Basketball Monster - a look at the monster within

If you're like me, and you've been playing fantasy hoops for the last few years, you've needed some way to rank players pre- and post-draft, plus you've probably needed to project how players will perform over the course of a week or stretch of weeks. ESPN, Yahoo, CBS Sportsline, etc. all have their own ranking systems that can work, but what about for your specific league - say you use no turnovers and use offensive rebounding and 3 point percentages? You are going to be up some sort of creek if you try to use Yahoo's O-Rank. And how do you factor in Jose Calderon's 4 game week vs. Chris Paul's 2 game week? The answer is simple - you pony up and go to Basketball Monster.

I decided to unleash my crack investigative team (me and my gmail account) to find out about the man behind the data at Basketball Monster. That man is Ken Slight, an intrepid software engineer / website developer who resides in Milwaukee, making Brandon Jennings the second biggest fantasy star in the Milwaukee area (maybe third behind Boo-Boo Kitty). Recently, I had an email exchange with the guy who probably helped you decide a couple of years ago, "Hmm, Udonis Haslem gives me rebounds and FG%, Miami plays 4 games this week, dammit, I'm picking him up off waivers!" Here is said commentary, and I hope it gives some insight into my favorite fantasy basketball website to hit for data.

Tales of 9 Cats: How did the site get started?

Basketball Monster: The site started in 2002 as a way of displaying a spreadsheet of rankings on a website. At the time, I was a software developer working on backend database code, and I wanted to try something a little more exciting so this was my introduction to website programming.

To9C: Is the Monster a solo project, or do you have a team to help you?

BM: Yes, the site is a solo project.

To9C: How has BM improved since the beginning (basketball and/or baseball)?

BM: The site began as a read-only website, where rankings were displayed for both 8-cat and 9-cat leagues. It became a real website when it changed from a read-only website to a site you could enter your settings and get customized results. Over the past few years, a few tools have been added and the projection process has improved. This season, the website has been rewritten and major (I think at least) improvements will occur over the next few months. For baseball, a new website was created last season, and projections were introduced. For next season, many of the improvements planned for basketball, will be included in the baseball site.

To9C: What is new this year?

BM: Adding the new website allows for many new changes this season. For now, it contains many of the tools from the old website, but over the next couple of months, new features will be added. The goal of the changes is to involve the users more and turn it into an interactive website rather than an output-only website. Some ideas include contests for predicting player performance and predicting when injured players will return. Hopefully this will provide some entertainment and some useful information too.

To9C: How much input to you get from reader/users?

BM: Readers and users supply most of their comments during the preseason and the beginning of the season. Much of the site is a result of user input, and their thoughts are always welcome. The users of the site tend to be pretty intelligent so they’re easy to deal with.

To9C: Are you active in fantasy leagues? If so, are you any good?

BM: I try to play one league in Yahoo!, CBS, and ESPN so I can keep track of player positions. If invited, I’ll usually play in other leagues too. For most leagues, I think I compete pretty well, and if injuries or one-sided trades don’t throw the league off, I have a decent shot.

To9C: Fantasy basketball is my personal favorite, but it's at best third behind the juggernaut football and the granddaddy baseball. Do you see fantasy hoops ever moving up, or is there another sport ready to overtake basketball, like hockey, NASCAR, or golf?

BM: I’m guessing basketball remains third for a while. I think Fantasy Football is popular because it’s so easy to play and requires little commitment. Baseball attracts statistics-type people so it’s a good fit for fantasy. I feel the majority of basketball fans have little interest in Fantasy Basketball and are more a fan of watching the sport.

To9C: Your analysis in hoops covers a variety of stats besides the basic 8 or 9. Are there any new stats on the horizon, such as +/- which has shown up in box scores within the last couple of years?

BM: There are no new stats planned, but users suggest some news ones which are usually based off of existing stats.

To9C: Are your rankings and projections purely statistics/numbers driven? That is, can and do non-statistical factors come into play? For instance, some hoops leagues require that 2 centers start; position scarcity becomes a factor. Is that something a user has to take into account separate from your site? (Of course, one could rank just the centers using your position filter.)

BM: The rankings are based on statistics only, and the projections are based on statistics and subjective input. The projected “minutes per game” is the most subjective number, and the hardest to predict. Other stats are changed based on the player’s projected role on their team. Since everyone has their own opinion of how players will perform, I want to make it as easy as possible for users to customize the players. Then by rating the actual results against the user’s predicted results, I can generate a list of users with a proven track record. Other users can then view those opinions and hopefully use that for their own benefit. This allows users to get opinions other than mine which will likely produce better results. As far as position rankings, for now, there are no adjustments based on positions, but I plan on adding an active positions setting and then allowing users to show rankings based on position scarcity.

To9C: I know people who use your site just for trade analysis alone. Frankly, that's what sets your site apart from any other analysis site - we'd all be stuck using Yahoo's O-Rank if you didn't have it. Was there a "Doc Brown hitting his head on the sink and envisioning the flux capacitor" moment in creating the trade analyzer?

BM: I can’t recall if the trade analyzer came about because of a user suggestion or as a logical extension of the team analyzer. It was most likely from a user because I tend not to make trades anyway.

To9C: Are you a fan of a particular NBA team? Vishnu help you if you're a Bucks fan. (Note: Ken lives in the Milwaukee area.)

BM: Yes, I’m a Bucks fan. I am originally from Chicago so I grew up rooting for the Bulls, but living in Wisconsin for a while, I have switched to a mostly Bucks fan. It’s not too bad because it’s very easy to get cheap tickets to see some good teams.

To9C: I saw that Football Monster will be starting in 2010: a) how was that domain name still available? b) if you got 1 dollar for every time someone said to you, "Dude, you should totally do this for fantasy football", what would you be able to buy? c) because of the sheer magnitude of fantasy football players, will this be your main driver next year?

BM: a) When I purchased basketballmonster.com, I also purchased baseball and football monster. I’m pretty sure hockey was gone at the time, or I would have grabbed that too. b) I guess a few users have suggested football, but not too many actually. c) I don’t expect to make much money off the football site so it won’t be my main driver. I don’t see the football site working the same as the basketball or baseball since stats aren’t quite as useful at predicating results. I’ll try to create something different than other sites and try to make it entertaining for the users.

To9C: Do you have any examples of a player going through your numbers who surprised you, that made you think, "Huh, I thought Player X sucked, but here he is ranked 60th"?

BM: I can’t think of a major surprise, but I am a little surprised now at how useful Gallinari appears to be. (My note: this year’s BM projections came out around the middle of the GMTR Mock Draft, late October. Danilo Gallinari projected out astonishingly high, and his green numbers on BM kept taunting me to draft him. He eventually got taken in the 12th round and is now seriously outperforming that draft spot - current BM ranking in standard 9 cat league - 29).

To9C: What does the future hold for BM? Snappier colors? Video? A spot for the kids? More straightforward, simple to use analysis?

BM: The goal of the site it to make managing fantasy basketball teams successful, simple, and fun. To make teams more successful, the site needs to produce consistently great results. This means better projections and better tools to manipulate those projections. Making the site simpler means consolidating many of the tools into a more convenient format and providing interaction between the website and 3^rd party fantasy providers (ESPN, Yahoo!, CBS). Ideally, the website would tell users who to draft, who to pickup, and who to place in their lineup. If a person who cares nothing about basketball (my wife for example) could follow the advice of the website, and win their league, that would mean the website was a success. For me, there’s no end to what can be added to the website.

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Ken, thanks for taking the time for a li'l ol' blogger/player. Keep up the great work!