GMTR Mock Draft rounds 8+9

Marvin (Berry) and (Buddy) Love

So I'm at the point where I need a small forward to round out my roster. Technically, I don't really need one right now as I could start filling up the utilities, but if I wait too long, any small forward I have to start will start pulling in negatives, like, say a Richard Jefferson. Living in Atlanta, I like Marvin Williams. He's got a great mid-range jumper, is athletic enough to finish on the break, added the three pointer to his game last year, is a starter, and can pull in enough counting stats in a week to be dangerous. Plus, if any other Hawks starter goes down, he usually picks up the slack - he had 2 great games last year when Joe Johnson was out. I don't like that he's young and already has back problems. I heartily approve of the fact that he does a lot of things "good", but nothing "great". He will get to the line a lot (3rd most on the Hawks behind Johnson and Smith) and make more than 80% of them, which is nice. I've built a pretty good percentages team, so it's nice getting a PF that won't hurt me there. As I said in the draft blurb, it's a better roto pick than a head-to-head pick, but I really can't complain about getting him in round 8.

You know what else I like? Big white guys who can rebound and not miss a lot of shots. Kevin Love raises his hand and says, "Hey, that's me!" He rebounded a-plenty when Al Jefferson was out, and just before Big Al got hurt, he was getting his share of boards alongside Al. Love is going to get a double double this year - really it won't be too hard, because he can make 4 shots, 2 free throws, and find himself around 10 misses a night. It's what he does when not doing those things are going to be the key for him. Supposedly, he is a great passer - well let's see it! Jefferson can finish, pass it to him! We haven't seen the defense yet from him, and I'd be shocked if I see it this year. At this point in the draft, I wanted to collect guys who won't pull things I have off the table, so getting a good rebound guy with solid %'s (I'd like to see him shoot closer to 50% from the field) is what I wanted here. Plus he'll hold onto the ball - TO's are for suckas.

So examining my team on the Monster, I look to be horrible in points and threes (even with Ray Allen and Troy Murphy). I won't be able to make a serious dent in points because all of the scorers are off the board after 100 or so picks. Since it is a head-to-head league, I could get lucky if Boston and Indiana both play 4 games in a week (which they do 4 times, once in the playoffs). I'll need at least one more guy who can maybe pull in a couple of threes a night if I want to go ahead and try to back-door a win in threes. I am below average in assists. Again, with Chris Paul leading the way, I could back-door a win if he gets 60 assists in a week (3 or 4 games). With 4 picks left, I can gamble on a guy who might get assists, as I'll now have counterbalances to that guy's likely deficiencies in percentages and TO's. Right now, I have a great shooting team, both from the field and the line. I could now possibly handle a chucker who shoots 41%, or I can handle a center who shoots 60%, since I'm not too worried about the volume. I'm good in rebounding - that probably will be the easiest thing to improve, for me and for everyone else. Other counting stats are okay; here, I'll have to hope for good schedules in particular weeks.

Four picks left, we'll see how the other teams are shaping up.

Kaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhnnnn!

When everyone thinks of iconic sitcoms set in Minnesota, really only one comes to mind. What's that you say? Little show set in the third rated newsroom with a girl who had spunk? I hate spunk. No that show of shows was Coach. It had it all, depending on how you define "all". When you think about it, the Minnesota Timberwolves are a lot like that plucky ABC show that took place in Minnesota (and also at the end, Orlando, but there's no fun in that, is there?). I mean, when you think of sitcoms, do you really think of Coach? Have you heard anything from the guy who played Dauber since then? Well compare that to Mark Blount. Who was a better coach, Luther or Kevin McHale? Take your time on that one. The show was about lovable losers who gave us a lot of laughs (your laugh miles may vary) and eventually won a mythical championship. Maybe the Wolves can win something in a few years as well. Not now, don't rush things.

All things fantasy with the Wolves start with Al Jefferson. Dude can straight up 20 and 10, block it a li'l, and be a nice big man in your lineup at the end of the first round. Since he'll be at the end of round 1, you have your choice of coming back with a solid PG at the beginning of round 2, or a second big like Bosh. It's really going to make the fact you don't have a high draft number be all right. I'm going to say the knee is alright and he's ready to rock. Add to the fact that Kurt Rambis is going to push the pace this year, and you've got the makings of a decent team to follow fantasywise, just don't expect them to real world it.

So who else is fantasy worthy on the Wolves? Well, in standard leagues, it's probably only going to be Kevin Love. He says he wants to average a double double this year. See, it's nice to have goals. And I'm pretty sure he can actually do it. Doesn't mean you should draft him in a round you can express with one hand (maybe if you use your thumb and forefinger to make a seven, but you don't need to do that). If you're going to go with big men who score a little and rebound but don't steal, block, shoot 3's, or pass, you should go David Lee --> Luis Scola --> Kevin Love. You'll get all the decent percentages and low turnovers, so those guys aren't completely useless. They just need to fit in your overall strategy.

Hey, Ryan Gomes ain't so bad either. He'll be there in the late rounds of your draft, but don't pick him, save those spots for upside guys. He'll be the guy you pick up when the Wolves play a 4 game week, or if there is an injury to one of the above. If you've got a streamer in your league, he's most likely well aware of Mr. Gomes.

I like Ramon Sessions. I can see the lure of Johnny Flynn. I don't know if I like them splitting time in the backcourt, and if Minnesota ever wants to defend anyone, I can't see them on the court at the same time, so it will be a pure minute split. Feel free to draft Ramon late, and hold or drop depending on how the minutes and stats shake out.

Right now on Yahoo!, Ricky Rubio has an average draft position of 129.9. I'm going to say you don't draft him at #130. Call it a hunch.

Man, there really isn't much to this team after Big Al. But GM David Kahn has sent Minnesota up with a lot of expiring contracts. Some teams are going to find themselves out of it in February and come calling to Minny to bail them out. Really, the Twin Cities is not going to be a free agent destination, so I think they will trade to get some guys with contracts that go out a couple of years. I wouldn't be surprised if something happened with Golden State in the coming months and they just acquire draft picks like Oklahoma City. If anything happens before the trade deadline, Minnesota could be a team to watch after the All Star break.

GMTR Mock Draft Rounds 6+7

Round 4 - Ray
Round 5 - Nene
Round 6 - Andre
They rhyme! Really, that's all you can hope for in a fantasy draft. And I was unbelievably lucky, too. How many words in the English language rhyme with the "Ay" sound? Not many I believe, only slightly more than rhyme with orange and silver.

Round 6 may be my first truly questionable pick. I was at the point where I was looking at my team - I liked where I was going so far, a mix of big and small players anchored by Chris Paul who will cure what ails ya. Right now, there were 3 or 4 teams playing pure small ball strategy, and 2 to 3 teams with strong big leanings. I wanted picks in these 2 rounds that could counteract both types of teams. At this point in the draft, there had been 17 point guard eligible players picked (Yahoo league, so this includes Dwyane Wade and Brandon Roy). I knew that I needed a PG here who could give me assists. After the run on PG's at the end of round 2, I didn't get another PG to shore up assists. Anyone I get at 96/97 (rnds 8+9) would pull in more negatives than I wanted in fg% and/or TO's (think Raymond Felton). I had so far built a solid FG% and TO team, so I wanted that type of PG going forward to get me dimes.

Now in this draft, as a group we have been scared off by a lot of players forcing them further down from what you've been seeing as average draft positions elsewhere. Boozer, Camby, Pierce, Marion - plenty of people just don't want them. Part of this is because this league we're drafting in is a no move league; who we draft is on our roster for the entire year, so you want those 80 game/30 minutes per types. Now with Andre Miller, you'll get the 82 games - he's the league's ironman right now, and probably gets more tail than AC Green. But that's not important right now. I think a lot of dudes and dudettes are scared off by the Portland backcourt sitch, as Steve Blake is there, Roy gets serious minutes, and Rudy Fernandez will get his time too. Will Miller get the minutes he had last year on Philly? No. Will he get more than 24? Yes, and I see something in the 30-32 range, which should give him the opportunity for plenty of assists. His FG% is good for a PG, but that entails the fact he is not a huge 3 point shooter. His steal numbers are average at best, but he can get you the 3 or 4 steal night every once in a while. I left other PG options like Mario Chalmers and Russell Westbrook on the board, fully aware they wouldn't make it back around. I think this pick of Miller was safe, but not exactly game changing. We'll see how it goes.

Now to start off the seventh round, I wanted a good splash pick. Yes, Boozer and Camby are still on the board at this point. And good blocks guys will be off the board soon as teams move into the specialist picks. And there was one guy who I wanted to get so I could follow all year, Anthony Randolph. His last month of the season in 08-09 was incredible. With Brandan Wright going down, he should be the main man as power forward in Oakland. He got 1.2 blocks per game last year - that was in only 18 mpg. Think of the blockingness if his minutes double, which it could. Heck, he got 41-1/2 minutes in a freakin' preseason game last night! I want to see what he does outside tonight in Indian Hills - maybe some Rucker-esque slams and 3rd row putbacks. Barring injury, he's going to be a fun guy to watch, and if he blows up, he can give me top half of the draft value, which, of course, is how you win your leagues.

I'll also say that around the time of these picks is when Basketball Monster went live again for the 09-10 season. So perhaps I'll be overthinking the next few picks, paralyzing things by analyzing things. Don't worry, the numbers won't work out where I pick Sebastian Telfair.

I'll keep review picks I make through round 13. Head back to Give Me the Rock for more round analysis by Erik of GMTR and Points in the Paint fame. He's been so good on recapping that he's practically influencing future picks (not mine... well, maybe). We are witnessing fantasy observer effect, a veritable Schrodinger's Cat of fantasy hoops. Maybe something good can come out of it, and we get Heisenberg compensators to allow for the creation of transporters.

Where I examine the World Wide Leader...

You may not know about it since you might not be on their sites for fantasy hoops, but nba.com and ESPN have brought together their fantasy games into one platform. I have some experience with ESPN's fantasy site for hoops - it runs quite smoothly in drafting and league management and the ability to auction draft is sweet. I still don't like that position eligibility locks in once the season starts. Anyone who has read 82games knows that players oft play more than one position and sometimes, over the course of a season, players move positions due to injuries. I always liked this on Yahoo!, where sometimes a guy gets a position added after a few weeks and can really open up your roster, especially if you incorporate a big-ball or small-ball strategy. Really, it's a small complaint, and ESPN does just fine for many a fantasy player. And from what I've seen, they've opened it up a little so that some players are eligible for more than 1 position, more so than last year. Bully for them.

On the other side, I'm glad that nba.com has moved away from the fantasy side. They were brutal last year. First of all, they started late. Then they didn't have all they players. And then drafts kept screwing up. What should have been an hour long process took over 3 hours. Then it didn't count stats correctly the first 2 weeks. Maybe they fixed it, I don't know, because we ditched it then and there. It's a shame, because they had some things I liked, like free stat tracking, links to in-game box scores on nba.com (still nice, but I don't go out of my way to go to them now), and the chance to make multi-team trades. There is nothing like the satisfaction of pulling of a three team deal where everyone improves (but one team really doesn't and you just wanted to screw them). Their Stock Exchange they had the last couple of years was cool too, but that got real old after a while. Count me as one of the many who started it last October then gave it up by Thanksgiving.

But anyway, I want to look some more at ESPN. This year, they have built upon last year, where everything was revised, fresh, and responsive to what a lot of the people want (just that old SNL skit from the 80's or early 90's where Kevin Nealon and Dana Carvey were male strippers who shaved their pubes "for da people". I can't find it - please tell me someone else remembers this. And no, it's not the only SNL skit from that era I remember. What about Schmitt's Gay?) Now everything isn't so new, and they don't have to tout everything, it's just smoothly up and running. I like a lot of their league options, and leagues are very fungible for what you want. Really, it's 2009, it should be like that.

Since it's been up and running, they take it seriously. While there was not much content over the summer months, they've got their staff putting out product now. For instance, Josh Whitling has a great article up today about 9-cat (turnover) leagues (ESPN defaults to 8-cat, no TO's). It was good to hear him mentioning playing against the "point guards and power forwards" strategy that is ESPN's fantasy basketball mind numbing mantra like "Mola Ram, Sula Ram", with Matthew Berry as their Mola Ram (after a few Long Islands, ladies, they kinda look similar). While they don't turn the fantasy world upside down, they do write good enough articles where the novice and the high intermediate players can get something out of it. And they have content, unlike some platforms that have their big board un-updated since July 31st (cough, Yahoo, cough, Brandon Funs-cough-ton). At least Yahoo's stat tracker is free this year; they must have felt the heat from ESPN who has had it for free already.

Here's one last thing I want to bring up. With all their writers, ESPN did a 10 team mock draft last week. Again, they don't seem to think turnovers matter, so it's an eight cat league. Whatever, but I tend to think that turnovers give you a truer value of a player. Dwight Howard's TO's are a major knock against him, enough that it's tough for me to see him as a real MVP when he can bring two glaring negatives to the table. Anyway, their draft goes along, and you can really see many of them praying to the church of PG/PF's (save for Whitling, even as he got the #1 pick and CP3; needless to say, I liked his draft). I'm going to focus in on one, Keith Lipscomb, a very solid writer for the four-letter.

Keith had the #8 pick and took Dwight Howard, perfectly fine for 8-cat H2H. He comes right back with Al Jefferson. I love it, two 20-10 guys off the board. Now ESPN standard league employ 13 roster spots, 3 bench, only 1 center, and 3 utility. If it were a 2-center must play league, I'd think about coming back with another center to screw other teams over and to lock down big ball cats. ESPN 1 center, I can see going non big or maybe even PF. But Lipscomb goes point guard and at 28 takes Baron Davis. Now even if Boom Dizzle were in his free-wheeling Nellieball time, it's a bad pick. First of all, the Clips pace was near standstill. And while he'll get assists, steals and threes, none of them are really game and roster changers. He's a shooter with FG% in the low 40's, and if he gets any volume, it negates one of your two big men. He made a pure roto pick in a head to head league, and he got sucked into the PG/PF mantra. With a big 2 like Howard and Jefferson, I'd look for a PG that can build off of those 2's FG%, give up 3's, then maybe look for steals from non PG's. I'm thinking Rose, Parker and Miller to name three. Rose isn't that big of a stretch - he went #32. And Lipscomb took Parker in round 5 at #48. Josh Smith went at #31 - that would have been a serious pick for him at 28. Maybe he can trade Davis later in the year. You can pore over the rest of the draft and one writer's analysis. I'm surprised he didn't bring this up.

The deal is, I like ESPN's site, but you can get bashed over the head with their "point guards and power forwards" strategy. I know, there's more to it than that. Just be sure you don't blindly follow it, or you'll be stuck with Randy Foye as your shooting guard. As of right now, I'm not playing ESPN this year, but I can be convinced if someone invites me to a league. Good luck to you if it's your platform of choice.