Fantasy update

Been a LONG time since I last posted - let's see how I finished in leagues gone by and where I am now in current leagues.

In basketball, I won the whole friggen league!  James Harden and LeBron James were clutch late, and I beat my Dad for the championship.  that was cool.

In hockey, I fell out in the quarterfinals.  I traded too much good stuff away and then oof...sad ending.

In football, things went okay.  I lost in the quarterfinals in Worst Team Ever, lost in the semifinals in show us your TDs, and then won the championship in The Toby Bowl.  It's my first time winning that in 3 years, so I was pretty excited.

As for current sports, in baseball I am currently tied for first in my division at 4-2.  Probably soon to be 4-3, as I took a sort of stars and scrubs approach and traded away too many helpful pieces early.  But I will come back.

Hopefully this week I'll be back to talk more baseball!

Building Trade Rapport: The Trade after The Trade

So I mentioned a few days ago that I made a pretty nice trade to improve my basketball team in fantasy.

Moments later, that owner also accepted ANOTHER trade from someone.  This one was his Carmelo Anthony and Michael Carter-Williams for Nikola Vucevic and Jrue Holiday.  This one also seemed to be a loss for the guy I traded with, as Vucevic is great, but Carmelo is transcendent when he's on his game and I'd probably take MCW over Jrue.  But one man's Cadillac is another man's Lincoln or whatever they say.

All I really took from the trade was that this guy was down to trade ANYONE.  So I took a second look at his roster and noticed a slightly slumping personal favorite of mine - Klay Thompson.  AKA his first round pick.

I already knew the guy liked Rudy Gay, as he had targeted Gay in those earlier trades.  And I knew Marvin Williams and Darren Collison were in the conversation with this guy since they had been in our talks as well.  So my final offer was the following:

My Gay, Williams, and Collison for His Thompson, T.J. McConnell, and Kentavius Caldwell-Pope.

My rationale was that Thompson was a two round upgrade on Gay, who would much improve my FG% over Gay while also adding more 3's (which my team is fairly strong in) and steals.

The other two guys I lose are replaceable.  Williams is playing out of his mind but most of his value in our league comes from double doubles, which won't last forever.  And Collison is nice late round value but he's not enough to hold this trade up.

Caldwell-Pope and McConnell are, as I often do in trades, pure filler.  I often see if I can trade them before cutting them, and while I might keep McConnell for a few days I will pretty much immediately cut Caldwell-Pope for someone with good steals on my watchlist, like Jae Crowder, Kent Bazemore, or Will Barton (the latter two also help 3's).

It seems like I'm probably done trading with this guy, as his 11 man roster has churned seven players in like three days and his last four aren't too great.  That being said, I do love Vucevic, so we'll see if he and I match up again someday!

Well that was a Freebie - Trading in the NBA

So we drafted a few weeks ago for my NBA season.  My team, which I like but don't love, looks like this (Third pick overall in a snake draft):

1. James Harden SG

2. Hassan Whiteside PF/C

3. Rudy Gay SF/PF

4. Reggie Jackson PG/SG

5. Derrick Favors PF/C

6. J.J. Redick SG

7. Ryan Anderson SF/PF

8. Kevin Martin SG

9. Markeiff Morris SF/PF

10. Darren Collison PG

11. Brandon Jennings PG

Then after the draft I moved Jennings to IR (we have two IR spots), signed and IR'd Tony Wroten (PG), and eventually settled on Marvin Williams (SF) as my 11th active guy after a hot start.

It's easy to see some of my weak spots coming out of the draft.  After Harden my guards are very iffy, so assists and steals are two stats I may not easily get (I was hoping for Ricky Rubio but he was picked just before Favors was).  And despite a lot of bigs, my FG% looks like it won't be good - so I actually put myself in a pretty big hole with this draft, given that we're a 10 category league and my team is pretty awful at three of those categories.

Which means it was time to trade.

I sent some fliers around, and my one big nibble was a new guy named Brian.  Brian's team was pretty bad as well, but he had some slow starting bigs in Zack Randolph and Kenneth Faried that I decided to target.  I knew Faried was a 4th rounder and Randolph a 6th rounder, so I thought it would be cool to use Morris (my 9th rounder) plus to get one of them.

And so the offers trade began:

Trade 1 -  I started with his Faried, Amir Johnson, and Al-Fariq Aminu for my Morris, Williams, Collison, and Jennings.  His PG are nearly as bad as mine, so I figured it gave me a chance.  He countered.

His Counter 1 - He countered with my Gay, Favors, and Jennings for his Faried, Johnson, and Aminu.  Gay and Favors were my 3rd and 5th picks, and I'm a little weak at SF, so there's no way this was going to happen.  

I started to get a bit...discouraged.

My Counter 1 - Seeing how he seemed to like Faried, I countered with his Randolph for my Williams, Morris, and Jennings.  He clearly like Morris and Jennings and seemed to like his other guys I asked for.  This trade showed I only want those PFs and nothing else, and that I was willing to give up a few guys.

His Counter 2 - In the last counter of this deal, he wanted my Gay and Whiteside for his Faried, Johnson, and Aminu.  And though I say you should always counter, because you never know what could happen, this trade was so far off that I simply rejected.

HOWEVER, I did so with a note.  It said something like "I only want Faried and/or Randolph," and I can't give up any of my top five guys.  Some players I would give up include Morris, Ryan Anderson, etc., etc.

And he must've read the note, because a day later in my mailbox I saw

the final trade,

which read like this:

My Markeiff Morris and Ryan Anderson for His Kenneth Faried and Zack Randolph.

I immediately thought to myself

and clicked accept as fast as I could.  Faried was a 4th rounder and Randolph was a 6th rounder - and I got them for a 7th rounder and 9th rounder due mostly to Anderson's hot start and cold starts from Faried and Randolph.  I'll take that!

So now I need some better smalls, but in one trade I've already made my team that much better, especially in field goal percentage.  So maybe there's hope in this league after all...

Introducing a League: The Shiva Bowl 2

Last but not least, this is the fantasy league that got it all (re)started.  I played a lot of fantasy in my younger days, and then stopped completely.  This league, inspired by the show "The League" and started by my two brothers and Dad, brought me back into the realm of fantasy.

Years active: 4 (This is Year 4)
League Type: ESPN, Snake, Redraft with 10 Teams
Buy-in: $40 per person (Last year was $20 but we're getting srs now)
Divisions: 2
Playoffs: 6 - division winners get byes, top 4 otherwise battle it out
Scoring: Head to Head Categories with 10 categories - Points, Steals, Rebounds, 3's, Free Throw Percentage, Blocks, Assists, Turnovers, Field Goal Percentage, Double Doubles
Positions: PG, SG, SF, PF, C, G, F, util, 3 bench, 2 IR
Depth of the League: Fairly deep for the small league size.  Sometimes you'll sneak someone decent off the wire, but it's gotten harder and harder as the league has gone on
How have I done: Playoffs every year, with one 3rd place finish sandwiched by two one and dones

Someone in my family needs to win it all this year - in three years of league we've had a non family member win the championship every time even though we make up nearly half the league.  My team's are always pretty good, but come playoff time something always goes wrong.  Let's hope this is the year that doesn't happen.

Also, like hockey, I barely watch it and I'm still figuring out how to handle it via fantasy.  I like multi-position guys and this year I hope to focus on one solid big to build around since there's just the one C spot.  We'll see if it works.