Ha! We beat the NBA in handing out awards. This way, if any of our awards coincide with the Association’s awards, I’ll be able to claim the league as a loyal Razzball reader when I solicit companies to advertise on the site. Yes, I know the voting for those awards ended weeks ago, but did you know that the voting for these awards ended weeks ago? Exactly. How would the NBA have known about the awards weeks ago if they were only just published today? Advanced screeners, man. How do you think two animated bug movies or two Prefontaine movies or two Truman Capote movies all released within months of one another? One movie put a lot of heart and soul and research into their production and the other rushed it, released it first and hoped for the best. Not that that’s what we did. Anyway, here’s hoping for the best. Let me know down in the comments if you think I missed anything. I know you will. You’re good like that.
Here are your 2010 Fantasy Basketball Year-Ends Awards:
Most Valuable Player – This is the part where I feel I ought to be fancy – throw out Win Share Per 48 stats at ya or something, but then you’d call me haughty and one of you jerks would accuse me of drinking raspberry tea or reading David Foster Wallace novels. Skip it. Fancy stats would give us all the same answer our common sense would. Obviously fantasy titans like LeBron or Durant are the most valuable, but you also drafted them first or second or third. There are only two guys in the league that you waited until the second, third, maybe fourth round to draft and could have picked up with the fourth pick and been justified to do so, Derrick Rose and Kevin Love. They’ll both crack the top 10 in fantasy next season. For the record, I’m giving it to Rose because he played the final two weeks of the season, assists are more valuable than rebounds, because 0.6 bpg from a PF is underwhelming, but miraculous from a PG.
Least Valuable Player – I had Brandon Roy ranked several rounds lower than the majority of fantasy sites, and I still wasn’t low enough. Not only did he see his star fall this season along with his mpgs (by 10), but the perennially injured guard managed to play only 47 games with absolutely no guarantee of every being healthy again. One of the sadder stories of the season, one of the most harmful picks of 2010.
Most Improved Player – Considering you didn’t have Dorell Wright on your top 70 rankings and by Week 3 were offering your no. 6 pick and a hot wax to the guy that picked him out of the free agent pool before you, this award just seems apt.
Most Constantly Rotated On Your League’s Waivers – At some point this season, your team had point guard problems. Don’t shake your head no at me, it did. You know it did. I know it did. You know how I know? Because of the time I spent fielding questions from commentators about Baron‘s health,Wall’s health, Harris’ health, Rondo’s health, Paul’s health, Deron’s health; fielding questions of how real Augustin or Lowry or Ridnour or Conley is. Unless you owned Derrick Rose, or maybe Tony Parker, you had questions this season. Point guards in fantasy basketball this year were like closers in baseball. A few stalwarts and a lot of flip-flop. None moreso than Toronto’s Jose Calderon. In one season, Joe Kettle found himself in a time share with Jarrett Jack, then injured, then in a timeshare with the guy they got from New Orleans when the got rid of Jack in hopes of clarifying Calderon’s role, Jerryd Bayless. Then Calderon was hurt again. Then he was sorta hurt, but also sorta throwing in the towel on the season. All of which, sorta drove me crazy.
Lifetime Achievement For Being Constantly Rotated On Your League’s Waivers – Shane Battier shot .688 from the line this season and couldn’t muster more than 7.6 points a game, which coaxes the same reaction from fantasy hoopsters as lemon juice on a baby’s tongue. But this hasn’t always been the case for Batch-yay and you know it. He might be done as a fantasy option, but he’s not forgotten … until this sentence ends.
Player You Should Have Dropped Sooner – It’s gotta be Troy Murphy I owe him this after he refused to return my email about his outlook back in October. Why no head’s up detailing how angry he was planning to make Avery Johnson, which would led to almost no playing time in Jersey, a trade to Golden State, a release and eventual free agent pick-up by the Celtics where he would be too out-of-shape to make any impact? Had I received that e-mail, I wouldn’t have ranked him in the top 50 (right next to Kevin Love, bee-tee-dubya). Everyone was holding this guy through February. Waiting. Hoping. Woof.
Player You Should Have Held Longer – Ty Lawson, but I ain’t mad at you for dropping him when you did. His situation could have ended like Murphy’s. It didn’t, and he’s a big keeper pick for next season, but you didn’t know that when you dropped him.
Most Surprising Player That You Rostered For Most of the Season – Tyson Chandler. If you told me in October that Chandler would average 13.5/10, with 1 bpg as a starter in December, and end with 10/9.5, with the best PER of his career, I would have asked which Euro team he’d been traded to. Then you would have chuckled at my wit, offered me a Montieri cookie on a plate lined with an ornamental doily and finished discussing the Rococo period that ushered in the King Louis XVI era.
Player That Turned It On After The All-Star Break And Probably Won You The League – Marcus Thornton. *sigh* Okay, Western Conference, let’s try it again. Marcus Thornton is a killer in this league. Stop burying him on your bench. Stop overthinking his use, wind up dude’s confidence at let him go. You hear that Kings? Marcus Thornton has spent his first two Novembers in Benchtown and his first two Marches in Shooterville. He likes it in Shooterville. He bought a pet and that pet likes it in Shooterville. He hired a landscaper for his house. Let him live! Let him live!
Player You Traded Away Just In Time – Mike Miller. Let’s face it, if you were able to trade him away at all for anyone, it was just in time.
Player You Traded Away And Immediately Regretted – Al Jefferson. He averaged 17/9.5/1.5 and shot .484 before the All-Star Break. Certainly not a bad line, but you took him somewhere around the 20th overall pick and he was getting hammered by Love or Z-Bo or West and it angered you. So you ditched him and he ended the year 21.5/11/2.5. A trade in one of my leagues consisted of Jefferson for Felton straight-up. So that’s funny.
Player You Can’t Believe Seemed Like a Good Idea on Draft Day – Marcus Camby. He seemed like a good idea to almost everyone but me, anyway. Answer me honestly, is there any other player in these playoffs that look more frail and breakable? Camby grabbed 18 boards on Saturday and every time he jumped up to grab the rock, I cringed. I could preemptively hear the snap of an ankle bone or the contusion of … anything, really. I caught hell in the preseason for being down on Camby. In 15 seasons, he’s only missed fewer than 10 games twice. Last season happened to be one, and many people felt he was in the clear. But there is no “clear” with Camby. And in the mere 59 games in which he was a participant, he socred a career-low 4.7 points and grabbed a six-season-low 10.1 boards. Fair warning, I’m not hearing pro-Camby rhetoric next season. Not at all.
Keeper Who Most Stands To Benefit From Joining a New Team in 2011 – Raymond Felton. With the Knicks: 17/3.5/9, with nearly 2 spg. With the Nuggs: 11.5/3.5/6.5, with 1.5 spg. You have to figure the Nuggets rid themselves of the “Tymond Lawton” situation they created for themselves in the second half of last season and since Lawson understands the team better and started for Denver, my guess is Felton either returns to New York next season or takes over for Chris Paul in New Orleans.
The Good Player You’ll Most Likely Avoid Next Draft Day – We both know you’re not touching Mo Williams next year. He might remain in L.A., he might not. It won’t matter. He averaged 15/5.5, with a pair of treys a game with the Clippers as a super-solid third of fourth option. That won’t matter either. NoMo cooled down in your mind. Half of you still think of him as an injured Cav, or will be bothered by the fact he’s a supporting guy for Griffin and Gordon, or the 24 games he missed this season, or just the fact that it’s going to take several playoff appearances before people think of the Clippers as a decent team (think: the 2006 Hawks). Anyway, you’re not touchin’ him.
The Bad Player You Most Likely Won’t Avoid – Hedo Turkoglu averaged 11/4.5/4, and generally saw his averages dip almost across the board. Yet, when fantasy owners look at the Magic, they’re going to see him as the biggest name after Howard and maybe Richardson. And suddenly, a guy not likely to improve much on this season’s averages will find himself in the top 100 again. Don’t be one of thee people.
