Team By Team Draft Analysis: Rook - You started off strong with the Durant/Roy pairing, but it went downhill from there. Horford and Wallace were reaches. Lewis I expect to be a bit down this season. You did rebound with a few solid choices after that, if Ariza, Randolph, or Young develop into legit options, you'll probably contend for a wild card spot. Liked: Anthony Randolph in the 7th round. Somebody had to do it, and I'm surprised he didn't go sooner given all the hype around him. Hated: Pretty much all your picks from rounds 3 through 6. Not even counting the fact that Lewis is out 10 games, but Orlando is jam-packed with other guys who can put in buckets. Gerald Wallace is a walking injury, Jose Calderon is a great assist man, but thats about it... not really suited for this total points based scoring system. BlacktopKing - CP3 and then a bunch of afterthoughts is how I feel about your roster. Nash and Josh Smith (and Kirilenko I suppose) need to have bounce-back years for you to contend. Your Centers are all good picks though, and you may be able to trade one of them as the season progresses, as in this league we usually end up with someone who has a shortage of good big men. Liked: Brook Lopez in the 4th. I think this was by far your best pick and I was hopping mad that you took him right in front of me, Lopez should be a top 30 player this season. Hated: Instead of taking a flier on an upside pick in the latter rounds, you went with guys like John Salmons, Barbosa, and Mike Miller. I don't really see any of those guys suddenly having good seasons. jent A pretty good draft from the old veteran. Dwight Howard is a fantasy monster in this format, and a no-brainer pick. You know what you're getting in guys like Joe Johnson and David West. You've got some big injury risks with Camby and Baron Davis. Josh Howard and Loul Deng were huge disappointments last season, but you bought pretty low on them for the most part. Liked: Your risky picks. Picking up Russell Westbrook was a great move, I think he's on the verge of breaking out as a fantasy stud. Charlie V has been a fantasy headache, but largely because of the inconsistency of the systems he has been in, hopefully in Detroit he will find plenty of minutes. Beasley also seems like he can only improve. Hated: The fact that you are relying on Baron Davis and Marcus Camby to stay healthy. Bruce: Not bad for a rookie, but not good for a vet of this league. One of the biggest challenges in this league is fielding a starting 8 who performs week in and week out and most of the guys you picked up are solid performers, that being said I don't see any of your guys really putting you ahead of the pack, you went for safer picks time and time again throughout your draft. I don't see your team fairing any better than middle of the road, and likely you won't be on contention. Liked: You seemed to play it safe a lot and go for proven players, if anything you'll be a solid team. Hated: Gasol and Jamison as your cornerstones is a very underwhelming pairing. You probably could have had Danny Granger and Gasol instead, and that would have been a lot better. flinttown - I'm thinking you're going to be in a world of hurt sooner or later with this draft, I think you needed to take some risks and went for guys like Shaq, Jermaine O'neal, and Odom when there were higher upside players available. You might as well trade Kobe right now for some better pieces. Liked: Kobe Hated: Pretty much everything else. fade: I still hate you and your stupid team from last season. Of course you did well. Bosh / Melo followed by Rose / Parker is as solid as they come. Green and Scola are solid. Tyrus Thomas is the enigma. If he plays like he did the last 2 months of last season, your team is probably going to kick a serious amount of ass. Liked: your picks Hate: you. Ripped in 4 Weeks - A lot of reaches here, but Lebron covers a multitude of sins. Troy Murphy is not going to shoot 45% from beyond the arc this season, but if his numbers are even somewhere in his range from last season he's worthy of a 3rd round pick. if Michael Redd says healthy, thats a steal. Monta Ellis and Devin Harris have the potential to make or break your season. Jason Thompson could blossom into a star. Liked: Coupling upside picks like Ellis and Harris with value picks like Redd, Terry and Marvin Williams. Hated: Boris Diaw? Really? The jury is still way out on that one, bottom line is you need a few guys to play to their potential to contend for a title. PSJ - A strategy that always seems to work for you in any league you're in, pick the rookies and hope they perform well. Duncan and Brand and KG provide the punch, but your hopes once again hinge on the frailty of youth. Liked: The Carl Landry pick toward the end of the draft. Hated: I thought there were better options out there when you went with Brand/Griffin at 3/4. Your point guard situation is pretty thin. shag - Your team is like an infirmary list. Arenas, Martin, Manu and Bogut all missed a considerable amount of time last season. You need to stay healthy to say the least. Liked: K-Mart if healthy is a steal in the 4th, and David Lee is a sexy beast. Hated: Arenas in the 2nd is a bad idea and Shawn Marion looks like a homer pick to me, I think he's clearly on the downside of his career. Ziggy - Granger fell right into your lap, so that must have been nice. I thought you drafted very well, and you're certainly going to be in contention. Liked: Pretty much your whole draft. The value picks like Kaman and Rip Hamilton floating around toward the later rounds. Hated: Tyson Chandler? Really? Sammy - Whats not to like here? You start off with a solid foundation in D-Wade / AI / Kidd, and then you add some nice pieces in Jameer Nelson and Nene. Hard to see you not contending unless you suffer one of those terrible injuries. Liked: The middle round picks your made will beef up your lineup. Hated: That you stole a lot of the guys I was targeting. Pimp - Your draft isn't quite as robust as it has been in the past, but you still managed to put together a pretty nice looking starting 8. A lot of your guys need bounce-back years. Caron Butler needs to stay healthy (cliche) Amare was mostly awful last season. You're in the mix, but I've seen better out of you. Liked: You seemed to stick to a list of best available players. Hakim Warrick might surprise this season with more minutes in Milwaukee. Hated: You probably could have invested in a couple sleepers than going for guys like Brad Miller and Tayshaun Prince.
<-----Likes this. Yeah, I agree that I went with the best available guys along with a few "bounce back" guys. I feel good about all of them though, especially Amare who is back in the uptempo offense and is out to prove he is still an elite player. As for picking a sleeper....next pick my friend.
Nice analysis moe. I think my team is all right, but it sort of sucks knowing that it won't be nearly as good as last year's (Howard, Durant, Granger, Aldridge, Rondo, Randolph... oh my... in a 16 teamer then to boot). I think my best pick by far was Jason Richardson in the 7th. Was absolutely psyched that he made it back to me. I wanted him or Redd at that spot and when Redd went 8 picks before I was getting pretty nervous. Looking back, I'm not so fussy about Jonny Flynn in the 10th, but I guess there's upside there if he can get consistent starter minutes.
This is why I am The Mad Shag. I like risks which makes the season interesting for me. I did a good amount of research on these guys you listed and you could be right but I believe they will have all have good healthy years except maybe Manu. Specifically on Marion I definitely disagree with you I believe pairing again with Kidd and being the system that the Mavs have he will be back to his Phoenix days. Of course all this is speculation until the season starts. So good luck everybody. shag - Your team is like an infirmary list. Arenas, Martin, Manu and Bogut all missed a considerable amount of time last season. You need to stay healthy to say the least. Liked: K-Mart if healthy is a steal in the 4th, and David Lee is a sexy beast. Hated: Arenas in the 2nd is a bad idea and Shawn Marion looks like a homer pick to me, I think he's clearly on the downside of his career.
I definitely think Marion will have a bounce back year. Good pick Shagatron. That said......Kidd sucks.
I screwed up on Mike Miller. I should've researched his situation more than what I did. I still think he will have a ton of minutes and give me a good amount of boards/3s. I wanted more 3s and he can def. provide that for me, the boards will just be a +. Barbosa and Salmons will have great years. With Gordon gone from Chi-town, the scoring burden lands primarily on Salmons and Rose. Salmons is a very good shooter, basically a jack of all trades. He can give me easily 2+ 3's/2+ steals/15+ pts. a game. Not bad for a 6th rnd pick. The only other guy I was looking at during that rnd. was Anthony Randolph, I'm not a big fan of J. Rich. Speaking of J.Rich, Barbosa is a better player. He is a Jason Terry type player just not as consistent but a lot more consistent than J. Rich.
Is Moes writes up like 6 more things like that throughout this season ill pay his fee next year. Makes this whole thing that much cooler.
I love things like this too. The very best was when, in our very first year, one of the owners was some sort of radio host (real name Robert Schneider... don't remember his BBS name) and he would do audio updates every so often about the weekly results. Hearing an professional audio recap of how Smeg laid the beat down on Dr. of Dunk, complete with Sportscenter-type background music, was pretty awesome.
I was in a yahoo league that did this and it made the whole season that much better. This guy created an excel file and came up with formulas comparing the teams that faced up for that week, it was pretty wicked.
Agreed, enjoyed the read. Thanks, moes. My basketball team always sucks and usually suffers one of those terrible injuries you refer to but the encouragement is appreciated.
Crap. What I wanted to post was: Thank's I was hoping Diaw would make it to me in the 7th so you weren't the only one who wanted him.
