Fantasy Basketball Thread

[truth serum]

Hey...Blatche is still available in my league and Yahoo is telling me to pick him up. But I picked Shaq pretty early in my draft (easily my worst pick so far) and had high hopes for him as a center on my team. My team is well rounded. Don't really need another scorer which is what Andray seems to be right now. If anything, I need guys that can rebound and block some shots which is what I thought I would get out of the Diesel. Is picking up Blatche a bad choice in that regard? Is he just going to put up points? Is he going to be inconsistent? Is he going to disappear once Jamison comes back? Will he make up for what I lose in blocks and rebounds (not much so far) by dropping Shaq? Help me, I need to act quickly tonight before someone logs on in the morning and snatches him up. He looks like he can be a waver wire steal.

[truth serum]

The only other guy I would consider dropping for him is Tyreke Evans, but he has the ball in his hands a lot in Sac-town, and will most likely improve a lot over the season. He's the type of guy that will stuff the stat sheet when he's playing well, and I don't want to be down a guard. Wish I could make a quick 2 for 1 trade but no one in my league is awake right now

[nate33]

Blatche's minutes are going to drop a bit when Jamison gets back. He'll probably still get 25-30 minutes, but not 35 like he has been getting. But still, Blatche with 28 minutes a game might put up comparable numbers to Shaq in 24 minutes a game. Also, you know Shaq is going to come up with a phantom injury in February/March so that he can get a mid-season rest prior to the playoffs.

[fishercob]

Mods, can we get a "Fantasy Basketball Thread" and possibly sticky it to help keep things clean?

[Ruzious]

I'd look to trade Shaq if he was on my fantasy team - from prior experience of... having him on my team. He killed my team - because of FT percentage - that was one of our 10 categories. But then again, now he doesn't get to the line as much, so maybe he doesn't have that much of a negative effect. If you want a consistent 20/10/2, I'd keep Shaq. You know Blatche isn't going to be consistent, and you know his minutes will go down in 6 weeks or so.

[dlts20]

Blatche's minutes are going to drop a bit when Jamison gets back. He'll probably still get 25-30 minutes, but not 35 like he has been getting. But still, Blatche with 28 minutes a game might put up comparable numbers to Shaq in 24 minutes a game. Also, you know Shaq is going to come up with a phantom injury in February/March so that he can get a mid-season rest prior to the playoffs.

IDK about that Nate. Im worried about Blatche's minutes. I mean if AJ still gets the low 30's like Flip said then there wont be alot of run for Blatche unless you just totally cut out Oberto and I dont see that happening. If AJ gets 32 and Wood gets 28-32, then there will only be like 32-36mpg left between Blatche & Oberto so I cant really see Blatche getting 25-30mpg when he gets back. It will probably be more like 16-20. You could say that either Blatche or AJ will take some run at the 3 but I think Flip likes the 5 man rotation of Gil, Miller, Caron, Foye, and DS. I dont see AJ or Blatche taking any of those minutes except on the rare matchup occasions against huge teams and still maybe not even then

[nate33]

I think Jamison will get most of the backup minutes at SF. That means Jamison will play PF for just 22-24 minutes. Assuming Haywood plays C for 32 minutes, that leaves 40-42 minutes to share between Blatche and Oberto. If Blatche continues to play this well (and if Oberto continues to foul so much) I wouldn't be surprised to see those minutes split 28/12 in favor of Blatche.

McGee is the guy who will get squeezed. He'll probably only get minutes on days when Haywood is ineffective. Also, I figure Oberto is bound to get hurt at some point, which will give McGee another opportunity.

[VictorPage44]

i have: kobe, amare, gilbert, lamarcus aldridge, rasheed, iverson, rip hamilton, david lee, jeff green, mike beasley, matrix, and brandon jennings

i won my matchup by a pretty wide margin, but was also last in the league by a wide margin in assists. should sacrifice a couple scorers like rip or AI for a PG, or will having those two in my rotation (rip played one game this week, AI played none) even out the assists for me? FG% was alright this week, but I only see that becoming a problem later on, so getting rid of AI and hamilton should ease these problems as well (although they both have a nice effect on FT%)

[nate33]

Get rid of Iverson. He's a fantasy nightmare at this point. He only helps in points. His assists and steals are so-so for a guard and his FT% isn't good enough to be a substantially positive boost to your team. He gets few 3's, few boards, no blocks and has a terrible FG% and a lousy turnover rate. Hell, you're better off benching him and playing somebody off waivers.

See if you can trade him for somebody like Jose Calderon, Aaron Brooks or Mike Bibby. If not, think about scrapping assists altogether and concentrating on other categories. If you're last in assists, you can't get any worse so you may as well trade all of your passers and find guys who can help in other categories. Giving up on assists is likely to help your turnover rate and probably your FG% as well.

[dlts20]

Im not fully vested in Fantasy so can someone explain to me how the 7 or 8 cat leagues work? I know how they work but what I really want to know is how much weight does turnovers carry? Im asking this because I couldnt beleive when I saw the Fantasy insider after week 1 and Gil wasnt in the top 5 for PG's when he looked like he had the best stats than any of them or atleast near the top. The only catagory that he wasnt good in was turnovers which I think he's the worst in the league at but can that be enough to drop him that far? I was also shocked that Kamla went the whole hour long show without mentinoing any Wiz one single time. I was sure that he would single some of our guys out, espically Gil because of his comeback but no love I guess

[nate33]

It all depends on the league, but typically, there are 8 or 9 categories: PTS, REB, AST, STL, BLK, FG%, FT% (or sometimes FTA), 3P, and TO. Your team accumulates numbers in each category every game. At the end of the season, your ranking in each category is determined. You're total score is determined by the sum total of your rank in each category. The point is, turnovers count just as much as points, (or steals, or whatever). So if your guy scores 30 points but also commits 7 turnovers while posting average numbers in every other category, then he really didn't help you that much.

[zaRdsAndZeRos]

marc gasol has been a great pick up

[dlts20]

It all depends on the league, but typically, there are 8 or 9 categories: PTS, REB, AST, STL, BLK, FG%, FT% (or sometimes FTA), 3P, and TO. Your team accumulates numbers in each category every game. At the end of the season, your ranking in each category is determined. You're total score is determined by the sum total of your rank in each category. The point is, turnovers count just as much as points, (or steals, or whatever). So if your guy scores 30 points but also commits 7 turnovers while posting average numbers in every other category, then he really didn't help you that much.

so where is he ranked right now at PG? 6th?

[VictorPage44]

Get rid of Iverson. He's a fantasy nightmare at this point. He only helps in points. His assists and steals are so-so for a guard and his FT% isn't good enough to be a substantially positive boost to your team. He gets few 3's, few boards, no blocks and has a terrible FG% and a lousy turnover rate. Hell, you're better off benching him and playing somebody off waivers.

See if you can trade him for somebody like Jose Calderon, Aaron Brooks or Mike Bibby. If not, think about scrapping assists altogether and concentrating on other categories. If you're last in assists, you can't get any worse so you may as well trade all of your passers and find guys who can help in other categories. Giving up on assists is likely to help your turnover rate and probably your FG% as well.

good advice. I also have jameer nelson. somehow i forgot about him but anyway, i think i do need him to get rid of him but i want to wait until his values a little higher. I watched the end of the first quarter of that memphis game and AI looked awful, but he is coming off an injury and he ended up with decent numbers overall. i dont want to scrap an entire category, so i think i just have to wait for the right time to make an iverson or hamilton trade. I also dont really care for lamarcus aldridge too much. other than david lee i dont have any great rebounders, and aldridge is a big that plays like a SG.

[nate33]

Don't sweat the rebounding. Fantasy leagues are won by going after steals, blocks, low turnovers, 3 pointers and shooting percentages. People always overrate points rebounds and assists.

Consider two player performances, both of whom shot average percentages from the floor and line:
Player A: 30 points, 15 rebounds, 10 assists, 0 steals, 0 blocks, 0 threes, 4 turnovers
Player B: 12 points, 4 rebounds, 4 assists, 4 steals, 3 blocks, 3 threes, 0 turnovers

Most people will glance at the numbers and assume Player A was the better player, or maybe they were about equal. In fact, Player B absolutely crushed Player A in fantasy stats. Total obliteration. Player B was several standards of deviation above the norm in 4 categories while being only slightly below average in the other 3. Player A was maybe 1 standard deviation above the norm in 3 categories and way below average in 4 others.

With that in mind, it's generally pretty easy to trade points, rebounds and assists in exchange for steals, blocks, 3's and turnovers.