GMTR live draft - Anything is Possible (but not always justifiable)

Somehow, I achieved entry into the Give Me The Rock readers league (12 team, 9-cat, H2H), and I would have gotten away with it if it weren't for those meddling Turkish kids! (Please do not click link - long story short, I was writing for Full Court Press Fantasy Basketball, it got hacked by Turks, and I'm just now up to writing again.) Anyway, the draft was Tuesday night I got pick #9, and I thought I'd give all y'all a little insight to one of the most mediocre minds in fantasy basketball.

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Round the 1st: Top 4 goes as expected. This year, drafts start at pick 5. In this one, #5 went with Shawn Marion. Color me nonplused (or mauve), but I'm not on the Marion train this year. I can't explain it, I just don't feel it. Anyway, better opportunity for me to get someone I liked here, Nowitzki, Garnett, or Wade (I'd say Brand, but at worst he would be off the board by Nels at #8). I kinda was leaning Wade, but then Brand, Nowitzki, and Wade went off 6-7-8. Well, that pretty much locked me into Kevin Garnett. All those years I wanted KG, I finally get him and it's at number 9. Yay. I still like KG here, and I think his stats will continue from last year since Boston made no significant roster upgrades since July (my apologies, O'Bryant family).

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Well, that left me with 5 guys who I would look for at pick #16, which was 6 picks away. None of those five were PG's, and I had to figure a couple of those would go off the board. I liked Butler (pts, steals, FT%), Jefferson (pts, rebs, blks, FG%), Bosh (pts, rebs, FG%, FT%), Boozer (pts, rebs, FG%), and Granger (all-around, would be a SG in a big-leaning lineup). Well, most of them came off the board - Butler: 10, Bosh: 12, Jefferson: 13, Granger: 15. I guess that left ...

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Round the 2nd: Carlos Boozer. I will say Josh Smith was a possibility. But now that Yahoo! took away his SG eligibility (why wait until now?), it's just not the same anymore. You changed, J-Smoove. Okay, so now I got a couple of PFs, one with C eligibility. I think I'm leaning biggish, although without the blocks and more points. We'll see how this plays out. The last time I drafted Boozer, he was out for 3/4 of the year. Stay healthy, guy who is from land where you can see Russia from your front porch.

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Round the 3rd: Okay, 16 picks until mine, I had to figure who would go off the board. I'm thinking the next level of PG's (Billups, Davis, Nash, Calderon); a couple more bigs (West, Duncan); interesting PF's (Lewis, Smith), gunning SG's (Richardson, Martin). I figured someone would grab Dwight Howard; I had no interest. Paul Pierce might be available, but I really had no interest in him since I had Garnett (Boston's fantasy playoff schedule is brutal, my little wishful thinking). I still don't see how the Lakers roster will shake down, so I'll leave Gasol and Bynum for someone else. Andre Iguodala was a possibility, helping me to shore up steals, decent percentages. And I'm a hair higher on Carmelo this year than in previous years, as I like the percentages and there should be more boards available since the Nuggets have less guys on the team who got UMass put on probation. They guy I really want is ...

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J-J-J-Joe Johnson PG eligibility please Mr. Yang? Thank you. I'll just throw out his post Bibby numbers: Pts - 23.2, 3's - 2.5, rebs - 4.6, asts - 6.6, stls - 1.2, FG% - 47.5%, FT% - 80.3%, TO's - 2.8. 4.6 rpg is a nice little figure for a bigball team at PG. I've got my 3's guy, and FT% won't be hurt. It's a shame JJ's game is not more geared to getting to the line, like say a Kevin Martin. So now I've got 2 PF's and a PG that fits my style. Are you happy, Talented Mr. Roto(ol)? And now that I had Johnson, I focused on a guy who would play nice with him.

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Round the 4th: Hedo Turkoglu SG/SF eligible - at nearly 6 rpg, he's a SG in my biggish lineup. 2 threes a game - keep on chuckin'. I'm a little concerned about the TO's, that's not part of the overall plan. If you're going to pass it this year, Hedo, dish it to Pietrus, he'll probably be open. So right now, I've got a biggish team that can score, shoot pretty well with the clock on or off, shoot some 3's and no huge injury risks. I can play with that.

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Round the 5th: I am now in my third year of being on the David Lee love train. Please keep rebounding, please keep being efficient, if you can steal a ball or 2 a night, that would be great, but don't get into foul trouble so you lose PT to Eddy Curry (snicker). Please do all the little things that Zach Randolph doesn't do (that's a lot of little things). And please Coach D, play him 30+ a night. I don't ask much. I don't think pick #57 is too high for Lee. I knew I wanted him, and I think he's a late 50's to 60's value. The ceiling isn't too much higher, but we shall see this year with the Knicks as he plays for his pre RFA year. Anyway, he's a PF/C and he'll be my 1st or 2nd center. Whee!

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Round the 6th: Pick #64, and I could have went a few ways. In my mind, I wanted another scorer, and there aren't a whole heck of a lot left in this realm. Josh Howard was high in my queue, and his 7 rpg would have been great in my G spot (focus! get your head out of the gutter!). Alas, he went in pick #63. Okay, so what do I like? Points, rebounding for a guard eligible, good FT% at a high volume. Well, that's spelled Corey Maggette. He'll have plenty of opportunities to score and shoot free throws in the city by the city by the bay. Maybe he can do it from a better percentage from the field than Captain Jax. Wouldn't that be nice?

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Round the 7th and beyond: Okay, here's where I start to get goofy. It's getting to be late in the 7th round, 80 or so guys off the board. I was hoping on Horford, Chandler, even Deng in my spot. All gone in the 7th. One guy was hanging around in my queue, taunting me. 2009 Kia Motors ROTY, Michael Beasley. I really couldn't tell you what Pam's distant cousin will do this year. He'll be on the court so he should do something, and hopefully not be early last season Durant-esque. In the next round, I think I caught the fever, and the only prescription was more rookie - OJ Mayo to be exact. Right about this time, I think I'm losin' it, and not the Tom Cruise / Shelley Long tour de force. Round 9, I went to my lower-middle class version of David Lee, Nick Collison. Maybe he can be not so much of a stiff. And good God, did I draft Al Thornton? He could be seeing the bench in the Clips 2 game weeks and maybe even their 3 game weeks.

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Rounds 11-13, the bench rounds, your flier picks. I opened up another packet, got a few cups of sugar, some water and ice, stirred until dissolved, then swigged a couple of quarts of the rookie Kool-Aid: Marc Gasol, Rudy Fernandez, and Brook Lopez. I wouldn't have any problem dropping a single one of them yet, but they all intrigue me. Gasol and Lopez could be interesting pieces to deal as November turns into December, especially if they are getting burn and can block the ball. Since I don't really have a blocking team, I wouldn't mind dishing one or both if they can average over 1.5 a night.

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I'll try to throw up more things over the course of the year, but best of luck to the other 11 dudes in this league.