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The regular season is almost over. I am currently 6th of 12 in Give Me The Rock's Readers League, 6th of 10 in the Battle of the Bloggers League and 7th of 20 in GMTR Monster League. I am in the hunt for that last playoff spot in all three of those head to head leagues. Both GMTR leagues are set to weekly roster changes while the Bloggers league is set to daily with a 40 move limit.
I figured that this is a good time as any to review and assess the way I play the game of Fantasy Basketball. Before every season begins fantasy basketball sites and blogs talk about draft strategy and players who should be picked over others. I find that (the Draft) to be half or at most two-thirds of the game. The rest of the game is actually played during the course of the season as managers of make-believe NBA basketball teams renovate, reinvigorate, reconstruct their stable of players via additions from the free agent pool or through trades with other teams.
I have a good eye for players who are on or beginning a streak of good games. Sometimes it is a start of a break out season. And yes, sometimes I do land that winning lottery-ticket-like kind of player every now and then. That's one of my strengths as a fantasy basketball manager. So I have the tendency to hit the wires, and I hit them hard. I am at 50 moves in the Monster league and 77 moves in the Readers league respectively.
I must admit that I am not always the fastest gun in the west in terms of grabbing a next hot waiver pick up. There are times when some other manager beats me to the punch. It has been an advantage of sorts for me to be playing in eight fantasy basketball leagues this season. There have been numerous instances where I witness a player get quickly grabbed in one league, and I then hurriedly scour my other leagues to see if he is available.
On the other side of the coin, I am a very, VERY impatient NBA player owner. That's been my Waterloo of sorts over the last few years. I end up cycling through a lot of players making a lot of moves... It's kind of like firing a Gatling gun with the hopes of nailing that one particular bulls-eye, break out, pick up. I don't really make numerous moves to boost up my team's performance for a particular week or stream through players in an attempt to grab as many played games as possible. Nels of GMTR talked about that kind of thing a while back, HERE. As I said, while I am not into player streaming per se, I am quite disadvantaged by my waiver strategy in leagues with maximum move limits.
(Click Below to Read Further)
My style of play given me my fair share of ups and downs, lucky breaks and disheartening regrets. I was able to land Boris Diaw after two games into his break out year at Phoenix back in '05-'06. I also had the unfortunate discomfort of watching some other manager reap the benefits of my Andris Biedrins discovery during his '06-'07 break out year, because I dropped him after a mere couple of inconsistent games. This year is no exception.
Here are some of the players I acquired through some gutsy choice pick ups and some quick clicking in the GMTR Readers League:
Brook Lopez - My favorite pick up of the lot so far, and I have my doubts that I can surpass the quality I'm getting out of this rookie big man.
Ramon Sessions - My second favorite, it's about time that Bucks' brass allowed this boy to shine!
Lamar Odom - Grabbed him just before Andrew Bynum busted up his knee.
Jamario Moon - Snatched him right after the Marion deal fell through.
Aaron Brooks - Landed him right after shipped Rafer to the Magic.
Mario Chalmers - Erratic as hell, but I like his steals and occasional assist contributions when he is playing decently.
Here are some of the guys that slipped through my fingers due to impatience, all of them with the exception of Terry (who I drafted), were also generally picked up from the pool at opportune times:
Jason Terry - I really regret this. I didn't expect him to recover so quickly from his surgery.
Spencer Hawes - Added him and dropped him before Brad got traded. When the deal was done, someone had already grabbed him. Sigh...
Wilson Chandler
Kevin Love
Russel Westbrook
Rodney Stuckey
J.R. Smith - Man, has this guy been really going up and down this year... Sheesh!
Luis Scola - I regret this drop as well...
In the GMTR Monster League I was able to land a few goodies as well:
Thabo Sefolosha
Nenad Krstic
Marquis Daniels - Grabbed him early when he broke out in Mike Dunleavy's conspicuous absence. Dropped him when Mike showed up for awhile. And picked him up again when it became clear that Dunleavy was done for the season.
Mickael Pietrus
Mario Chalmers - Yeah, I know what you're thinking... waaay too much Mario! For the life of me, I don't know why I've been so patient with the kid. I suppose it's all those extra steals he adds for my totals.
A couple of guys who I wished a was more patient with are:
Luke Ridnour
Raja Bell - To think I burned my waiver position to grab him. I should have given him a wee bit more time to adjust to his new role with the Bobcats.
CONCLUSION:
Well I'm not espousing my style of in-season play as the "way to go." I just wanted a no-B.S. assessment on how it has been working or not working for me this season. Bottom line, I am in the running for making the playoffs in those above mentioned leagues; so I suppose it is working for me to some extent. I just have to wonder if I would have been in a better position at this point if I stayed more patient with some of those guys that I dropped. Jumping the gun and quickly grabbing those potential break out guys before anyone else does is a double edged situation, because the currency for purchasing those hopefully winning break out lottery tickets are other players on my roster who may actually outperform my the guys I gambled on in the long run. I need to be more patient with my guys and look beyond weekly swings in production... try to have a broader, more long-term outlook. Well I tell that to myself almost every year. One day, I'm going to listen to myself and hopefully get to properly temper my knack for spotting prime targets and not have to use up so many bullets in the process.
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