The Basketball Diaries: Sat, Mar 1
What up fellow grinders. I hope everyone had a solid Friday night in the NBA. In case you didn’t catch the first article in this series, all I am doing is recapping my team from the previous night and dissecting it a little. Normally I would include an opponent’s roster and comment on that also. I’m breaking from that today since I want to go over the Showcase finale last night and pick at my errors and others success. So let’s get to it.
This was perhaps the oddest night of the NBA season. It was, by far, the most irregular Friday night of the season for sure. For some reason, this Friday had only 7 games. In addition, the majority of the industry was stacking the last game of the night between the Laker and Kings. It led to an unreal overlap.
Just in this 10 man field the numbers broke down something like this:
| Player | Percent Owned |
|---|---|
| Kent Bazemore | 100% |
| Isaiah Thomas | 80% |
| Derrick Williams | 80% |
| Pau Gasol | 60% |
| Rudy Gay | 60% |
| Ben McLemore | 60% |
| Stephen Curry | 50% |
| Wesley Johnson | 50% |
| Kyrie Irving | 40% |
Those numbers are ridiculous. I know there is plenty of overlap this time of year in the NBA, especially when there are injuries, but this was an anomaly. Here’s how I came to decide on some of my team and how it compared to the rest of the field.
The Mistakes
- Ben McLemore – This guy really does stink right now. The Kings need to hire someone who knows how to draft. They blew a 5th pick on Thomas Robinson 2 drafts ago, and he has bounced to 3 teams in 2 years. And now a 7th pick on this dud. I haven’t rostered McLemore all year. My thought was that with Cousins out that would = more shots. He was already playing 36+ minutes the last couple games and this tempo of the game would favor him big time. None of it panned out. Pathetic.
- Alexis Ajinca – Honestly, I don’t know how he ended up on my team. I screwed this up. Originally I had Aminu here and I was hoping for Unibrow to sit. When they announced Brow was playing, I scrambled. I couldn’t afford Tyreke Evans and I didn’t want to have 4 Sac Kings on my team. So that eliminated Derrick Williams. Once that late game locked and I couldn’t change anymore, I knew I made a mistake with this guy. He’s just not a guy you want to depend on in a big contest like the Showcase finale.
- Derrick Williams – Well, here’s the elephant in the room. Might as well talk about my biggest mistake. That mistake was excluding Derrick Williams from my roster. I knew the potential was there, but I like McLemore’s potential in this game more. When I researched Williams I noticed that he was solid with Cousin AND Gay out. But in the games with Gay in and Cousins out he didn’t do so well. As I stated before, I didn’t want to roll out 4 Kings on my roster and I chose McLemore. It’s the difference between 10th place and jumping up to 3rd. When a guy is 80% owned, cost $3,700, goes for 49.5 points and you DON’T have him on your roster- your night is over.
They Did Their Part
- Rudy Gay – 53.75 points are what he scored and that’s in the neighborhood of what I thought he could get. Problem was, and this is a recurring theme, he was 60% owned. No ground to be made up when everyone is rostering him.
- Isaiah Thomas – His 43.75 points were very good. It just paled in comparison to Kyrie and Steph as PG production. Also the guy who was owned by 8 out of 10 guys. So he benefitted basically no one.
- Kawhi Leonard – His final number ended up being 33 points. It looked better at halftime when he was in the mid 20’s and on pace for a double-double bonus. He flamed out in the 2nd half and didn’t get the bonus. He ended up going nearly 61/2 times his salary. If everyone on your team goes 61/2 times on DK then you score 325 points and dominate everything. So he played his part and was only 20% owned.
Saw That Coming but Couldn’t do Anything About It
- Stephen Curry – I never entertained putting Kyrie and Steph on the same team due to salary. I chose Kyrie, but I knew that Steph was going to have a big game. But I was so enamored with Gay,IT2 and Gasol late in the night that I left myself no room for Steph. What’s worse , for me, is the 50% owned on his 64.25 score. Stick a fork in me.
- Wesley Johnson – I knew the pace of this game and Derrick Williams at PF would create a nice match-up for him. Half the field rostered his 42 points. For me, I wanted him at my F spot in the late swap, but I was $200 short. I couldn’t take Gay, IT2 or Gasol off because by then I was too attached to their potential. So I rolled with Ajinca instead. What a mistake. And also a golden rule of how NOT to manage your roster. I settled for a scrub so that I could get the guys I loved on my roster. A smart player would have saved the money and gone Dragic instead of IT2 and freed up the money for Wes Johnson. That would be a game changer.