My 2009 Fantasy League Results

Now that I’ve had time to reflect, here’s a look at the Good, the Bad, and the Unlucky for all of my 2008-09 fantasy hoops teams.

This past season, the 5 leagues that I joined was the most ever for me, but I only had to manage 4 of them.

When it comes to winning fantasy championships, you need a little bit of luck on your side as far as injuries and such, but I’d say that 80-90% of your success is still in your own hands. What you need to do is make as many good decisions as possible while minimizing the bad, so that is how I’m going to examine my teams. Hopefully you find this interesting and informative. Here are the results…

League #1 – 1st place

League Name: NFBBC #1

# of teams: 12 in league, 60 overall

Scoring format: 8-cat Roto

This is the 4th year in a row that I’ve competed in the unofficial “National Fantasy Basketball Championship.” With a $650 entry fee, this contest attracts some serious competition. This year, there were 5 different leagues for a total of 60 teams. Each league winner earned $3,500, with an extra $3,000 going to the overall champion. Immediately after drafting this team, I felt very good about my chances. In fact, I predicted a 1st place finish in my thorough post-draft analysis.

The Good:
Drafted Wade (1), Carter (4), Biedrins (5), Nene (10), Green (12), Azubuike (14), Blake (15)
Picked up M. Daniels, Garcia, Birdman, Turiaf, Sessions. Strong Cats: Points, Steals

I was stoked to get the #5 pick, because I had a feeling that D. Wade would fall in my lap. He was brilliant all season long and willed my team to victory. At #41 overall, Vince Carter was a risky pick, but he played in 80 games and was easily worthy of a 4th round pick. My 1-2 center punch of Biedrins (#56 overall) and Nene (#113 overall) was unstoppable in the 1st half, and Jeff Green (#137 overall), Azubuike (#161 overall), and Steve Blake (#176 overall) were excellent late round picks.

Since the NFBBC leagues give you a $1,000 budget to bid on free agents, you can’t just add and drop players whenever you feel like it. Instead, you’re forced to make calculated bids every Sunday, which can get very tedious and tricky. My first bid was landing Marquis Daniels for $162, and he played very well for the first couple of months. When someone dropped Francisco Garcia due to his early season calf injury, I swooped him up for a mere $88. Early on in the season, I also picked up Chris Andersen for $54, then exchanged him for Turiaf for $58 (see below for the “bad” part of those moves). When Luke Ridnour broke his thumb, I decided to drop over $300 on Ramon Sessions, which was a solid pickup but limited my moves for the rest of the season.

The Bad:
Drafted Melo (disappointment), Randolph (ahead of Lee), Ridnour (bonehead move)
Dropped Birdman, Turiaf, Garcia, and Noah too soon. Weak Cats: Threes, FG%

In my post-draft analysis, I said that I was hoping to land Granger in round 2, but he went 3 picks before me. Deron Williams and Chris Bosh were taken right after that, so I used the #20 pick to take Melo. Unfortunately, Anthony’s stats were way down this season, and he didn’t play like a solid 2nd rounder. I used the #80 pick on Zach Randolph, and even tho I expected a strong season from him, taking him ahead of David Lee was a mistake. My worst pick however, was taking Luke Ridnour at #104 overall. I’m still not sure how that happened. Sure I needed a point guard, but Ridnour?

Those poor draft picks paled in comparison to the players that I dropped. As most of you know, I was very high on Ronny Turiaf, Chris Andersen, and Francisco Garcia before the season started. When Garcia was dropped by someone else, I picked him up for Joakim Noah (see below). Next I picked up Chris Andersen before I switching him out for Turiaf. I should have sat on that roster for awhile, but for some reason I got antsy and eventually dropped both Turiaf and Garcia before they exploded in the 2nd half. While those were bad decisions on my part, I’m going to partially blame the coaches involved.

The Unlucky:
Ginobili missed 38 games, Randolph missed 32 games, Biedrins missed 20 games, Melo missed 16 games
Noah vs. Del Negro, Crawford vs. Nellie

I can’t really complain about Ginobili since he was injured before the season began, but I gambled on him at #89 overall in hopes that he’d play 60+ games. Sure enough, he only missed the first 12 games before returning, and he put up very nice stats when he got warmed up, but the 26 games that he missed after that really hurt me. The Randolph pick wouldn’t have been so bad if he didn’t miss over a month with a knee injury and other DNP’s for various reasons, and my squad really started to struggle when Biedrins went down, as I no longer had Turiaf to back him up.

I actually drafted Noah at #128 overall, but I had to drop him early on when Del Negro refused to play him. In case you don’t remember, Joakim averaged just 3.1 points, 5.1 boards, and .7 blocks in 15.9 minutes in November, and he’s now averaging a whopping 10.7 points, 12.8 boards, and 2.2 blocks in 40 minutes in the playoffs. Thanks a lot Vinny! What Don Nelson did to Jamal Crawford was even worse, as he made the veteran dress in street clothes when he was still healthy and his team was undermanned. Needless to say, if Crawford had stayed in New York, or if Nellie hadn’t held a grude, my team would have racked up a lot more threes. Also, it took Nellie way too long to realize that he needed to give Turiaf more minutes. Did you know that the Warriors were 16-16 when Ronny played 24+ minutes, and 13-37 when he didn’t? I bet the Warriors management doesn’t even know that.

The Result:

My Cool Hand Evil team got off to a blistering start, as I was winning my league by week 2 and winning the overall competition (all 60 teams participating in the NFBBC) by week 3. In late December, I had a ridiculous 84 roto points out of a possible 96 in my league, and I was 18 points ahead of 2nd place. In late January, I was 34 points ahead of 2nd place in the overall standings. That was WITH Carmelo and Zach Randolph nursing injuries!

But my team slowly started to fade in the 2nd half. Somehow, I stayed on top of the overall standings until week 19, which meant I had a 15+ week run of being in 1st place among all 60 teams. But when you’re on top, there’s only one direction you can go. By week 22 I had fallen to 3rd in the overall standings, by week 24 I had fallen to 5th, and my squad limped to the finish line in 7th place out of all 60 teams. Luckily I was able to hang onto 1st place in my individual league, but just barely. Two less steals for me and one more for someone else, and I wouldn’t have even won my league.

That being said, Cool Hand Evil DOMINATED the 1st half of the season, and if I had hung onto Garcia and Turiaf, or if Ginobili and Biedrins hadn’t missed so many games, there’s no doubt in my mind that I would have cruised to victory in the overall standings. So if you plan on playing in the NFBBC next year, all I can say is good luck, because I won’t settle for anything less than the overall championship.

League #2 – 4th place

League Name: NFBBC #2

# of teams: 12 in league, 60 overall

Scoring format: 8-cat Roto

Here was the 2nd team I entered into the NFBBC. I was kind of doomed from the start, because I landed the 9th pick and had no clue who I wanted to take. Here are the results…

The Good:
Drafted Yao (3), Lee (6), Murphy (9), Del. West (12), Perkins (14)
Picked up Cook. Strong Cats: Rebounds, FG%, FT%

At #26 overall, Yao Ming was worth a gamble, and it definitely paid off. However, my best picks in this league were David Lee at #71 overall and Troy Murphy at #98 overall. Those double-double machines led my team to an easy 1st place finish in rebounds, while also (along with Yao) helping out my shooting %’s. In rounds 12 and 14, Delonte West and Kendrick Perkins were also solid late round picks. When Daequan Cook is your best free agent pickup, that’s not a good sign, but he drained some threes for me.

The Bad:
Drafted C. Butler (ahead of Granger), Randolph (too early)
Dropped Birdman, L. Williams too early. Bid too much on McGee. Weak Cats: Threes, Assists

I was really optimistic that Caron Butler would finally stay healthy this year, but even if he had, drafting him ahead of Danny Granger was a bonehead move that I’d like to have back. Once again I drafted Zach Randolph too soon, and this time I paid the price. I thought that taking Louis Williams in the 15th round was a shrewd pick, but I dumped him after he averaged just 8 points in 16 minutes in November. Of course, he put up much better numbers after that. I also picked up Chris Andersen after the 1st week of the season, but had to drop him after he got hurt.

However, my biggest mistake of all was bidding $228 on JaVale McGee. When he averaged 20+ minutes early on and showed flashes of his potential, I figured his minutes would only rise as Washington played itself out of the playoff picture. Instead, JaVale’s minutes declined in favor of Darius Songaila. While that move may have given Washington a little better experience, it didn’t help McGee’s growth and it didn’t help my fantasy squad. When you add in my $228 bid on Mobley (see below), I basically wasted over half of my free agent budget without getting anything in return. That really hurt my team in the 2nd half.

The Unlucky:
Redd missed 49 games, Butler missed 15 games, Deron missed 14 games, Harris missed 13 games
Bid $228 on Mobley right before his heart condition surfaced

While his status as a “fantasy star” is debatable, Michael Redd missed two huge chunks of games this past season. He first went down on November 2nd, which really hurt my guard depth because that’s the same time that Deron and Devin were hurting. Between those 3 players, I missed a total of 30 games BEFORE December 1st alone. With Butler also missing games, I simply had too many injuries to overcome.

I hoped that Cuttino Mobley’s trade to New York would boost his value and help replace Michael Redd, so I bid over 1/4 of my total free agent budget to get him. Immediately after, he had his physical and his serious heart situation surfaced. I’m glad that Cuttino was able to find that out and retire before a potentially fatal incident, but it certainly didn’t help my fantasy squad. Later on in the year, Larry Hughes put up some very respectable numbers after getting traded to the Knicks, and I still believe that Mobley would have put up comparable stats.

The Result:

Due to the plethora of early-season injuries, this team got off to a terrible start. In my league standings, I sat in 11th place after week 3. After week 5 I was still in 9th place, but my team slowly started to climb. By the mid-way point of the season, I had moved to a respectable 4th place in my league. And believe it or not, my team had moved into 1st place by week 20. At the time I had 69 roto points, while Roland Beech’s team sat in 4th place with 66.

However, Roland had saved most of his free agent money, so he was able to pickup many useful players down the stretch. As a result, there was a role reversal. He ended up winning the league with 68.5 roto points. I fell all the way to 5th, but I finished the season just 2 points shy of 2nd place. Not bad after being in 2nd to last at the start of the season.

In the overall standings, this team finished in 15th place out of 60 teams. I’m pretty sure that I was the only person to have 2 teams finish in the top 20, but that doesn’t satisfy me. Even if Deron, Redd, and Butler had played in 80+ games, I’m not sure if this team would have contended for the overall championship, so it wasn’t my best performance.

League #3 – 4th place

League name: 82games Draft Only

# of teams: 10

Scoring format: 8-cat Roto

This was the 2nd annual “Draft Only” league put together by Roland Beech of 82games fame. The idea is to have a maintenance-free league that focuses on pure drafting skill. He sent out more than 12 invites, but we ended up with just 10 teams on draft day. Besides Roland, the basketball world was well-represented with the likes of Matthew Berry & John Hollinger of ESPN, Jonathan Givony of Draft Express, Kevin Pelton of Basketball Prospectus, Tommy Beer of Hoopsworld, Chris Liss of Rotowire, and others. Since our draft only went 10 rounds deep, that meant we drafted a total of just 100 players. Since I’m used to going 200 players deep and believe my drafting skills really shine in the later rounds, this aspect was disappointing to me. Still, I expected a strong showing.

The Good:
Drafted Bosh (3), Lewis (4), Harris (5), A. Miller (6), Okur (7), Mayo (9), Terry (10)
Strong Cats: Steals, FT%, Points, FG%

I made plenty of solid picks in this draft. Chris Bosh at #25 overall and Rashard Lewis at #36 overall turned out to be a stronger duo than my top 2 picks (Amare & Butler). Lewis easily led the league in threes made and attempted, Bosh averaged nearly 23 and 10, and both guys helped anchor my excellent free throw shooting.

For my point guards, I jumped all over Devin Harris at #45 and Andre Miller at #56. Since you can’t replace injured players in this league, ‘Dre Miller (just 5 games missed in his 10 year career) was extra valuable, and quite frankly, a steal in round 6. My last two picks were probably my best: OJ Mayo at #85 overall and Jason Terry at #96 overall. I can understand why people shied away from the rookie Mayo, but considering the settings of this league and Terry’s history as an Ironman (726 out of a possible 738 games played in his career before this season), he should have been gone by round 10.

With the exception of Tyson Chandler, EVERYONE ELSE on my team shot 81.7% from the line or better and averaged at least 16.3 points. As a result, my team finished 3rd in both FT% (a very strong 82.63%) and points scored (9 guys in the top 60). Surprisingly, I didn’t have a single player rank in the Top 10 in steals, but I still easily won that category thanks to everyone chipping in. My 46.82% FG shooting was good enough for 5th in that category, but I was in 2nd for much of the year and surely would have finished higher if Amare & Chandler didn’t miss so many games.

The Bad:
Drafted C. Butler (too early), T. Chandler (terrible season). Weak cats: Blocks, Assists

Taking Caron Butler in round 2 was a poor decision on my part, if only for health concerns. I was hoping to land Danny Granger there, but he went 4 picks earlier. In order to protect my FT%, I passed on Duncan and Howard, but Kevin Durant would have looked awfully good in Caron’s place.

I was hoping to land Andris Biedrins in round 8, but Roland took him just 3 picks before me. So I had to decide between Okafor and Chandler, and I went with the latter because I love watching Chris Paul toss alley-oops. Bad move. Chandler had a miserable season all around (missed 37 games, his team tried to trade him, lowest rebounding average in 5 years), while Emeka played in all 82 games and shot a career-best 56% from the field. I should have drafted Okafor for the sole reason that he’s a better shot-blocker. Since Amare’s blocks disappeared (106 fewer than the year before), that was easily my weakest category. My team also had a poor showing in assists since I didn’t have one of the elite 8+ assist guys.

The Unlucky:
Stoudemire missed 29 games, Butler missed 15 games, Harris missed 13 games, Okur missed 10 games, Terry missed 8 games

When you think about Devin Harris and Jason Terry in the backcourt and Caron Butler, Amare Stoudemire, and Mehmet Okur on the frontline, you’re talking about a badass starting 5 (in both reality and fantasy). So considering those 5 combined to miss 75 games, and there’s no such thing as a bench or player pickups in this league, I think it’s easy to see why I couldn’t hang onto 1st place. I accept the injuries to Butler & Harris because they’re both injury-prone players, but if Amare, Okur, and Terry all played 80+ games, I would have had a very good chance of winning.

The Result:

My team got off to a strong start, moving into 1st place in December and staying there until Terry and Stoudemire went down in February. For several weeks, my squad ranked 1st in points and steals, 2nd in FG% and FT%, 3rd in threes, and 4th in boards and assists. But with Amare and Chandler out for most of the 2nd half, my boards, blocks, and FG% took major hits. I eventually fell to 4th place, which is where I finished with 50 total roto points.

This league was won by Hoopsworld’s Tommy Beer with a total of 60 roto points. Not surprisingly, his team also stayed the healthiest, as 7 of his guys played 75+ games and his only major loss was Zach Randolph missing 32 games (not quite the same as Amare). Matthew Berry of TMR fame finished 2nd with 57 roto points. He did miss a combined 74 games from Redd and Iverson, but his team still played a dozen more games than mine. He also got lucky by having LeBron fall to him at #3 and Dwight Howard fall to him at #18. Considering this league rewards toughness, the chances of Berry landing that dominant duo would have been very slim if there were 12 teams instead of 10.

Chris Liss of Rotowire moved ahead of me in the final weeks and finished in 3rd place with 51 roto points. His team actually had the most impressive performance in my opinion, because he missed a combined 135 games from Elton Brand, Josh Howard, Stephen Jackson, Danny Granger, and Jose Calderon. Somehow, his squad still managed to finish 2nd in threes, assists, blocks, and FT%. Nice job Chris!

League #4 – 6th place

League Name: RotoEvil Challenge

# of teams: 14

Scoring format: Half 8-cat Roto, Half Points

The RotoEvil Challenge league was designed as an experiment to combine both Roto scoring and Points scoring. We had one normal draft, but the teams were plugged into two separate “leagues” and the scores from each were combined to determine the overall leader. In an effort to attract other so-called “experts,” I offered to throw in extra prize money if I finished near the bottom of the standings. Many of my readers were up to the challenge, but the only expert who stepped up was Rotowire’s Andre’ Snellings. For more info on this league, click here.

The Good:
Drafted Roy (3), Duhon (9), B. Lopez (10), Azubuike (11), Del. West (13)
Picked up E. Gordon, Love, Perkins. Strong Cats: Points system, FG%, Blocks, Assists

Brandon Roy was someone I targeted as being a better player under the points system, so I was ecstatic to land him at #39 overall (sure enough, he finished the season with the 8th best fantasy points per game average). Before the All-Star break, Duhon was a great value pick in round 9, and Brook Lopez at #130 overall was one of the steals of the draft. Picking Kelenna Azubuike at #151 and Delonte West at #179 were also strong late-round picks.

Eric Gordon and Kevin Love didn’t do much at the beginning of the season, so both players were dropped in the Points league. Since the rookies improved my depth and I had several efficient scorers, I was able to stay in 2nd place in the Points league for pretty much the entire season. My best pickup in the Roto league was Kendrick Perkins, a guy who helped bolster my Roto strengths.

The Bad:
Drafted J. Howard (most annoying player to own), M. Miller (what happened?), Hamilton (ahead of B. Gordon)
Dropped Azubuike and Gomes too soon. Weak Cats: Threes, Steals

When I drafted Josh Howard and Mike Miller in rounds 5 and 6, I thought I had a rock solid small forward duo that would contribute across the board for me. Instead, that position became my biggest weakness. Howard was a headache all season long, and Miller’s reluctance to shoot the ball meant my team was much weaker than expected in the 3-point category. I thought that Rip Hamilton was a solid pick at #95 overall, but taking him ahead of Ben Gordon turned out to be a major mistake.

Satisfied with Kelenna’s strong start, I decided to dump him just a month into the season. Little did I know that Jackson and Maggette would struggle with injuries later on and Azubuike would continue to be a solid starter. However, dropping Ryan Gomes in both formats was a move that I regretted even more. I picked him up early on in the season, but dropped him after he averaged just 9.8 points on 39.6% FG shooting in December. After that, Gomes was rock solid of course.

The Unlucky:
Competition bought my Draft Guide, Landed #11 pick, Al Jefferson missed 32 games, Garnett missed 25 games

Of the 13 other owners in this league, 9 of them purchased the RotoEvil Draft Guide (more on that below). We used a lottery system to allow us to choose our own draft spots, but I got the last choice, which meant I had no say in the matter and was stuck with pick #11. To make matters worse, my top 2 picks missed a combined 57 games. Looking back, a Granger and Yao combo may have led my team to victory.

The Result:

My team started out really strong, as I was in 3rd place overall from the get-go and was just inches away from 1st place after New Years. While I was actually winning the Roto league for a brief while, my squad started to sink quickly. Things started going downhill in February when Al Jefferson went down and injuries to Kevin Garnett and Kenyon Martin followed. By March I had fallen to 4th place overall, and I finished in 6th place out of 14 teams. That being said, I was much closer to 3rd place than I was to 7th.

The inaugural RotoEvil Challenge was won by Leigh Taylforth of Australia. Despite gambling on Arenas in round 6, he won thanks to D. Wade’s remarkable season and a frontcourt consisting of: Lewis, D. West, Nene, Okur, Green, and Ty Thomas (impressive for a 14 teamer). Steven Malk’s squad was a close 2nd thanks to Chris Paul and a slew of breakout performers (Biedrins, Millsap, Nate Robinson). In 3rd place was Damian George, who edged out Rick Thomas and Craig Potsep.

Was it surprising that my worst performance came against followers of my website rather than fantasy “experts” or “high-stakes” players? Not at all. Of the 5 owners who bested me in this league, ALL of them purchased my Draft Guide. Of the 8 owners who finished below me, half of them did NOT buy the guide. While I’m not saying that my Draft Guide was the difference between winning and losing, knowing which players your competition is targeting and how their rankings look definitely makes things easier. However, in order to win fantasy leagues, you need more than just information. Like everything else in life, you need the desire and effort to achieve your goals. The top owners in the RotoEvil Challenge demonstrated that, perhaps more so than anyone else I competed against this year. Nice job guys!

League #5 – 2nd place

League Name: ESPN Auction

# of teams: 12

Scoring format: Points

I was invited to join this league that had John Hollinger and several other ESPN employees. We did an auction draft (($200 salary cap, my first auction in years) and used John’s game scores formula as the scoring format. This was my only league that allowed daily moves (with a games played limit), so it was much easier to play matchups and not worry about starting guys who might be hurt. Unfortunately, the commish of this league did not collect entry fees at the beginning of the season and disappeared soon after (more on that below).

Despite spending $19 on T-Mac (easier to swallow since there’s an IR and daily moves) and dropping Okafor before he got hot, my “Do the Right Evil” team has been in 2nd place for most of the season (actually in 3rd, but the team ahead of me has played 29 more games and is well ahead of pace for max games). Among the 60 players in this article, I drafted LeBron, Yao, Bibby, Mayo, and Martin, and picked up Millsap. RotoEvil contributor Craig P. is running away with the league title.

The Good:
Won Lebron ($71), Yao ($36), A. Miller ($13), Mayo ($4), Felton ($1)
Picked up Millsap, Villanueva, Sessions, Hawes

Using Hollinger’s game scores formula, LeBron (24.3), Wade (24.2), and Paul (23.0) were head and shoulders above everyone else, as Kobe (19.4) was the only other player to average more than 19 per game. Knowing this, I was willing to spend top dollar to get him. Sensing that Yao might stay healthy this year, I figured that $36 was a sweet price, especially when you consider that Greg Oden went for $32 (yikes!). I’m not sure why Andre Miller is always so undervalued, in both fantasy leagues and real life. Landing Mayo & Felton for a combined $5 was also pretty nice.

Remember when Paul Millsap went on that crazy run of double-doubles? Yeah, I picked him up just before that. I also grabbed Charlie V. in January and he was a great starter the rest of the way. Ramon Sessions and Spencer Hawes also gave me a boost later on in the season.

The Bad:
Won T-Mac ($19), J-Rich ($17), Deng ($11), Chandler ($6)
Dropped Okafor too soon. Didn’t bid enough on several bargains.

Can you believe it? After years of avoiding Tracy McGrady, I finally decided to gamble on him. My thinking was that he wouldn’t be as much of a risk in a league that allowed for daily roster moves and an injured reserve spot. He had a few big games, but T-Mac still wasn’t worth the $19 that I paid. After a career year in ‘07-08, Jason Richardson’s production fell off big time, while Deng only had one solid month. For those scoring at home, Tyson Chandler burned me twice this season, which means I’m staying the hell away from him next year.

I won Emeka Okafor in the auction for a mere $9, but his slow start pissed me off. After a 5 game stretch in November where he averaged just 5.6 points, 7.8 rebounds, and 3.8 fouls, I decided to cut him (over the likes of Chandler and Deng). This move killed me for 2 reasons. 1) Okafor averaged 13.8 points and 10.2 boards the rest of the way, and 2) the guy who grabbed him off waivers ended up winning the league.

Of course, there were plenty of bargains in the auction that I wasn’t able to nab. Some of the best were: Danny Granger at $26, Pau Gasol at $25, Tony Parker at $24, Brandon Roy at $23, David Lee at $12, Troy Murphy at $8, and Rajon Rondo at $5. I was probably the 2nd highest bid on several of those guys, and I remember kicking myself for letting Roy and Lee in particular go for so cheap. That being said, my auction skills were rusty, and I’ll definitely do better next year.

The Unlucky:
Invited the eventual league champion. Flaky Owners.

You might remember Craig P. from the couple of Weekly Outlooks that he contributed while filling in for me during the regaular season. Well, we had exchanged several emails over the summer, and when this league only had 11 owners, I decided to bring him in as the 12th. That move ended up biting me in the ass, because he had a superb draft and held onto 1st place for the entire season.

As for everyone else in the league, I didn’t know any of them. The league organizer (who shall go nameless) said he was serious about playing in a competitive fantasy hoops league and that he had co-managed a team with Mr. Hollinger before, so I decided to join in. Before the season began, I thought we were going to throw $100 each into the pot. But it never happened, and the commish went MIA.

The Result:

As I said, Craig P. dominated this league from start to finish, racking up a total of 11,841 fantasy points. His squad was led by Dirk, Jamison, Aldridge, and G. Wallace, but the rest of his team was loaded with the following breakout stars: Lee, Harris, Murphy, Nene, and Nate Robinson. When he grabbed Okafor and Bargnani off waivers, that was all he needed to seal the deal. I didn’t do too bad myself, as my team finished 2nd with 10,862 total points.

In 3rd place was “The Professor” with 10,732 points, while “West Coast Bias” finished 4th with 10,195 points. No one else reached the 10,000 point mark. As for ESPN’s main NBA man John Hollinger? He finished a mediocre 7th place out of 12 teams. Not a very good showing considering we used a scoring formula that he created. His team was hit hard by injuries, but when you factor in his 7th place out of 10 showing in the 82games League, it’s quite clear that Hollinger’s fantasy skills could use some improvement.

Why am I bagging on Mr. Hollinger? Well, I expected more from him, and I’m not talking performance-wise. The commish who disappeared told me and several others that this was going to be a money league before the season started, but as of today (over 2 weeks since the regular season ended) only 1 person has paid, and it wasn’t John. In fact, Hollinger hasn’t said a single thing the entire season expect to complain about his team’s injuries (as if no one else was affected by them). I’m not sure why, but considering he knows the flake who organized this league, there are other ESPN employees involved, he’s a prominent NBA writer, and the league was named after him and used his own formula, I expected him to step forward and pay up. I guess I was wrong.

Bottom line: If you play in a fantasy league with Hollinger, don’t expect him to pay up when he loses!

In Conclusion…

Things were looking great for me at the halfway point of the season, as I was either in 1st or 2nd place in 4 of my 5 leagues. But the wheels started to fall off in the 2nd half, and my final season standings weren’t as good as I hoped for. I still finished “in the money” in 2 of my leagues and in the top half of the standings in ALL of them, but since I always have high expectations for myself, it was a disappointing season overall. That being said, I caught a few unlucky breaks and I’ll learn from my “bad” mistakes.

For the most part, I believe that the RotoEvil Challenge was a success. Combining Roto scoring with Points scoring worked pretty well, and I’m already thinking about possible tweaks, which means I’ll be organizing it again next season. For the NFBBC, I’m hoping that it will grow into something much larger over the next few years. For their baseball version, they teamed up with NBC Sports this year and it was a major success, as there are 390 teams competing for the $100,000 grand prize. For basketball, I’m hoping that 120 teams and a $25,000 grand prize is possible down the road (albeit unlikely for next season).

Of course, fantasy hoops won’t stand a chance of catching up to football and baseball if there aren’t people out there pushing the envelope, so that’s what I intend to do. I’ll continue to experiment with different scoring systems and different league settings in order to find the most realistic, challenging, and rewarding experience that I can. I’ll also continue to put my money where my mouth is, and I challenge other hoops fans (and fantasy writers especially) to do the same.

I want a little more variety next season, so I’ve already joined a 30 team, Head-to-Head keeper league (the squad that I’m taking over has Durant). If you have any unique ideas, know of a league that I might be interested in, or if you’re interested in joining next year’s RotoEvil Challenge, just add a comment below.

PEACE!
“Cool Hand” Evil

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