before the actual draft, and we replaced one manager who decided to focus on his life instead (which is totally okay and encouraged, btw.)
Fantasy projections are hard. We look to others in the industry for guidance without plagiarizing or pilfering, overanalyze quotes from team personnel, and process the preseason (paltry as this one is) like we’re being given tea leaves to read -- when by and large they should be treated like used tea bags and be tossed. Yet, we try to put forth the best information possible -- even if some of it is conjured from the Ether -- because, above all, NONE of us want to hear about it later if we miss poorly.
What's up everybody? I'm aiming this article at those people who are Googling "How to win my fantasy basketball league" or are Bing-ing (make sure the hyphen is in that word!) "Winning a fantasy basketball league." Or maybe, you've played but never really thought about the underpinnings of fantasy sports. Either way, I hope this article gives you a quick run-down of the best ways to play fantasy sports -- including basketball! -- and maybe turn this hobby we have into a lifelong passion.
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.
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