Asleep at the wheel
Nearly every site has a sleeper list. Some of the better ones I have seen are GMTR and Razzball’s collection of posts (and there are more here and here). However I feel I need my 2 cents on everything so I’ll proceed via TIERS! Everywhere I look I see them dominating fantasy sites. In that spirit I will tier my sleepers.
Sleep walkers: Those players who aren’t really sleepers because EVERYONE KNOWS ABOUT THEM. This category is led by two players Linas Kleiza and Roy Hibbert. Kleiza is light sleeping because he found himself on a roster which has been gutted by the departure of one player (I don’t know how this even happens, but it did!) and somehow being the only player with the ability to rebound at the required rate for his position. He will score points, hit threes, rebound and generally be a good influence on someone else’s team, because they will have reached on him. Roy Hibbert on the other hand is set to explode all over the state of Indiana. The Georgetown alum is going to generate a lot of headlines this season. He has issues with fouls but hopefully he sorts that stuff out. He will probably be gone by the time you think about drafting him as well, but if you are SUPER keen, jump on him early as a reliable backup big man who could just go insane. The third player who should be here just because he is a rookie is DeMarcus Cousins. But as Tippy at FantasyBasketballDaily recently said, “If you had any thoughts of grabbing DeMarcus Cousins cheap in your draft, please wake up, that dream just ended.” in reference to Samuel Dalembert’s injury concerns. He’ll only need a short period to stamp his dominance on the game and become an established starter.
Light sleepers: Let’s get a bit more adventurous. D.J Augustin used to be everyone’s favorite ‘up and comer’ before it turned out he wasn’t any good and couldn’t even beat out Raymond Felton for the starting PG gig. Now he has that opportunity but all I can see is disappointed owners who end up cursing their 11th round draft pick. Mike Miller is in a totally different boat. He actually once player pretty good. He can also shoot the lights out, which makes it kinda strange he didn’t shoot the ball in Washington. You would’ve thought NBA players like to do that sort of thing. Oh well. There is where the definition of a sleeper becomes hazy. I think he qualifies because he is going to be AMAZING and lead the league in threes but for some reason still languishes way down on draft boards. Greg Monroe is not posed for such a feat. But he will be starting for the Pistons in the not too distant future as his potential shines through. People are aware of this guy and will take fliers in the very late rounds but you should get in first as a stash and wait player to really pay dividends in the 2nd half of the season. Don’t leave quality like this in the free agent pool if you have bench spots. Lastly for my light sleepers (although there are a whole bunch of other players who could qualify here) is Kelenna Azubuike. Enough people know about him to realise that he is injured at the moment and there is a bit of a congestion at the shooting guard spot in New York. However…. he could be so ridiculously awesome this season for a late round pick that you need to consider him.
The beard. Plain and simple...
Deep sleepers: The only thing you need to know about James Harden is that when you search his name in goggle, the first result to come up is ‘james harden bust’. That means that nearly everyone thinks he is a bust, resulting in his low average draft position. This year should not only see the sophomore surge for Harden, but also he will eventually either start or get enough minutes to be considered the teams 6th man. This means more threes, more steals and more points. Also, more beard.
Michael Beasley does not have the biggest fan club in the NBA. In fact I don’t think I know anyone who actively likes him. Poor attitude, drugs, extremely high expectations – they’ll all ruin a career, especially one so young. So I think it’s for the best that he has a new start somewhere out of the way. Lucky he got traded to Minnesota then. All Beasley needs is 32 minutes a night to highlight his potential. He could be a 1-1-1 threat combined with the ability to be a number one option on a poor team. This alone should ensure that he is drafted. Kyle Korver might not start but he’ll play 25+ minutes and he’ll have a great point guard giving him the rock. What more could you ask for? Well, I can think of a few things but this will do. Shooting Guards who don’t do much don’t make great sleepers but someone has to carry that offense while Boozer is out and he could have a really good start to the season.
In A Coma: Have you heard Brad Miller’s name mentioned once this off-season (excluding any article by Trey Kerby)?. The dude must have signed hi contract in Houston and decided to live underground for the past three months. Let it be known. Miller is the primary back up center to the man who did not play one single game last season. A man who is only allowed to play 24 minutes per game and perhaps not at all on back-to-backs. A man who can fall over in a stiff breeze. Brad Miller is your man in this case. I care not for the Patrick Patterson’s and Luis Scola’s of the world when Miller can be spreading the floor and icing games at the free throw line. It’s NBA blasphemy to say anything good about Darko Milicic so I’ll make it short. He is big. He is still young. He looks like he finally found a team where he will fit in. He will start. Apparently my housemate reckons he can pass better than any big man in the NBA and will average at least 4 assists per game. This makes him a round 4 pick in my books but I think you’ll be able to stash him in the final rounds. Francisco Garcia might have had the most freakiest and freak accidents last season but that doesn’t mean you are allowed to ignore him altogether. This dude is talented wrapped up in the perfect SF body. 1-1-1 potential dripping with extra goo. You could do much worse than ‘Cisco sitting on your bench waiting to explode.
Trade-based Drafting: The next big thing?
You don’t read much about fantasy trades at this stage of the basketball season. Which is a good thing I think, considering the season hasn’t started yet. Yet it is a large part of the actual season if you play in a switched on league. One trade can make or break your entire season. With this in mind, let’s break down how you can factor in trades to your draft day.
Take it as a given that people will draft to well established lists. You can bet that if ESPN rank a top 10, those top 10 is make up the vast majority of top ten picks in ESPN fantasy basketball leagues, the same goes for Yahoo. I think you can also bank the fact that most people who have any idea what they are doing, will draft to a strategy. Be that going big, small, medium, dumping categories, cuff linking players etc. I would advise you to follow the same path. But go a step further.
I was reading somewhere early tonight (and sorry for forgetting where, but if it was you and you see this, comment below and I’ll link) about Roto strategy and if you somehow manage to grab Kevin Durant with the #1 pick, then get Dwight Howard, presumably with the #24 pick, you are a lock for a top three finish. Thus, another team is basically forced to pick Dwight Howard before that time (which would likely occur). And this got me thinking (uh huh, it happens regularly), if you had pick #23 and were forced to pick him despite not wanting to, how could you manage to off load him at a later date, and sneakily draft to that strategy instead? It’s a tricky question and it takes drafting to another level all together.
It should be pretty easy to work out what each manager is trying to do by the 4th or 5th round. This still leaves up to 8 picks from which to ‘poach’ players from their strategy. Say for example, Team Wigga has just drafted Bargnani and Danilo Gallinari. Tall dudes who shoot the three and don’t rebound (poor strategy on their behalf but whatever). By rounds seven, Team Wigga is wigging out because stocks are thin. By chance, you sit right in front of them on the draft board. You yourself, Team Nifty, are looking for more blocks/FG% but got shafted last round when Greg Oden* got pinched from under your nose (yeah what? let’s take this outside). Thus, with this pending pick, you can very easily still draft Andris Biedrins who is staring at you in the face saying ‘Pick Me!’. Or. Perhaps more controversially, you can say to hell with Biedrins because he is an overpaid hack who couldn’t walk up the court last season, let alone hit a free throw. Instead, you take Rashard Lewis. Not because you think he is about to turn around his shitty career, but because he was Team Wigga’s next pick, you are 100% certain of it.
What are you left with? A piece of jigsaw which doesn’t exactly fit your team because you dumped 3PTM after your first 4 picks were Amar’e, Josh Smith, David West and Andrew Bogut (nice team btw). However, you hold an integral piece of another person’s team who would slot in so nicely on their roster, they are willing to part with other, better players who will produce more than Andris Biedrins ever will.
The positives here are you hold a bargaining chip and depending on who it is and how much the other team (or number of teams) require that chip, determines how much it’s worth. The negatives are the owner probably knows exactly what you were doing and will never part with your prized possession, in this case Greg Oden, just to spite you and your dastardly tricks.
I don’t think there is any easy advice in here which suits every situation. This is fantasy game theory and the variables are pretty significant. The players involved, the attitude of the respective owners, the negotiations, the performance of alternative players etc. However, I think at the right time and used the right way, like any other piece of strategy, it has it’s place. There is always a sucker who loves a particular player but is too stingy to use a particular pick on him only to regret that decision when someone else takes him two rounds later. This fantasy owner is the one to target and extract your pound of flesh. The one caveat I have here is that the deeper your league, the better this works with late round picks. Chances are they are going to be pretty useless for your team, so instead, pick players who have a proven track record at particular, specific categories and then stash them (presuming you have a large bench) as a trade chip for the future when the going gets real. Quid pro quo, the opposite is true for shallow leagues, in the fact this strategy will be a difficult one because of the proliferation of options regarding each player.
* thank you for indulging my fantasy about Greg Oden being a 7th round steal
Draft Day Essentials
I bet you have a shiteload of draft stuff slowly assembling on your computer somewhere. Probably positional lists, definitely a top player list and, if your nerdy enough, some select tables from basketball monster informing you about that elite 12th round pick that everyone else has overlooked.
But if that’s all you have, your in trouble. There are many essentials on draft day which you cannot find on the Yahoo Fantasy site. They are the intangibles which get your over the line in a tight spot or help you decide on whether Rudy Fernandez deserves that 13th pick.
Favorite Jersey: The most obvious one, regardless of an online draft or a real, in the flesh experience, is your treasured jersey. Professionals might scoff at this because they don’t actually watch basketball but they are shmucks and deserve your scorn (in the upcoming section). For the last three years I have been hunting a Shawn Kemp SuperSonics yellow/green away jersey from the early 1990′s. When I eventually get my hands on it, my league is over. From the moment you put it on, you feel comfortable. Warm and fuzzy even. You might only wear it once a year, but hot damn, you’ll do it justice today. That is unless, you adorn one of the bazillion Kobe Bryant tops which ensure this world eternal damnation. This year, I’m going with my Danilo Gallinaro t-shirt to change things up. I look forward to crushing Mr Reversible Vince Carter just like last season.
Lucky Charm: I figured out the reason why I have come 2nd over the past two seasons. I had no lucky charm. That all changed the day I walked into probably the worst arena in the NBA, the Izod Center, Middle of Nowhere, New Jersey. While watching the Nets get beat up by Kevin Durant and the Thunder wasn’t the worst NBA game I ever saw, it was pretty awful. Lucky for me, at half time, I bought the biggest cup of drink in the world. This cup is plastic, white and has a red strip about 3/4 of the way up which reads, “Nets”. Real imaginative. I carried that cup from New Jersey, back to New York and all the way back to Australia. If I don’t make the playoffs, that cup is history. The point of this is that you need a lucky charm if you really wanna make a push for the epic win. If your jersey is your lucky charm, you may as well stop reading this because, to quote the product on a drunken night spent in a dorm room, “isssss ovaaaaaaa!”
Smack Talk: Draft day wouldn’t be a draft day without smack talk. The more vicious, the better. My efficiency at work has been slipping through the floor in the past couple of weeks as the emails begin to ramp up after a quiet off-season. I get constant reminders (thanks Cal) about Yi and his (in)ability to hit threes. The best put downs work on past mistakes. You know your friend who drafted Andre Miller in the 6th round last year because he didn’t realise he had been traded to Portland? That’s the kind of thing you have to bring up again and again on draft day, just to get in his head. A classic put down works wonders. It instantly transforms the room into giddy laughter, makes your opponent feel small and weedy (always a plus) and gives you an immediate sense of satisfaction. Whoever you pick next is sure to dominate the rest of the season regardless of their murky drug history (Michael Beasley, come on down). This is draft day at it’s best.
The Back Hand Compliment: Some people would class this as a continuation of smack talk, but they would be wrong. More subtle, it’s like a critique of the latest stage show you saw. When it comes to the 2nd round and someone pounces on Brandon Roy, mention he is an awesome player… for the 60 or so games he can manage every year. Smirk (note: this does not work if you have just chosen Gerald Wallace).
Amusing Picture Link: This one obviously works better for online drafts (and if you know how to link to pictures when sitting around a table, things are a little unfair). The best thing about this is that depending on whether you think certain players are going to be good or bad this season, you can tailor the picture. Probably the best picture link this season will be some witty reference to the Amar’e picture adorning the most recent ESPN Mag. I know you can’t resist a snide comment.
If you have a live, in the flesh draft (which everyone should experience with their friends at least once in their life), make sure you include a pick time limit. This is ESSENTIAL. There is nothing worse than waiting for some jack-ass to pick Jason Kidd after mulling it over for 15 minutes. As if you’d pick him in the first place…. Beer helps in this situation.
The Real Trifecta
In recent times, a lot of been made of the three amigos in Miami. Now, call me crazy, but I think the situation smells a little too much like a 7Eleven pie. It might look good, but you know there is something not quite right about it. If it were a Caltex on the other hand…
So if Miami Thrice aren’t the fantasy trio I am hot about, what it? We’re not going to delve into player discussion just yet because we have three months to start doing that. Instead, the issue at hand is categories you should be thinking about when trying to work out players. I’ll state up front that these are purely thoughts related to H2H leagues with 9 categories. Over the past two years I have developed a deep seated hatred for all categories starting with ‘A’. Namely, assists. Instead of focusing on something, I actively focus against something, and assists are that thing. Despite losing the Self Esteem League final two seasons running against teams stacked with point guards, I feel my strategy is primed for a spectacular third year.
Let’s get one thing straight. You load up on assists, you load up on turnovers. You win one category, you automatically lose the other. It’s as simple as that in my books. Exploring this proposition with a quick glance at the assist:turnover ration leaders from last season:
| Chris Paul | 4.29 |
| Carlos Arroyo | 4.17 |
| Jose Calderon | 4.08 |
| Jason Kidd | 3.71 |
| Mike Bibby | 3.44 |
| Chris Duhon | 3.44 |
| Jason Williams | 3.42 |
| Rajon Rondo | 3.23 |
| Deron Williams | 3.17 |
| Eric Maynor | 3.13 |
Stella names… oh wait, it was Carlos Arroyo who led me to that championship, it was Carlos Boozer. You might check that list out and say “wait, what’s he complaining about? CP3, Jason Kidd, Rajon Rondo, the immortal Deron Williams… I don’t see an issue”. And that’s a fair comment, until you realise that no other league leader list looks like this. How many Mike Bibby’s do you see on the points top 10? Or Eric Maynor’s on the blocks top 10? I’m not picking on these guys because they are bad (which they are regardless), but because they have no place alongside league leaders and category building. This list means that while you can draft excellent point guards who will rack up the assists, they will also rack up the turnovers. And even worse? To get those ’2nd tier’ guys which ever category needs, it will cost you even more in turnovers. Derrick Rose averages 1 turnover for ever 2.16 assists. Mo Williams? 2.13.
I understand the counter argument could be that other players who dominate in one category might hurt in others (such as blocks and free throw %). The counter-counter argument to this, is that there are enough options in the league to build a team of high blocking, high rebounding dudes who don’t destroy your FT%. This isn’t the case for assists. Sure, you could grab CP3 in the first round and Steve Nash in the second, but you are still going to need some back up and they are already costings you a combined 5+ turnovers / game. FT% can be won by 2-3 dudes who dominate (Kevin Martin, Durant, Maggette) and then stashing your team with low volume guys who won’t do any damage.
Obviously there is more than any team than focusing on one category as in the above discussion. However I’m just trying to point out that if you lose assists in the right way, you are going to win turnovers in 9 out of 10 weeks and after that, it’s only 4 more categories to victory. This is just a small part of thinking about building a fantasy basketball team, and it’s only one option amongst many. In fact, I’m pretty sure that the majority of people who LOVE fantasy basketball, think the point guard is the best position in the game because of the potential to be so great. Just remember, for every Chris Paul and Deron Williams out there, there are 5 Mike Bibby’s and 10 Carlos Arroyo’s.
Why is this a trifecta you ask? I’m not sure. But I think it has got to do with the fact that point guards are small, fast and annoying. So when you are reading the mindless crap about point guards and power forwards, just remember, half of that mix is toxic.
Swish! Fantasy NBA Shooting Guards and why they rock
What a decent Shooting Guard brings to your team
If you didn’t know, Ray Allen dropped 25 points, grabbed 5 boards and had 3 assists against a Heat team which was overrawed by the powah of the C’s. Ray Allen is a shooting guard. Some people don’t like shooting guards for fantasy purposes. Some people don’t like Ray Allen. Shame!
More seriously. If you hang out on fantasy forums, if you chat to your friends in your league and if you read strategies on ESPN, you are more than likely to know the ‘Point Guards and Power Forwards’ theory. Goes something like, pick a point guard, pick a power forward. Snooze. Repeat. You finish your draft and you have Devin Harris and Anthony Randolph. You can tick all the boxes, but if you ignore a whole class of players simply because of some common misconceptions, you are not doing yourself any favours.
If you want an example of a solid player to add your roster, look no further than Ray Allen. While some Shooting Guards age poorly (see Peja Stojakovic), Allen is the opposite. While he may not drop 20+ points anymore, he has improved his field goal percentages significantly over the last three seasons with Boston. This season, despite a form slump smack bang in the middle of winter, he averaged 16.3 points at 47.7% from the field. He also chips in with 3 free throw attempts per game at 90%+. You throw in his 1.8 triples, 3.2 boards, 2.6 assists and 0.8 steals per game and there is no area which hurts your team. The best part? All of this comes with low turnovers (1.6 this season, the lowest of his career).
While Ray Allen might be the exception, there are other extremely efficient shooting guards who will get the job done as well. This season, Eric Gordon, despite the injuries, managed to shoot 44.9% from the field and 1.9 triples. George Hill is another for next season who should hold down the starting shooting guard spot. He played 78 games this season and averaged 12.4 points at 47.8% from the field. Ditto John Salmons.
Of course there are players you need to watch out for. The high volume shooting types, Kevin Martin, Jason Terry or J.R Smith come to mind, can and will destroy your field goal percentage for weeks on end when they hit a form slump. But if they are playing well, it’s a source of great points, three’s, percentages and low turnovers. A fantastic example who I think will thrive next season is O.J Mayo. Mayo has jacked his FG% up this season while lowering his assist:turnover ratio and maintaining his other volume stats despite the rise of other teammates around him. This bodes well for the future. He is a shooting guard who chips in everywhere.
I’m not advocating creating a team of shooting guards because clearly it is hard to base your team around that type of player. But what I am saying is don’t ignore quality fantasy prospects because someone once told you SG’s are worthless. This season just passed, the top 25 SG eligible players ranked in the top 68 players according to Yahoo. While I’m not going to chase Trevor Ariza (number 68) at the first available opportunity, I am going to take him over a Michael Beasley type player who hardly shows up most days despite the potential.
