Week 15 has concluded in our Razzball Elite league, and with another winning week, The Nature Boy has retaken sole possession of first place. Unfortunately for teams on the outside looking in (and by outside, I’m further outside than Hawaii is from the Continental US) the rich got richer and poor got poorer. Despite a tough win for my squad against a playoff team, only one other team in the bottom half of the league mustered more than 3 points. This league has no middle class! I blame Heathcare.Mozgov. A lot of teams were able to weigh in this week as we are only 5 weeks out from whittling 20 to the playoff 6:
1. The Nature Boy (89-43-3)
FAAB Remaining: $70 FAAB Moves this week: n/a
2. Kap’s Team (89-45-1)
FAAB Remaining: $81 FAAB Moves this week: n/a
I was able to sneak out a 5-4 victory over Cigar Smoking Monkey to keep my winning streak alive at 14 weeks. However, week 15 marked the first week that I had to deal with a lot of injuries. I missed four games from Pau Gasol; two games from Nick Young, Kevin Love, and Tyreke Evans; and one game from Derrick Favors, Marco Belinelli, and Boris Diaw. In total I missed 13 games, with most of them coming from my best players. Had I been a little healthier, I would have caught the Smoking Monkeys in rebounds and remained in first place. I have another week against a top 10 opponent so hopefully my players can get better during the All-Star break.
3. Like A Josh – IFBL (88-45-2)
FAAB Remaining: $61 FAAB Moves this week: n/a
4. Barking BassetHounds (84-48-3)
FAAB Remaining: $20 FAAB Moves this week: n/a
Fifteen weeks into the season and I have a good sense of the strengths and weaknesses of my team. It all started at draft time.
For strengths I have an incredibly deep team of 15 players out of 17 roster spots (counting Enes Kanter and Gerald Wallace as half a player for now). This is because I intentionally avoided players at draft time that cost more than $25.
Consequently, except for the one week we were decimated by injuries, Barking BassetHounds has won at least four of the six positive counting stats. The downside of this has been that we have consistently lost turnovers. I have stated in this space my objections in principle to any counting category where less is better.
The big negative of my team is that it is absolutely atrocious in the ratios. Thus my team is very beatable if the opposing team sweeps the two ratios, nabs turnovers, and takes two of the six positive counting categories. That was the case last week as Barking BassetHounds lost a close 5-4 decision to JB. The good news at least in a dynasty league is that I can fix this next year by not renewing the players who are hurting me the most in the ratios (looking at you Josh Smith) and going in another direction.
5. Breaking Batum (83-52-0)
FAAB Remaining: $82 FAAB Moves this week: n/a
6. Cigar Smoking Monkey (83-52-0)
FAAB Remaining: $2 FAAB Moves this week: Alonzo Gee ($4)
Busy week for the Monkey!
Traded Tobias Harris and Marcus Morris for Duncan and Jeremy Evans and a few days later D. DeRozan/J. Crowder for J.Harden/E. Davis.
With Big V (Vucevic) back and Big baby looking over the shoulders of everyone.. I thought why not give up Harris.. I do get some risk with Timmy but as of late he’s looked young and elite and something tells me he’s making up for last seasons mistake(s) kinda going all out… Probably wants to win one more so he can retire on top. Morris has played well but not consistent… Same boat as J.Evans so all is good there.
I’m currently tied at 5th overall… Top teams have great balance so I needed to make a little sacrifice so I took off Demar’s head – D. DeRozan/J. Crowder for J.Harden/E. Davis. Why not? Harden should help me in my playoff push, help me in some cats that DeR hurts me in, while still giving me 20+points. Crow/Davis is pretty spot on and
Harden is already on the block.. looking for a elite big. I don’t care about contracts, I’m in the now, anyone can go but Davis.
This week my matchup is Kap’s Team… arguably the best team in the league at the moment. 4-5 but hopefully with the new additions I can start winning some % stats this week.
7. Slim – Razzball (77-55-3)
FAAB Remaining: $5 FAAB Moves this week: n/a
Top to bottom I can find faults up and down my roster but top to bottom everyone is productive and this week it stood out more than most. The bottom of my lineup was led by Cory Joseph and his 8 steals this past week which were tops on my squad. Steven Adams gave me 5 blocks, good for 2nd best. Ryan Kelly and his 6 3s were also good for 2nd best. No surprise the team is on quite a role if that’s the bottom. So in my usual fashion I throw another wrench into the well oiled machine. Tim Duncan was weighing down my FT% and I couldn’t afford to lose the category, I needed to let him go. I also gave up Jeremy Evans and I don’t want to talk about that so we’re going to move on. In whatever I would get back I knew I couldn’t lose too many boards, I wanted to add some block potential and further strengthen 3s and FTs. I knew I had to give up some blocks, I’m hoping Sanders and Hibbert plus helpers can be enough. We’re about to find out, hopefully Sanders new injury is minor. I don’t know if I’m a legit threat to win it all or if I’ll even make the playoffs so the guy I get back needs to be a keeper. Tobias Harris is expensive at $27, on a new fantasy team, and gives me plenty of upside this year and in the future at only 21 years old. He gives me more games then Duncan when I need it the most and since I’m ignoring FG% already there’s a chance he could even outperform Duncan in my most critical times of need. I also added Marcus Morris in the trade in an attempt to further shore up my 3s, points, and steals. It cost me Jeremy Evans but like I said I don’t want to talk about it. Losing Duncan is going to hurt but even with a 7-2 win this past week I lost ground again and moved to 4.5 back of the 6th place team with only 5 weeks left to play. It also deserves to be mentioned that the 8th place team is hot on my tail at only 3 games behind me. Anything can happen in this short schedule week so it’s a big one. Luckily I get a team decimated by injuries and I shouldn’t have too much trouble. The match-up of the week though goes to Kap’s Team vs Breaking Batum. 2nd place vs 6th place. However this turns out should benefit me. Best case scenario of course would be a blowout in either direction.
8. Scurry to the Left (75-59-1)
FAAB Remaining: $76 FAAB Moves this week: n/a
9. Martyball – IFBL (72-62-1)
FAAB Remaining: $62 FAAB Moves this week: Jermaine O’Neal ($9), Gustavo Ayon ($5)
10. Hoopus Alleyoopus (70-63-2)
FAAB Remaining: $53 FAAB Moves this week: Greg Stiemsma ($2)
Just when I think I’m out, they pull me back in! Ok, probably not realistically, but I picked up a nice 8-1 win over Prime Minister Pete Nice with a razor thin .724-.723 win in FT%. My guys went 16-18 from the charity stripe on Sunday night to eke out the category. It almost makes up for the 8-1 curbing I got from JB last week, but .500 isn’t gonna get the job done (Big Daddy Kane I am not). This leaves me in 10th place, the best of the lousiest, the lousiest of the best. 12 games back of the 6th and final playoff spot with 5 weeks to play. Another 8-1 win this week and I might just make this interesting.
11. JB Gilpin – Razzball (68-66-1)
FAAB Remaining: $1 FAAB Moves this week: n/a
Well another win, but as I egomaniacly mentioned in the open, a 5-4 win against a playoff team does nothing for me from the past week to this week with all the bottom teams losing badly. Except give my squad confidence! Big bursts of assists last week was the only close category as I greatly benefited from Sergeant Alopecia Mr. Calathes and former Dutchess of Milwaukee K Middleton. A month ago I would be lucky to get 10 dimes from the pair of them, got 33 this week.
So I’m still floating in the cloud of ether of whether or not I should completely tank or what. I have a great schedule to end the year including 2 matchups against the bottom 3 teams and could be a dark horse on a late run. Or a late run with a dark horse. Or something like that… Despite my best efforts of moving Felton, I really don’t want to move too many other pieces. If I can draft well next year, I should be playoff bound with my core. If anyone needs some PG depth with Felton and Bayless and some wings, lemme know. Mmmmm wings. I’ll throw in a side of blue cheese. And a brewsky.
12. Doug – tdbsports.com (64-70-1)
FAAB Remaining: $78 FAAB Moves this week: n/a
13. Ben – RotoGold (60-73-2)
FAAB Remaining: $98 FAAB Moves this week: n/a
14. Pete Nice – Razzball (58-75-2)
FAAB Remaining: $10 FAAB Moves this week: n/a
15. I’m a Currian (56-76-3)
FAAB Remaining: $58 FAAB Moves this week: Gorgui Dieng ($1)
16. Mr Green – Nowhere (52-81-2)
FAAB Remaining: $24 FAAB Moves this week: Luke Babbitt ($1), Nando De Colo ($1)
So not much new this week. My team couldn’t quite keep the momentum going to come up with another win. Some guys once again got shafted in their teams rotations, but, Arnett Moutrie finally came back from injury (and his odd D-League demotion) to make an appearance. Also, Manny Harris didn’t get his 10 day contract picked up for the rest of the season. I guess his 18/9 line on his final day wasn’t enough for the Lakers. The day after he was let go half the Lakers roster got (re-)injured, so maybe they’ll come a calling again. The fact they’d have to sign him for the rest of the season kind of narrows those odds though I think.
I feel like there’s something I’m forgetting though, hmmm. Oh yeah, I traded the third highest paid player in the league. I guess we should probably talk about that.
If you exclude the salaries involved in the deal then its a horrible sell low / buy high sort of deal on my part. Its fair to say that giving away Harden/E.Davis for DeRozan/Crowder can hardly be called a good trade on its own. When you take into account the salaries though, I think I did pretty well in this deal. As I said, Harden has the third highest salary in the league at $74 and Ed Davis was a disappointment this year and wasn’t going to be kept at $5. Crowder has some upside, and at some point he may get a chance to play with only the 90 year old Marion ahead of him in Dallas. Demar DeRozan at $20 is certainly a fair price for a player of his caliber, and if he can continue to grow as a player, and to be clear I think he can, then he will be a bargain. As it is even now, the distance between a Rudy Gay free DeRozan and a Dwight Howard shackled James Harden is not all that large. That Rockets team isn’t the same one that Harden did everything for last season. He simply just isn’t going to be as involved in every detail like he was pre-Howard. That said, the last piece of the deal, and perhaps most important is the $54 extra that it gives me going into the draft next year. Which is on top of the money that I would’ve already had available. I could be wrong, but that alone could be more cash than many teams have going into the draft next season. For a cellar dwelling team that’s clearly in need of multiple infusions of talent that could be huge.
17. Nashed Potatoes (44-90-1)
FAAB Remaining: $91 FAAB Moves this week: n/a
18. ChazTop-KevinBottom (43-91-1)
FAAB Remaining: $73 FAAB Moves this week: Carlos Delfino ($1), Jason Smith ($1)
19. Team Tough Guy Town (41-92-2)
FAAB Remaining: $89 FAAB Moves this week: n/a
20. Kinsey’s Team (37-95-3)
FAAB Remaining: $100 FAAB Moves this week: n/a
Remember REL teams, if you are in the league and want your recap in the post, hit me up any time before Tuesday morning. Good luck in week 16!
