2007-08 Fantasy Hoops Wrap-Up
Friday, April 18, 2008
I've gotta admit...I am glad the 2007-08 NBA season is finally done. Had the fantasy season dragged on for another six weeks, I would've probably gone certifiably insane. The amount of injuries and random DNP's from high-caliber players is simply too much for one guy to take. In some ways, the 2008 season was just as bad as 2007 in terms on injuries, which is really saying something. Just don't get me started about Shawn Marion.
In general, it was a pretty disappointing season for my 52 fantasy teams, even though I did manage to win 20 of them and make a nice profit of about $12K (which equates to roughly 45 cents per hour, if you were wondering). But it's all for fun and science anyways. I guess I shouldn't complain. But about six weeks ago I was staring at somewhere between 30-32 wins. But it's safe to say if you had teams built around Yao Ming, Dwyane Wade, Shawn Marion (don't get me started), Chris Kaman, Gerald Wallace, Caron Butler, Manu Ginobili, Mike Miller, Kevin Martin and Maurice Williams, you probably didn't fare too well down the stretch. Thankfully, I had enough of a cushion in some leagues to hold on..many cases just barely (as in 1 or 2 field-goal makes barely). Thank goodness for Chris Paul, Marcus Camby and Lamar Odom, the only guys I had big exposure to that actually played well down the stretch.
THE PROJECTIONS COMPETITION - FINAL RESULTS
If only my fantasy teams had been as successful as my preseason stat projections (maybe I should've listened to my own numbers and drafted Mike Dunleavy, but I just couldn't pull the trigger on him). The stat projection competition really wasn't much of a competition at all, I had the best projections so far. In fact, I finished ahead of the combined consensus projections, so you could say that I outperformed all of the other projections combined. If you received the projections before the season, I hope it helped lead you to the title.
As I've done in the past, I look at the results two ways. The first measures the improvement in the projections across category (measured by sum of squared-error) using the 2006-07 numbers as a baseline (the crudest projection set you could come up with). The second ranking looks at each player and gives 14 points for the closest projection down to 1 point for the worst. Click here if you want a detailed run-down of each of the contenders.
IMPROVEMENT VERSUS BASELINE
1 COLTON INDEX (free) 26.63%
2 CONSENSUS PROJECTIONS 22.51%
3 ROTOFREAK (free) 15.86%
4 NBA.COM (free) 13.54%
5 HOOPSKLYCE ($16) 13.14%
6 FANTASY SPORTS CENTRAL (free) 12.05%
7 FANTASY HOOPS REALM ($14.95) 11.89%
8 ESPN/TALENTED MR ROTO (free) 11.80%
9 BASKETBALL MONSTER ($14.99) 9.75%
10 ROTOWORLD ($14.99) 9.04%
11 ROTOWIRE/YAHOO ($14.99) 6.50%
12 CBS SPORTS (free) 4.26%
13 2006-07 BASELINE 0.00%
14 FANTASY LOUNGE ($7.99) -4.45%
Fantasy Lounge gets the boobie prize for coming out worse than the previous season baseline. Previously, this spot was reserved for CBS but they managed to get above the Mendoza line. Just think about how hard this is to do. A monkey would use the previous season as a starting point and adjust from there. The adjustments that a so-called fantasy expert would make to this baseline in a set of projections should add value, not destroy value.
POINTS-BASED
1 COLTON INDEX 2107
2 CONSENSUS PROJECTIONS 2097
3 ROTOFREAK 1786
4 ESPN/TMR 1786
5 BASKETBALL MONSTER 1717
6 FANTASY SPORTS CENTRAL 1674
7 HOOPSKLYCE 1670
8 NBA.COM 1602
9 ROTOWORLD 1582
10 2006-07 BASELINE 1558
11 ROTOWIRE 1549
12 FANTASY HOOPS REALM 1539
11 CBS SPORTS 1528
14 FANTASY LOUNGE 1510
I'm a little surprised to have finished ahead of the consensus picks considering the consensus is going to be consistently solid across the board. In other words, at worst the Consensus is going to finish in the middle of the pack for any one pick and will more likely be near the top, while my projections could be last (or near last, at least ahead of the Lounge) for any given player. I'm also surprised to see four projections below the 2006-07 baseline.
To dig a little deeper, let's look how each performed in measuring the rookies, which in my opinion is the toughest thing to do. This is where the proverbial bread is buttered. Fantasy Sports Central took the cop-out route and opted not to make projections on rookies at all (what's the point in that?). So here's the top 12...obviously you can't measure versus the 2006-07 baseline so I'll show the results Nascar style and display the results in terms of how they were behind the leader. The results are based on 12 rookies that were common to each projection set (with the exception, again, of Fantasy Sports Central...I just can't get over the fact that they'd choose to leave the rookies out).
ROOKIES - SUM OF SQUARE ERRORS
1 COLTON INDEX
2 CONSENSUS PROJECTIONS 5.04% worse
3 BASKETBALL MONSTER 12.42%
4 ROTOFREAK 19.01%
5 ESPN/TALENTED MR ROTO 28.55%
6 FANTASY LOUNGE 36.11%
7 ROTOWIRE/YAHOO 40.06%
8 FANTASY HOOPS REALM 46.15%
9 HOOPSKLYCE 46.88%
10 ROTOWORLD 54.03%
11 CBS SPORTS 106.17%
8 NBA.COM 178.94%
The points-based method pretty much shows the same thing so I won't bore you with the details.
One area I spent a lot of time on this year was trying to project games played. The results prove what I already knew...games played is nearly impossible to predict. I was able to be a little more precise than the competition, but was still off by about 10 games on average per player. Here's the sum of squared error results for the 10 projections that bothered trying to project games relative to the 2006-07 baseline:
GAMES PLAYED
1 COLTON INDEX 21.67% improvement vs 2006-07
2 CONSENSUS PROJECTIONS 15.14%
3 FANTASY SPORTS CENTRAL 14.90%
4 ROTOWIRE/YAHOO 14.45%
5 NBA.COM 13.88%
6 CBS SPORTSLINE 13.23%
7 FANTASY HOOPS REALM 12.90%
8 BASKETBALL MONSTER 12.58%
9 HOOPSKLYCE 12.42%
10 ROTOWORLD 8.62%
11 2006-07 BASELINE 0.00%
Hopefully, you find this information interesting and useful in deciding which projection to buy or not to buy next season.
If I get up enough courage, I may take a closer look at some of my draft picks and trades, which promises to be a rather depressing exercise. I can only cringe at the thought of finding out how many times I picked Dwyane Wade over Chris Paul or Elton Brand over Hedo Turkoglu.
posted by Jim Colton @ 3:02 PM,
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Trade by Numbers
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
Sorry for the lack of blog updates lately. I've been swamped with real world demands on top of trying to manage through a mess of injuries on my 52 fantasy squads (Caron Butler, Kevin Garnett, Gerald Wallace, Mike Miller and now Yao). The fantasy trade deadline was last Monday, and I spent a good chunk of time trying to position my team's well for the home stretch.
Unfortunately, I was on a family vacation starting three days before the deadline, so I didn't get to dedicate as much time as needed for my fantasy teams. Prior to leaving, I isolated the teams that had the most category inbalances (opportunity to trade) in the most competitive leagues (opportunity to change a loss into a win) and sent out trade offers for the guys that were the best fit for each team. I wouldn't be able to do a lot of back and forth, so with the trade deadline looming I had to simply put my best foot forward and hope for the best.
One of the best series of moves I made was in one of my big money leagues ($1,600 to the winner). I had the best team overall, but was extremely unbalanced with big leads in FTP, STL and AST. 3PM and BLK were going to be fiercely competitive. Despite being in first place for most of the season, I was projecting that I'd end up losing by 8 pts if I didn't make some kind of deal. I had a solid deal of Chris Paul, Caron Butler and Hakim Warrick for Steve Nash, Josh Smith and Josh Howard that was accepted but voted against by 9 of a possible 10 people in the league, by far the most votes I've ever seen a deal get. Amazingly, the overall fantasy contribution I was getting was within 0.3% of each other before and after, it was essentially just shifting steals that I had for blocks that I needed. Just add up Nash/Smith/Howard's stats and subtract Paul/Butler's and it doesn't take much for Warrick to make this perfectly even, something Warrick has been doing easily lately.
The guy that I was battling against was adamant against the deal, despite the fact that he'd likely gain 2 points if it went through. Even with the deal, it wasn't going to be enough to put me over the top. Not surprisingly, the deal was vetoed by CBS and I had to go back to the drawing board. With a week left to the deadline, I had to do something.
Amazingly, I was able to give my team a complete makeover with three separate deals. Each deal taken individually looks like I'm coming out on the short end, and overall I'm probably giving up more value than I'm getting in return. But near the deadline you can't putz around trying to fleece a guy. Sometimes you have to incent the guy to click 'accept'. Trade #2 is to a guy in a bunch of my leagues. Over three years he's only accepted one of my trade offers, simply because he knows that I know what I'm doing. But after the deal he commented to me that the deal was too good to refuse (of course, that was before Yao went down for the season.)
Trade #1: Boozer,Carlos, Udrih,Beno and Williams,Deron for Camby,Marcus, Dunleavy,Mike and Gomes,Ryan
Trade #2: Ming,Yao and Bogut,Andrew for Duncan,Tim and Chandler,Tyson
Trade #3: Paul,Chris and Conley,Mike for Childress,Josh and Nash,Steve
I traded over my half my roster in one day and transformed my team into one that is going to be big in FGP, 3PM, REB and BLK, all the categories that I need. The scary part was if I didn't do all three deals, I probably would've lost the league. The first deal left me with three centers - Camby, Yao, Bogut -- you can only start two each week. Without a second deal, I would've had Bogut wasting away on my bench every week. So instead of having the best team on paper and losing by 8 pts, these three trades put me over the top. I'm not projecting a comfortable 90-70 victory.
[Speaking of Udrih, I basically have a monopoly on the guy in my leagues. The Bibby trade news came on Saturday afternoon of the All-Star break weekend. I'm guessing there weren't a whole lot of people keeping tabs on fantasy news at that time. I just happened to be at my computer and saw the news, jumped on the opportunity and picked up Udrih on 43 of my 52 leagues. As you'll see below, I used him as a trading chip in quite a few leagues, as I didn't really want to own him on that many teams. Plus I figured if I did end up giving up too much in a deal because he performed well, overall I would be a lot better off. Right now, I own the guy on 36 teams and his Week 18 performance single-handedly got my team's back on track after a few less-than-stellar weeks. First John Salmons, now Beno. I owe a lot to the back-ups in Sacramento.]
So now that the trade deadline has passed, I finally have time to take a deep breath and relax (a little bit). I went back and looked at some of my trades, offers, vetoes, etc. and came up with some staggering numbers:
4,423 - Number of trade offers that I sent
137 - Number of my trade offers that were accepted (3.1%)
94 - Number of actual deals (approved by the league or commissioner) as a result of my trade offers (47 offers for every one deal)
2,359 - Number of trade offers that I received
99 - Number of those trade offers that I accepted (4.2%)
65 - Number of actual deals as a result of trade offers from others (36 offers for every one deal)
833 - Total numbers of accepted deals by all teams in my leagues
230 - Total numbers of accepted deals that I was involved in (27.6% of all deals)
596 - Total number of actual trades by all teams
159 - Total number of actual trades that I made (26.2% of all trades)
41 - Total number of my trades approved by Commissioners at CBS (CBS Ron)
77 - Total number of my trades vetoed by Commissioners at CBS (CBS Ron)
71.3% - CBS Commissioner Kill Rate
Those are some staggering numbers. The 71.3% Veto Rate is probably the one that sticks out most of all. I realize there's a role for the commissioner and a need for vetoes in extreme cases, but if you surveyed users on what the 'right' number is, I can guarantee you the number is well below 70% (probably 5-10% at most, and that's stretching it). I can assure you that 71.3% is the wrong number, and is likely an indication that the commissioner is either a) on a power trip, b) has no idea what he is doing, or c) all of the above.
Below is a list of just some of the deals that I had vetoed by CBS Ron and company this year. In my opinion, there's absolutely no way that any of these should've been vetoed under any circumstances. When I did get a response from CBS, some of the reasons for the vetoes were even more alarming. I tried to rank order them from most outrageous to least outrageous, although that wasn't very easy to do. Take a look and judge for yourself.
1. Marion,Shawn for Nowitzki,Dirk (the gold standard. 'Was it vetoed by the trade commissioners here at CBSSports?' was the response I got from a non-Ron CBS commish)
2. Turkoglu,Hedo and Wallace,Gerald for Jefferson,Al and Williams,Maurice (because 'Jefferson is better than Wallace, Williams is better than Turkoglu')
3. Iguodala,Andre and Jackson,Stephen for Wallace,Gerald and Calderon,Jose ('Was this trade vetoed?' response from non-Ron CBS commish)
4. Smith,Josh and Roy,Brandon (or Jason Richardson) for Bryant,Kobe (because Richardson is going to much worse on Charlotte than Golden State - despite 5-6 more minutes per game, and Roy had a poor first game of the season)
5. James,Lebron and Dalembert,Samuel for Marion,Shawn and Gasol,Pau
6. Jackson,Stephen for Calderon,Jose
7. Camby,Marcus for Nowitzki,Dirk (to the team last in BLK and REB)
8. Kidd,Jason and Barbosa,Leandro for Billups,Chauncey and Wallace,Rasheed
9. Kirilenko,Andrei and Wallace,Rasheed for Duncan,Tim and Odom,Lamar
10. Marion,Shawn, Iguodala,Andre and Gay,Rudy for Garnett,Kevin and Paul,Chris
11. Smith,Josh for Garnett,Kevin
12. Milicic,Darko and Gay,Rudy for Billups,Chauncey
13. Iverson,Allen, Okur,Mehmet and Barbosa,Leandro for Wade,Dwyane, Gasol,Pau and Aldridge,Lamarcus
14. Iguodala,Andre and Gay,Rudy for Garnett,Kevin
15. Carter,Vince and Gay,Rudy for Bryant,Kobe ('Carter in inconsistent')
16. Camby,Marcus, Nelson,Jameer and Horford,Al for Nash,Steve, Ilgauskas,Zydrunas and McCants,Rashad ('Nash and Duncan are MVP Candidates')
17. Ginobili,Manu for Wade,Dwyane (presumably because Wade is so much better than Ginobili despite Ginobili being ranked 14th and Wade 19th with a huge injury risk) 18. Iguodala,Andre, Ellis,Monta and Miller,Brad for Boozer,Carlos, Kaman,Chris and Calderon,Jose
posted by Jim Colton @ 2:12 PM,
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The John Salmons Dilemma
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
One question is on the mind of many fantasy basketball owners this week: what in the heck do I do with John Salmons? That is, if you're lucky enough to own the guy.
That's all I'm thinking about right now since I own John Salmons on 25 teams!
One thing I've realized this year is fantasy hoops success requires a very high level of commitment. Most nights you'll find me pouring over live boxscores on Yahoo. Yes, I am a loser. Somehow, my marriage and my sanity manages to stay intacy (likely both barely). Basically, I don't go to bed until all of the games of a given night are completed. A Nuggets-Sonics triple overtime game is my worst nightmare.
So about six weeks ago I was scrolling through boxscores while in bed on my iPhone when I noticed Kevin Martin had left the game injured (he was having a sweet game too). It wasn't too long until the word spread that he would be out 4-6 weeks. So I hopped out of bed and went back down to the warroom. There was work to do.
The biggest challenge of managing so many fantasy teams is being nimble. Making roster moves takes time, and I need to be quicker to the trigger than the guy who has 1 or 2 teams and knows his roster intimately. I missed out on Salmons at the beginning of the year while Ron Artest was suspended, I was not going to be denied here. Fortunately, because of the late game there wasn't a tremendous amount of competition for Salmons' services. I was able to rifle through my rosters and pick him up in nearly half of my leagues, a good number without being too overexposed.
Looking back, I wish I had picked him up on all 52 teams. Salmons has been ballin' the last six weeks. While Martin was on the shelf, all he did was average 19.5 PTS, 5.7 REB, 3.9 AST, 1.8 STK, 0.5 BLK, 1.0 3PM while shooting 54% from the field and 82% from the foul line, numbers that put him at 17th overall over that time period. You don't find production like that in the free agent pool very often.
And although I owned Martin on 12 teams, his injury was probably the best thing that could've happened to me. Let me be the first to publicly thank his groin. Overall, my teams were struggling at the time, but have surged dramatically over the past 5-6 weeks. From week 7 to 11, the 25 teams with Salmons improved by 4.6 pts in the standings, compared to 3.3 pts on the non-Salmons teams.
However, all good things must come to an end, and the clock is striking midnight on this Cinderella story. Martin came back last Saturday and didn't miss a beat (and hardly missed a shot). Bibby and now Artest are schedule to come back this week. The first time Artest came back, Salmons dropped off the face of the Earth. If the same thing happens this time around, I'm in a lot of trouble. Because CBS doesn't have multi-postion eligibility like most other sites, the forward position happens to be really thin this year. The list of forward available in 15% or more of my leagues includes guys like Shane Battier, Wally Szcerbiak, Jeff Green, Kyle Korver, Andrea Bargnani, Darko Milicic and Charlie Villanueva. Hardly an awe-inspiring bunch of guys.
I think that Salmons will be able to maintain value in the 90-110 range even coming off the bench. Hopefully he has shown enough to earn an increased role. Plus, there's a real chance that Bibby and/or Artest might get trade in the next month (not that I would hold Salmons just for that possibility.)
That said, holding on to Salmons is not a bet that I'd like to make on all 25 teams, so I spent most of last weekend trying to lower my exposure through trades. I mostly targeted the following mid-tier forwards: Hedo Turkoglu, Andrei Kirilenko, Rasheed Wallace, Danny Granger, Richard Jefferson, Corey Maggette, Kevin Durant, Lamarcus Aldridge, Lamar Odom and Luol Deng. In a few cases I was set at forward and targeted guards in the Monta Ellis/Leandro Barbosa range.
Now, I know what you are thinking. I'm crazy for even sending these offers. No one in their right mind would accept these offers. Certainly, there's no way I would trade any of those players above for Salmons right now. So why send out 200+ trade offers?
A) Because you never know what the guy on the other end is thinking, and B) if just one of those offers is accepted, it's worth the time and energy spent sending all of them.
As it turns out, all of that work was worth it. Here is what I came up with:
Amare Stoudemire and John Salmons for Yao Ming and Monta Ellis
John Salmons for Hedo Turkoglu
John Salmons for Andrei Kirilenko
Three nice deals. As is the case with most trades on CBS, they received the 4+ objections and are pending approval from the fiefdom otherwise known as CBS Ron. They should both go through, but with Ron you never know (three months ago, could you imagine living in a world for any trade for Hedo Turkoglu would be considered vetoable?).
The moral of the story is you just never know. If a trade has a 2% chance of being accepted, you need to make that offer. Aim high. Test the market. What's the worst thing that can happen? Maybe you tick off a couple of your competitors...who cares? I received a number of colorful responses to these Salmons trade offers. For some, I would've had a better response if I had run over the family dog. And I learned a few new words that aren't in the dictionary (why do people get so bent out of shape over trade offers? Just hit 'reject' and move on.) One of the nicer guys called me an idiot for even trying to get Hedo Turkoglu for John Salmons. But considering another Turkoglu owner accepted the deal, I think I'd be an idiot for not trying it elsewhere. It's interesting that out of all the players I was targeting, Turkoglu and Kirilenko were the highest-rated of the bunch. In my mind, it justifies sending to the rest of the players on the list.
So 3 down, 22 Salmons to go. All I can do is hold on to him and hope for the best...a Bibby and/or Artest trade. Does anybody have Danny Ferry or Pat Riley's e-mail?
SPEAKING OF CBS RON...
Below are the trades that I've made since the last update.
TRADES EFFECTIVE WEEK 11
SP37: Pierce,Paul, Jamison,Antawn and Davis,Ricky for Wade,Dwyane, Howard,Josh and Nelson,Jameer
SP12: Allen,Ray and Barbosa,Leandro for Paul,Chris and Brewer,Ronnie
SP10: Stoudemire,Amare and Salmons,John for Ming,Yao and Ellis,Monta
SP10: Brewer,Ronnie for Gibson,Daniel
TRADES EFFECTIVE WEEK 12
SP20: Gay,Rudy for Jamison,Antawn
SP29: Barbosa,Leandro, Ellis,Monta and Smith,Josh for Nowitzki,Dirk and Billups,Chauncey
PENDING TRADES
SP33: Camby,Marcus, Nelson,Jameer and Horford,Al for Nash,Steve, Ilgauskas,Zydrunas and McCants,Rashad
SP34: Iverson,Allen, Okur,Mehmet and Barbosa,Leandro for Wade,Dwyane, Gasol,Pau and Aldridge,Lamarcus
SP11: Salmons,John for Turkoglu,Hedo
SP19: Salmons,John for Kirilenko,Andrei
SP43: Aldridge,Lamarcus and Miller,Mike for Garnett,Kevin and Evans,Reggie
SP09: Robinson,Nate for Thomas,Kurt
VETOED TRADES
SP21: Marion,Shawn, Iguodala,Andre and Gay,Rudy for Garnett,Kevin and Paul,Chris
SP33: Camby,Marcus, Iguodala,Andre, Nelson,Jameer and Horford,Al for Nash,Steve, Duncan,Tim, Ilgauskas,Zydrunas and McDyess,Antonio
I did get some feedback from Ron on the above deals.
KG/Paul Deal
JIM:
When are you going to come around on Rudy Gay? He's playing like a 3rd rounder in Roto (ranked 36th overall). He's above average in every category except for ASTs...how many 7-cat players are there in roto? Owners are willing to pay up for him. But you shoot down nearly every deal that he's in. I don't understand how you can give Chris Paul credit for playing well above his initial expectations and not give Gay credit for doing the same. If you treat them both the same (either their ytd stats are both real or both not real), then the following deal is more than fair. Iggy is a true 2nd rounder and playing like it. Marion and KG are a wash.
Your trade offer of Rudy Gay,Andre Iguodala,Shawn Marion for Kevin Garnett,Chris Paul to Marbury's Backseat has been vetoed by the commissioner.
As I said, different owners in different leagues are willing to provide 3rd round value for Rudy Gay, and he's playing at that level, so shouldn't that be the going rate for him? Look at what he's been going for in plat and diamond roto leagues.
RON:
Would you take garnett and paul for marion and iguudala. Garnett and Paul are way better players. So gay and marbury are of no value in this trade. Lets say the cancel each other out or Gay a slight advantage, it still does not make up the difference in paul and granett.
JIM:
Marbury wasn't in the deal...it is the guy's team name. It's KG and Paul (and he'd drop Bonzi Wells) on the one side. Marion and KG is a wash. Outside of week 1, Marion is ranked 7th and KG 8th. In case you haven't noticed, KG has really tailed off. I own him on 18 teams and I have experienced it first hand. He's still a top 5-6 player, but Marion is right there too. Marion ranks 6th over this year and last year, and was #1 overall the year before that.
So the question is Iguodala and Gay enough for Paul, and I would argue that he is. If you're going to count Paul as a top 5 player, then you have to give Gay credit as a top 35 player. Iggy is ranked 23-24 and should be viewed a 2nd rounder. So is a 2nd rounder and late 3rd rounder enough for a 1st rounder. It should be, especially if it meets category needs, which this does.
In your assessments, you generally always hold KG to a higher esteem while not giving Marion the credit he deserves. I always have an easier time getting deals through for Marion, and basically I'm indifferent between the two. Marion may be a better fit on some of my teams, KG better on others. I'm not so sure KG deserves the same criteria that he has had in the past. So if anything here you are undervaluing Marion, overvaluing KG and really undervaluing Gay...all three working against me in this deal. It's equally likely and equally reasonable that you could have the opposite opinion on each of these three players and the deal looks much different. You should be measuring reasonableness, not whether you would do the deal. This is a reasonable deal.
Nash/Duncan Deal
JIM:
Nash (rk 10) / Duncan (32) / Zydrunas (74) / McDyess (113)
for
Camby (rk 11) / Iguodala (24) / Nelson (96) / Horford (101)
Vetoed because of Nash's injury (flu) or some other reason? The rankings are very close for each player down the line.
RON:
Nash's injury currently, but Nash and Duncan are better then any two on the other side. Horford and Mcdyess are irrelevant. Nelson for Z is fine. but camby and AI or two mvp candidates?. Not happening. Nash and Duncan in any format is better then AI and Camby.
JIM:
One of these days I'm hoping you'll understand that Duncan is not as good a roto player as he's is a real basketball player. You cost me $600 with that Butler/Duncan reversal last year and you're killing me here again. The fact that he is one of the top 5 players in the NBA does not mean anything. MVP trophies are not a category. Steals and Blocks are and count just as much as points and rebounds. Iguodala is a much better roto player than Duncan. All knowledgeable roto players know this. Iguodala was drafted 20th on average in diamond and platinum roto leagues, and is performing right at that level. There's no way I would trade Iguodala for Duncan straight up unless I really needed FGP, REB and BLK. There's a reason I own Iguodala on 10 teams and Duncan on zero. Camby is a fantasy stud who has been pretty healthy the last two years. Before you play the Mr. Glass card, he has missed less games than Nash or Duncan this season. Those 3.8 blocks per game are miles above everybody else other than Josh Smith.
Just let the numbers speak for themselves...look at the ratings this year and last.
Basketball Monster
2006-07 Per Game
Nash 6
Camby 11
Duncan 18
Iguodala 19 (14th after the Iverson trade)
2007-08 Per Game
Nash 9
Camby 16
Iguodala 27
Duncan 33
Don't believe BasketballMonster? How about ESPN...
2007-08
Nash 9
Camby 11
Iguodala 23
Duncan 29
The guy that you are trying to protect in this deal put out an 'on the block' with Zydrunas and Nash, requesting blocks and rebounds. He told me he wants Camby. This deal meets exactly what he is looking for. Basically, he would do Camby for Nash straight up, but I'd need a center so that's where you get Jameer for Zydrunas. He's first in AST so Nash isn't quite as valuable for him. Obviously he's acting in his best interests here.
posted by Jim Colton @ 12:05 AM,
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Fuzzy Math
Wednesday, January 2, 2008
Happy New Year! Not much activity on the trading front over the holidays, but I did land a handful of deals in between the presents, egg nog and games of Guitar Hero III on the new Colton-family Wii. Guitar Hero has the potential to derail my fantasy basketball success more than any competitor or CBS commissioner combined.
Effective Week 8
SP01: Gasol,Pau for Pierce,Paul
SP01: Artest,Ron and Jackson,Stephen for Butler,Caron and Ellis,Monta
SP03: Granger,Danny for Brewer,Ronnie (finally passed after multiple attempts)
SP10: Smith,Josh for Kidd,Jason
SP15: Lewis,Rashard, Stoudemire,Amare and Wallace,Gerald for Allen,Ray, Kirilenko,Andrei and Nowitzki,Dirk
SP17: Ming,Yao for Garnett,Kevin
SP24: Kirilenko,Andrei for Billups,Chauncey
SP24: Smith,Josh for Nowitzki,Dirk
SP26: Davis,Ricky and Dalembert,Samuel for Ginobili,Manu
SP38: Dalembert,Samuel for Ford,T.J.
SP44: Bosh,Chris and Roy,Brandon for Wade,Dwyane and Thomas,Tim
SP47: Allen,Ray for Lewis,Rashard
SP49: Dalembert,Samuel for Turkoglu,Hedo
SP49: Smith,Josh for Kidd,Jason
Comment: Some nice deals here...got rid of Gasol right before he went down, and Pierce has been playing very well since. Plus Boston has more games left than any other team so this deal should continue to reap the rewards (no, it's never to early to think about this). On the flip side, I'd gladly take back the Ricky/Dalembert for Ginobili deal and the one time I make a deal for TJ Ford, he goes off on a stretcher the very night the deal goes through. Ford's return is uncertain...ultimately I had to drop him. Essentially I gave away Samuel Dalembert for free.
Effective Week 9
SP02: Nelson,Jameer for Gordon,Ben
SP02: Ellis,Monta for Granger,Danny
SP17: Durant,Kevin and Mohammed,Nazr for Miller,Mike and Wallace,Ben
SP30: Gay,Rudy and Dalembert,Samuel for Billups,Chauncey and Crawford,Jamal
SP47: Gay,Rudy and Mohammed,Nazr for Williams,Deron
SP51: Odom,Lamar and Williams,Maurice for Camby,Marcus and Wallace,Rasheed
SP51: Wade,Dwyane, Kirilenko,Andrei and Gordon,Ben for Boozer,Carlos, Nash,Steve and Stevenson,Deshawn
SP52: Arenas,Gilbert and Lewis,Rashard for Butler,Caron and Brewer,Ronnie
Effective Week 10
SP22: Carter,Vince and Gordon,Ben for Wade,Dwyane and McDyess,Antonio
SP23: Chandler,Tyson and Mohammed,Nazr for Kaman,Chris
SP41: Allen,Ray and Lewis,Rashard for Iverson,Allen and Kirilenko,Andrei
SP42: Artest,Ron, Aldridge,Lamarcus and Ellis,Monta for Anthony,Carmelo, Lewis,Rashard, Calderon,Jose and Hinrich,Kirk
SP07: Dalembert,Samuel and Barbosa,Leandro for Camby,Marcus
Comment: I was quick to pick up Nazr Mohammed after he got traded to the Bobcats whether I really needed him or not, and was even quicker to deal him when he came out of the gates blazing in his first few games as a starter. Basically I used him to upgrade at a few positions - Gay for Deron, Chandler for Kaman, Durant for Mike Miller. The Week 10 deal for SP42 was very good even before Artest went down for elbow surgery...it's looking like a huge steal now.
Vetoes
SP03: Moon,Jamario for Bargnani,Andrea
SP03: Granger,Danny for Brewer,Ronnie
SP22: Carter,Vince and Gay,Rudy for Bryant,Kobe
SP29: Iguodala,Andre, Ellis,Monta and Gibson,Daniel for Wade,Dwyane, Odom,Lamar and Francis,Steve
SP31: Wade,Dwyane and Battier,Shane for Garnett,Kevin and Ellis,Monta
SP22: Jamison,Antawn and Gay,Rudy for Bryant,Kobe and Jaric,Marko
SP22: Jamison,Antawn and Gay,Rudy for Bryant,Kobe and Butler,Rasual
SP29: Iguodala,Andre, Ellis,Monta, Gibson,Daniel and Mohammed,Nazr for Wade,Dwyane, Haslem,Udonis, Murphy,Troy and Smith,J.R.
SP31: Granger,Danny and Gay,Rudy for Garnett,Kevin
SP31: Lewis,Rashard and Gay,Rudy for Garnett,Kevin and Moon,Jamario
SP33: Gay,Rudy and Horford,Al for Iverson,Allen
SP08: Jefferson,Richard and Ellis,Monta for Bryant,Kobe
SP21: Iguodala,Andre and Rondo,Rajon for Garnett,Kevin and Moon,Jamario
No real surprises here. When it comes to CBS, I'd feel more comfortable if they tossed a coin to decide on deals. One particular deal stands out...Lewis/Gay for KG/Moon in S31. I wasn't really surprised that I got vetoed, but it sticks out because literally minutes after the veto notification the following deal was approved in a different league: Lamarcus Aldridge and Stephen Jackson for Carlos Boozer and Raymond Felton. Huh? If that deal is deemed fair than there's no way my KG deal is unfair. Essentially it breaks down to this:
1. If given a choice, most fantasy owners would choose A: Boozer (ranked 9th at the time of the decision) and Felton (72nd) over B: Garnett (5th) and Moon (118). I hate Felton and I would do that deal in a heartbeat.
2. Unless you were brain dead, all fantasy owners would choose C: Lewis (38th) and Gay (33rd) over D: Aldridge (79th) and Jackson (45th). That's a no brainer.
So if A>B and C>D then a deal between B & C has to be closer to fair than a deal between A & D, right? I'm getting the lesser pair on one end and giving up the greater pair on the other end, right?
In the vortex otherwise known as CBS Fantasy Sports, the basic rules of algebra no longer apply.
When pressed for some rationale behind the decisions, my ol' buddy CBS Ron said that when you're trading for a top 5 player such as Kobe or KG, you need to include a top 5 player in the deal, essentially eliminating any chance to deal for one of these guys. This stance may be a sound strategy for running your fantasy basketball team, but it's absolutely absurd to assess the fairness of potential deals by using this criteria. Garnett is a top 5 player (although hardly top 5 recently), he's only slightly better than Boozer. If Boozer can be had for a song and KG is, say, 10% better than Boozer, than KG should be able to be had for Song + 10%. There's no way one deal is fair and not the other.
Excuse me while I vent my frustration with a little Guitar Hero III...
PROJECTION UPDATE
More of the same after looking at the projections through Week 9 (plus one day in Week 10). The Colton Index numbers are beating the consensus picks and blowing away the competition. And anybody who shelled out $8 for the Fantasy Lounge projections should demand their money back. Recall that the first ranking measures the improvement in accuracy over simply using the 2006 numbers as a baseline. The second ranking looks at each player and gives 14 points for the closest projection down to 1 point for the worst.
IMPROVEMENT VERSUS BASELINE
1 COLTON INDEX 23.81%
2 CONSENSUS PROJECTIONS 21.22%
3 ROTOFREAK 17.46%
4 ESPN/TMR 14.69%
5 NBA.COM 13.69%
6 FANTASY SPORTS CENTRAL 13.02%
7 FANTASY HOOPS REALM 11.71%
8 HOOPSKLYCE 11.48%
9 BASKETBALL MONSTER 10.13%
10 ROTOWORLD 9.09%
11 ROTOWIRE/YAHOO 7.10%
12 CBS SPORTS 3.99%
13 2006 BASELINE 0.00%
14 FANTASY LOUNGE -30.21%
POINTS-BASED
1 COLTON INDEX 2071
2 CONSENSUS PROJECTIONS 2053
3 ESPN/TMR 1848
4 ROTOFREAK 1822
5 BASKETBALL MONSTER 1678
6 FANTASY SPORTS CENTRAL 1657
7 HOOPSKLYCE 1646
8 NBA.COM 1643
9 ROTOWORLD 1570
10 FANTASY HOOPS REALM 1565
11 CBS SPORTS 1540
12 2006 BASELINE 1513
12 ROTOWIRE 1465
14 FANTASY LOUNGE 1313
posted by Jim Colton @ 9:45 PM,
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Trading Season Officially Open
Monday, December 10, 2007
I guess it must take about five weeks for the dust to settle in fantasy basketball. It seems like all of a sudden somebody flipped a switch and turned on the trade button. The deals have been flying fast and furious recently. I made a total of 20 deals for Week 6 and have another 15 either set for Week 7 and pending for Week 8. For the season, I've made a total of 59 trades. Of course, the number would've been more if it weren't for a few silly CBS vetoes...but more on that in a minute.
I guess the open trading season timing makes sense. After about 15 games, the numbers become real. Guys that have emerged like Chris Paul, Manu Ginobili, Andrei Kirilenko and Hedo Turkoglu look like safe bets to perform much higher than where they were drafted. Guys like Kirk Hinrich, Zach Randolph, Dirk Nowitzki and Pau Gasol have owners wishing they had picked someone else. So it follows that the fantasy teams have become real as well. The good teams have emerged. Other teams are officially in panic mode. And category strengths and weaknesses have emerged. Of course, all of this creates trade opportunities.
I'm not breaking any new ground on telling you to buy low and sell high. For the week 6 deals, I was selling Stephen Jackson left and right. Last week, I was buying Dirk Nowitzki. One of the nice things about having so many teams is I keep tabs on the general pulse of the fantasy hoops market. I can test out certain deals to see what the going rate is, and when I see some trend emerging, I can try to capitalize across the board. For example, last week I managed to trade Josh Howard for Jason Kidd. I didn't even expect this one to get accepted, but when it did, it got me thinking. Who else might be willing to give me a 2nd rounder for Josh Howard? I own him on 13 teams. After his 47-point performance the other night, I blanketed the fantasy leagues with trade offers.
The other nice thing about having so many teams, is you can be buyers and sellers of the same guy, depending on the specific team's needs. Howard, Andrei Kirilenko and Dirk Nowitzki are examples of guys that I have both bought and sold recently. Essentially it's like trading with myself, swapping the player on a team where he's not needed for another one of my teams that could really use him. If only it were that easy.
I've also noticed that trading seems to create more trading. Some owners care about maintaining balance. I don't mind if a deal causes my team to be temporarily out-of-whack. In fact, I welcome it. I'm confident that I can sort it out later. For example, last week I traded Nowitzki for Dwyane Wade in one league, a nice deal but one that left me with only three startable forwards (you have to start at least 4). Well a couple days later I traded Ronnie Brewer for Danny Granger (pending CBS approval). Dirk/Brewer for Wade/Granger. Not bad.
Improving your team incrementally is a good way to get a middle-of-the-road team back into title contention. Go ahead and take a risk and throw your team out of whack. Sometimes that's what it takes to get a deal done. You've still got the rest of the season to sort it out.
The whole reason that blogs exist is not to provide information, but to provide the author the sense that someone actually cares for what they have to say. I'll take it a step further and assume that you actually care about the deals that I've made. So I'll post the accepted deals here on a weekly basis. It's hard to evaluate without the context of the teams, but I'd love to hear your comments. If nothing else, you can get a chuckle over the perfectly fair deals vetoed by CBS Ron.
Trades Effective Week 6
SP03: Williams,Louis for Childress,Josh
SP05: Jackson,Stephen for Maggette,Corey
SP10: Jefferson,Richard for Smith,Josh
SP10: Howard,Josh and Jackson,Stephen for Garnett,Kevin
SP13: Aldridge,Lamarcus, Dalembert,Samuel and Johnson,Joe for Marion,Shawn and Williams,Maurice
SP18: Aldridge,Lamarcus for Jefferson,Richard
SP22: Turkoglu,Hedo for Howard,Josh
SP23: Durant,Kevin for Chandler,Tyson and Dunleavy,Mike
SP27: Garnett,Kevin and Childress,Josh for Butler,Caron and Nash, Steve
SP28: Pierce,Paul for Billups,Chauncey
SP35: Jackson,Stephen and Daniels,Antonio for Allen,Ray
SP44: Jackson,Stephen and Barbosa,Leandro for Paul,Chris
SP45: Jamison,Antawn for Pierce,Paul
SP45: Pierce,Paul for Billups,Chauncey
SP46: Wade,Dwyane for Nash,Steve
SP48: Camby,Marcus, Deng,Luol and Richardson,Jason for Garnett,Kevin and Ellis,Monta
SP51: Roy,Brandon for Kirilenko,Andrei
SP51: Jefferson,Al and Gay,Rudy for Marion,Shawn
SP51: Harris,Devin and Wilcox,Chris for Gordon,Ben and Odom,Lamar
Comments: Turkoglu for Howard was a major steal, especially because Orlando had played two more games that everyone else through the first five weeks. Might not seem like a big deal, but I'll take 65 games from Josh Howard over 63 from TurkeyGlue anyday.
Trades Effective Week 7:
SP03: Nowitzki,Dirk for Wade,Dwyane
SP04: Battier,Shane for Rondo,Rajon
SP09: Aldridge,Lamarcus and Miller,Mike for Nowitzki,Dirk
SP11: Aldridge,Lamarcus and Jackson,Stephen for Nowitzki,Dirk
SP12: Battier,Shane for Bynum,Andrew
SP23: Davis,Ricky for Terry,Jason
SP25: Artest,Ron for Jefferson,Al
SP39: Kirilenko,Andrei and Aldridge,Lamarcus for Lewis,Rashard and Felton,Raymond
SP40: Howard,Josh for Kidd,Jason
SP47: Randolph,Zach, Durant,Kevin and Turkoglu,Hedo for Boozer,Carlos, Gordon,Ben and Azubuike,Kelenna
SP50: Roy,Brandon for Howard,Josh
Trades Pending Week 8:
SP03: Ronnie,Brewer for Granger,Danny
SP24: Kirilenko,Andrei for Billups,Chauncey
SP24: Smith,Josh for Nowitzki,Dirk
SP38: Dalembert,Samuel for Ford,T.J.
Comments: My Dirk deals created quite an uproar in each league, as people were outraged about me landing a first rounder for a couple mid-rounders. One guy in particular has made it his strategy to try to rally others against my deals because he knows that I'll likely end up on top. If this is your main strategy for winning fantasy leagues, then you probably shouldn't be playing. I particularly enjoy the two pending deals in SP24. Most owners would avoid drafting Josh Smith, Andrei Kirilenko AND Marcus Camby, but I knew I would be able to make deals along the way to balance it out. Billups and Dirk is not a bad return. I hope they both get approved, but with CBS you might as well flip a coin. Although it is very likely that Josh Smith will outperform Dirk this season, because of my lead in blocks it's a great deal for me. What's up with Dirk this year anyways?
Vetoed Deals Week 6
SP07: Turkoglu,Hedo and Wallace,Gerald for Jefferson,Al and Williams,Maurice
SP10: Kirilenko,Andrei and Wallace,Rasheed for Duncan,Tim and Odom,Lamar
SP10: Williams,Louis for Arenas,Gilbert
SP39: Jackson,Stephen and Gooden,Drew for Allen,Ray
Vetoed Deals Week 7
SP08: Martin,Kevin, Ellis,Monta and Bargnani,Andrea for Bryant,Kobe
SP29: Iguodala,Andre, Ellis,Monta and Gibson,Daniel for Wade,Dwyane, Odom,Lamar and Smith,J.R.
SP03: Moon,Jamario for Bargnani,Andrea
Comments: In general you should be able to trade a 20th ranked guy (Kirilenko) and 50th ranked guy (Wallace) for the 23rd ranked guy (Duncan) and 107th ranked guy (Odom). But according to Ron, I was getting the better player in each instance. And in the Jackson/Allen deal, apparently I was giving up too much for Allen, when the reason it was voted against was likely for the opposite reason. My team had zero use for Gooden. Finally, CBS has this backwards rule that they kill all deals with injured players, hence the Arenas one on this list. The result of this is it hurts the guy who owns the injured player because they can't get any value for them. The guy ended up dumping Arenas and I picked him up off the waiver wire, two events that never should've had to happen.
Overall, my teams are performing well. I'm currently winning only 15 of my 52 leagues, but I'm on a steady upward trajectory and expect to be at 30-35 by season's end. Week 6 was my best week yet...my total fantasy contribution was 19.8% above the average team (an average week for me is around 10-11%), my best week yet. I gained an average of 2 1/2 pts in the standing across the board. I hope the trend continues as these deals start to bear fruit.
PROJECTION UPDATE Although I couldn't have been more wrong about guys like Richard Jefferson, Chris Kaman and Walter Herrmann, my projections are holding up very well against the competition. In fact, it appears that the only real competition is the combined consensus picks. Here are the results after Week 6. Recall that the first ranking measures the improvement in accuracy over simply using the 2006 numbers as a baseline. The second ranking looks at each player and gives 14 points for the closest projection down to 1 point for the worst. IMPROVEMENT VERSUS BASELINE
1 COLTON INDEX 23.16%
2 CONSENSUS PROJECTIONS 20.65%
3 ROTOFREAK 16.62%
4 ESPN/TMR 15.18%
5 NBA.COM 14.05%
6 FANTASY SPORTS CENTRAL 13.59%
7 HOOPSKLYCE 12.18%
8 BASKETBALL MONSTER 11.78%
9 FANTASY HOOPS REALM 11.23%
10 ROTOWORLD 7.67%
11 ROTOWIRE/YAHOO 7.22%
12 CBS SPORTS 5.62%
13 2006 BASELINE 0.00%
14 FANTASY LOUNGE -26.14%
POINTS-BASED
1 COLTON INDEX 2043
2 CONSENSUS PROJECTIONS 2030
3 ESPN/TMR 1802
4 ROTOFREAK 1784
5 BASKETBALL MONSTER 1677
6 HOOPSKLYCE 1633
6 FANTASY SPORTS CENTRAL 1626
8 NBA.COM 1606
9 FANTASY HOOPS REALM 1560
10 ROTOWORLD 1552
11 2006 BASELINE 1522
12 ROTOWIRE 1521
13 CBS SPORTS 1520
14 FANTASY LOUNGE 1298
posted by Jim Colton @ 11:36 AM,
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The Antonio Daniels Sweepstakes
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Never has a 7.9 point, 3.4 assist guy felt so wanted.
Around 5 pm last Wednesday, if you listened closely you may have heard the pitter-patter of fantasy owners on their computers scrambling to pick up Daniels after news broke that Gilbert Arenas was going to be out for three months. The sound may have been drowned out by the collective groan of Arenas owners who saw their fantasy hopes go down the drain with one balky knee.
The timing of the news was unique, as it came out late in the afternoon right before the Thanksgiving holiday. Many owners probably left for the weekend and/or started their travel plans and probably missed out on Daniels completely. I found out about the injury right as I was shutting down my computer at work. I had a train to catch and dinner plans with my family. A giant sausage and pepperoni calzone waited with my name on it. I couldn't stick around at work and make the necessary roster moves (not that I'd ever consider making fantasy basketball transactions at work anyways).
Good thing I bought this iPhone. I'd have to make my moves on the train, so I ran to the train station got situated and started rifling through my fantasy teams. Managing 52 teams on an EDGE connection is not something I'd want to to everyday, but I managed to get through each roster in about 30 minutes, finishing seconds before entering Glen Ellyn where the EDGE always seems to go dead (why is that?). The slow connection probably cost me Daniels on a few squads, but I landed him on 12 of my 52 teams. If I had waited another hour, I wouldve missed out completely. In a span of one hour, Daniels went from being owned in 10 of my leagues to all 52.
As far as Arenas goes, I owned him on five teams, not tremendously overexposed to him. I wasn't very bullish on him coming into the season, but if I had the 5th-7th pick and he was around, he was the pick. On at lease three of those teams, I probably still have a chance at winning despite losing my first round choice for three months.
One of those teams, I actually had agreed to trade him for Amare Stoudemire the day before the news broke. The Amare owner chastised the other owners for initially voting against the deal. He was singing a different tune the next day. Eventually the deal went to CBS Ron and was shot down as they have an unwritten rule that they kill any deal that comes to them with injured players, even if those player's weren't hurt when the trade was made.
The moral of the story is that injuries always create opportunities. The Wizards still have to put five guys out on the court. They are still going to score around 100 points a game. There may be only one Gilbert Arenas, but most of his fantasy value will be replaced somewhere else on his team, especially because Arenas is not really known as one of those guys who makes everyone on the floor better. Daniels stands to benefit most, but Caron Butler, Antawn Jamison and Andray Blatche will reap some of the benefit as well.
The Anti-Contract Year
One well-known fantasy strategy is to target guys who are in their last year of their contracts (see Vince Carter last year) while avoiding guys who just signed mega-contracts in the offseason (see Vince Carter this year). The phenomenon seems to have held up well in the past.
Well, there's a new twist to the old theory this season. Third-year players who failed to sign a cibtract extension, making them restricted free agents at the end of the year. Call it the 'Man, I just passed on 50 million. What was I thinking?' contract year. Unlike the traditional positive impact, this type of contract year seems to be a detriment.
Exhibits A-D: Andre Iguodala, Ben Gordon, Luol Deng and Emeka Okafor. Each passed on deals of $45 million or more at the 11th hour and now have the pressure of trying to prove that they are worth all that and more on the free market. So far, it looks like each guy is crumbling under the pressure. Iguodala seems to be taking this 'AI2' thing seriously, taking on some Iverson-inspired grumbling to the media. How long until 'we're talking about practice'? Gordon and Deng look lost out there, and its killing the Bulls (just how bad are the Bulls? Deny is their top fantasy player this year and he ranks 91st overall. The SUns and Mavs have five guys each that rank ahead of Chicago'a best fantasy player). At least Deng has a back injury as an excuse. Gordon wanted max money! I guess we shouldn't be surprised at his level of delusionment considering he's holding off on committing to play for England in the 2012 because he wants to be considered for the US team. I'm sure he even brought it up in his contract negotiations. 'of course I deserve 15 mill a year...you're looking at a future Dream Teamer!'
Contrast these guys with Jameer Nelson and Al Jefferson, two guys who probably left money on the table for the safety and security of signing an extension now. Both guys are playing pretty well so far. Neither guy wanted that giant monkey on their back.
Can these anti-contract year guys turn it around? For the most part, I think so. They may not get to the level of where they were drafted, but could be good buy low candidates right now. The only guy I'd feel uncomfortable targeting is Gordon.
Spencers Update
Collectively, my 52 teams had a rough week in Week 4. Usually I run about 10-15 percent above the average team in terms of overall fantasy production. For week 4, I churned out a paltry 3.5% above the average team. I have Gerald Wallace, Lamar Odom and Ray Allen to thank for that. Overall I think I'm in good shape, but late-round staples Shane Battier, David Lee and Boris Diaw are barely roster-worthy, and the Tyrus Thomas experiment was a complete disaster.
Thankfully, I've managed to improve my teams incrementally through a flurry of trading activity. I've made 40+ trades so far this season, when I get a chance I'll find a place to post and track all my deals on the blog. On one team, I traded Kevin Durant for Richard Jefferson and then flipped Jefferson for Josh Smith. KD for Josh Smith...not too shabby.
The trade voting process at CBS is being abused, and the leagues are already getting ugly. Four weeks in and nearly every deal is getting 4+ votes to go to the commish (where anything can happen). When perfectly deals like Marion for Yao, David West for Brandon Roy are getting 4+ votes, you know you have a problem. CBS is helping matters by failing to dig a little deeper to understand the motives behind the deal, thus killing a large number of fair trades.
In one league, I had Iguodala/Rudy Gay for Kevin Garnett lined up. Killed by CBS. Second try: Ron Artest/Gay for Garnett. Killed by CBS. Of course, these deals let everyone know that the guy was willing to deal KG. I made a separate deal to turn Okafor into Pau Gasol, then had an agreement to deal Gasol/Gay for Garnett. No way that deal doesn't get approved. Well, the Okafor/Gasol deal got the 4+ votes and still sitting out there in limbo. In the meantime, someone else swoops in with Butler/Josh Howard for KG and it goes through. I identify the other guy's needs, make the deal and come up empty handed. Gotta love CBS.
posted by Jim Colton @ 10:06 AM,
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The Worst Three Weeks of My Life
Monday, November 19, 2007
The NBA season is already one-eighth in the books. Three weeks down, 21 to go. Early surprises (Richard Jefferson, Manu Ginobili) and busts (Mehmet Okur, Kirk Hinrich) have gone from 'beginning of the season flukes' to 'sustainable trend'. The numbers are quickly becoming more and more real.
My fantasy squads are actually off to a very good start. Guys that I have weighted heavily like Kevin Garnett, Chris Paul, Ginobili and Andrei Kirilenko are performing well. I'm ahead of the pace compared to last season after three weeks. Right now, I'm projecting 35-42 wins out of 52 teams.
So why the gloomy title to this blog post? Well, the last three weeks have been marred by one of my squads and one player in particular. Dwight Howard. Owning Howard has been a nightmare.
Howard had been going very, very early in nearly all of my CBS drafts. You could bank on him going anywhere from 5th-8th, which was great news for me if I had a late pick because someone like Shawn Marion would usually slip through the cracks. But after a while I began to wonder if I was missing the boat on this guy. I had him about 17th-18th on my draft board, but there was zero chance he'd ever last that long. He looked good in the preseason, and there was some rumored video of his improved free-throw shooting on youtube. Indeed, if he could shoot 80% from the line, he'd be one of the top three fantasy players in the NBA. I'm sure most owners would be thrilled with just 72%.
Generally when I'm drafting I look at both my projected stars and the players average draft position. I usually try to avoid picking guys before their ADP. On one particular team, I had the 12th pick and took Dwyane Wade first. Usually when I had the last pick ( and I did in 15 out if 52 teams...I blame the astronomical odds on CBS Ron), I'd go with the Wade plus the best center of the three-headed Yao/Amare/Gasol monster. But all three of those guys were taken in the first 11 and there were no major surprises in the first round. So it came down to picking Paul or Howard. Yes, I'm still kicking myself.
I figured I'd either surround him with strong free throw shooters or just pick him purely for trade value. Ray Allen and Caron Butler usually made it to the 36th pick. But it didn't happen. I got Joe Johnson 36, Josh Howard 37.
So I'd have to try the trade route. Strangely, there were no logical trade partners. I tried offering him up every which way but Kevin Bacon, but to no avail. The guy with Amare was asking way too much, even with Amare's knee issues. The guy with Yao actually has a strong enough FT team to take on Howard and still be first in FTP, but he's my main competition for the team and I'd be helping him to a point where I probably couldn't catch him.
By all accounts, Howard is having a very good season. He's averaging 24.1 pts, 14.5 rebounds, shooting 58.6% from the field. That's great stuff. But then there's the free-throws...12.5 attempts per game at 63.0%. That's a team killer.
So after three weeks, I stand in fourth place in this league with zero chance of winning as long as Howard is on my squad. Dead Team Walking! It's killing me having a team that's already out of it.
I'm convinced that unless you have the perfect complementary squad, you just can't win in roto with Howard. Surveying my 52-team landscape, there are actually 4 teams that own him and are actually leading after 3 weeks, but I'm not projecting any of them to finish the season at the top. Most of these teams are winning in spite of him, generally flooded with 2-3 draft day steals in the pool of Ginobili, Jefferson, Chris Kaman, Josh Smith, Kevin Martin, Hedo Turkoglu. One team is dead last in FT and at or near the top in every other category. One team is actually 3rd in FTP. I don't expect that to last.
Contrast that with Yao Ming owners, who got Yao on average about 3-4 slots after Howard in the draft. 10 out of 52 teams with Yao are winning their respective leagues. The average Yao team is 8 points higher in the standings than the average Howard team.
I'm happy to report that after a lot of work, I was able to finally deal Dwight Howard, ending this three-week misery. I traded Howard along with Durant and Joe Johnson for Kobe Bryant, Marcus Camby and Brendan Haywood (who I will likely dump). I actually had Camby ranked ahead of Howard so essentially it's a decision of Joe Johnson and Kevin Durant for Kobe, which is a no brainer. The deal isn't a major steal, but I feel liberated. I'm projecting to gain 8 pts in the standings with this deal. Not quite in first yet, but relevant again.
Of course, now I have to deal with owning Marcus Camby now, but I'll take that headache over owning Dwight Howard and literally having no chance of winning.
PROJECTION UPDATE
It's probably way too early to look at how well those preseason projections are doing, but I have the numbers and it's relatively easy to do, so let's the take a look for the heck of it. It's a marathon, but let's take a look at how the competitors are doing after the first 3 miles.
I measure the projections based on their 'sum of squared errors' across the eight-categories and rank order them in two different ways. First I measure the average improvement versus the baseline of the previous year's per game averages (rookies excluded). Then I assign points for each projection across a pool of 232 players (216 initially as I set a minimum number of games cut-off at 4), the projection with the closest SSE gets 14 pts, the one with the worst projections gets 1 point.
Here are the early results.
IMPROVEMENT VERSUS BASELINE
1 COLTON INDEX 19.69%
2 CONSENSUS PROJECTIONS 18.15%
3 ROTOFREAK 15.56%
4 FANTASY SPORTS CENTRAL 13.68%
5 ESPN/TMR 13.46%
6 HOOPSKLYCE 12.58%
7 FANTASY HOOPS REALM 12.47%
8 BASKETBALL MONSTER 12.35%
9 NBA.COM 12.08%
10 ROTOWIRE/YAHOO 10.05%
11 ROTOWORLD 7.19%
12 CBS SPORTS 6.54%
13 2006 BASELINE 0.00%
14 FANTASY LOUNGE -17.80%
POINTS-BASED
1T COLTON INDEX 1892
1T CONSENSUS PROJECTIONS 1892
3 ESPN/TMR 1703
4 ROTOFREAK 1630
5 NBA.COM 1606
6 FANTASY SPORTS CENTRAL 1599
7 HOOPSKLYCE 1597
8 BASKETBALL MONSTER 1578
9 ROTOWIRE 1515
10 FANTASY HOOPS REALM 1490
11 ROTOWORLD 1459
12 2006 BASELINE 1444
13 CBS SPORTS 1421
14 FANTASY LOUNGE 1321
As expected, the combined consensus projections look like they will be a formidable (and perhaps the only formidable) projection opponent. And CBS is taking up its customary spot at the bottom of the food chain. At least it has some company down there with newcomer Fantasy Lounge (btw, don't mistakenly type in fantasylounge.com at work).
The boobie prize for worst single projection has to go to Fantasy Lounge for its projection of Chris Bosh. They projected 24.8 pts, 11.2 rebounds with an astonishing 57.7% FGP and 64.6% FTP. I had to go back and double check it to make sure that was in fact what they were projecting. Those projected shooting percentages are way off the reservation. You don't need to be a stats major to know that the SSE is going to be high when your actual totals are 16.2/6.9/40.2%/89.3%. I know Bosh has had a very strange start to his season, but I don't think we'll see anything approaching the numbers that Fantasy Lounge projected in this instance.
posted by Jim Colton @ 10:55 AM,
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The Author:
Jim Colton
Jim lives in Wheaton, IL and when he's not rooting for the Fighting Illini, playing golf, thinking about golf, or masterminding fantasy basketball trades, he has a day job as a banker in Chicago.
About This Blog:
This blog is dedicated to NBA Fantasy Hoops and is home to the Colton Index NBA projections, widely consider among the best stat projections on the Internet.
Contact Me:
jcolton31@gmail.com
