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My life with fantasy basketball
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Image: Icanhascheezburger
So I haven't been able to post with regularity over the past few weeks. I apologize to the five people who read this on a consistent basis (hi, mom) and I promise to do better because well, Examiner has rules about this stuff.
Anyways, the reason for my infrequent posts is not for a lack of retro news (hey, did you know there's a new Excitebike coming to Wii Ware?), but rather something has taken quite a bit of my time and I feel compelled share it. See, I'm a big basketball fan. If my love for the game, despite never having played it on a professional level, could be quantified, it would probably be in the second tier, right behind the likes of Dr. James Naismith (the guy who made basketball), Bill Simmons (who wrote a 700-page tome that could save your life, literally), Michael Jordan (who I'm pretty sure had Bacardi eyes during his hall of fame speech), and my brother-in-law (who gets thrown out of his son's junior league games... yup, he's one of those...). So while basketball isn't my life per se, fantasy basketball has consumed me. For those that don't know, fantasy basketball is when you get a bunch of dorks together and see who can create a team of players that can accumulate the best stats in a particular week. So while my allegiance lies with nobody because I love good basketball more than watching any particular team the Lakers, I will root against them if Chris Paul and Dwight Howard come to town because I need my boys to put up big numbers so I can beat up college friends who I haven't seen in years because we all live in the different parts of the world (seriously, we global).
To start, us dorks had a draft to determine the order with which to pick the players. Thanks to the rules of the league (auction style, meaning we nominate players and we bid on them a la eBay but with a $200 limit), I used a good portion of my money to nab Paul and Howard. At that point I was pretty much done save for a Rajon Rondo and Paul Pierce two-fer. Thanks to the way the NBA works now (star-driven and apparently now allows three steps before being called for a travel), I knew I could pretty much hedge my bets on the two stars to take me all they way to the playoffs. I had to rely on lesser-known players that I knew could get me numbers to help me on off days. Thankfully, some of the people in my league were not as up-to-date with the NBA as I am (I sent a congratulatory message to my buddy who spent $10 on Yao Ming, despite being out for the season. The reply was profane to say the least.). So after a three grueling hours (yes, it took that long), my team looked like this. Number to the left was the order they were drafted and dollar amount to the right is how much I paid (in fantasy bucks, not real money) for them.
1 Chris Paul, Nor PG $77
11 Dwight Howard, Orl C $55
38 Paul Pierce, Bos SF $22
45 Rajon Rondo, Bos PG $18
46 Zach Randolph, Mem PF $10
89 Jason Richardson, Pho SG $4
91 Jason Thompson, Sac PF $3
98 J.R. Smith, Den SG $2
100 Richard Hamilton, Det SG $1
106 Richard Jefferson, SA SF $2
109 Corey Maggette, GS SF $1
115 Shaquille O'Neal, Cle C $1
125 Chris Duhon, NY PG $1
And after a week, I already dropped Jefferson, Smith, Maggette, Duhon, and Shaq for Randy Foye (who?), Channing Frye (huh?), Brandon Jennings (why?), Tyreke Evans (how?), and my personal favorite, Laker center Pau Gasol's brother, Marc Gasol. So far Marc has been putting up similar number to what his brother would normally do, but for about $70 less, which is what somebody paid for to get Pau, and he's injured for the first few weeks of the season. Ah, good times.
Starting tomorrow, I'll try to get back on a regular post schedule. But believe I will win this league. Believe that a team named "Harold and Khlomar go to White Castle" can do amazing things.
For more info: follow me on twitter.
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