Friday, April 16, 2010

Welcome Home, This is the End...


Well the NBA regular season called it quits on Wednesday, so that means fantasy basketball is done for the summer. It's been a fun, exciting year for the winners and a long, grueling season for the losers. I drafted some rookies, made some horrible trade offers and accepted some even worse ones. I started Chuck Hayes, sat Tim Duncan and gave Ryan Anderson way more playing time than I should have. I traded Shane Battier for Kenyon Martin, Darren Collison for Thaddeus Young and Kurt Thomas for Sheldon Williams. I stopped paying attention to five of my seven leagues in the last two weeks and suffered in pretty much all of them. Having said that, I had fun and plan on doing it again and so does the Bear. We here at the Bear are pleased to announce our brand new address on the interwebs: www.fantasybasketbear.com! That's right, we've gone corporate! Fast cars, fast women and faster breaks. Also we'll be looking forward to a summer of player ranks for next years draft, rookie impacts and opportunities for cash prizes. We'd also like to welcome the newest bear cub to the picnic, Matters! Nice works Matters. Thanks for checking us out during the season, now go on over and bookmark www.fantasybasketbear.com. We'll see you there.

Thursday, April 15, 2010

Alright, who used it?

You know damn well what im talking about. The Glitch. After you all admit to it, I might admit to squeezing one last shitty start out of Dalembert. And I might admit to fully intending on milking games out of KG (whose notes claimed his old ass was gonna play, but was lying to the bear) and Joe Johnson who ended up resting for the next few hectic weeks of playoff madness. Anywho, did anyone get away with it? Did you bend the rules for bragging rights? Guess its not really bending the rules, its just the way she goes..... fuckin way she goes boys.

Please leave comments below.

Sunday, April 11, 2010

Keeper Potential Part 1 : The Beastly East

It's almost time. Time to bounce back to reality for 6 and a half months. The dry spell of explosive fantasy basketballess boredom. As life crushing as the time spent away from breathtaking David Lee stats and Don Nelson hate is, it can prove to be beneficial on Keeper stud reflections. In Part 1 of this greasy masterpiece were gonna take a look at the illustrious Eastern Potential.

Bosh. Ka-Bosh. Right in the swirling shit winds of the playoff race, CB4 got Jason Terry'd (elbowed in the face to the point of much needed reconstruction). This might have ended his Raptors career (much to my dissapointment) but he will be a stat sheet dinasaur wherever he roams, its pretty much a no brainer to hold onto this all star PF-C and never let go.

Calderon is out of the keeper boat, and Jarrett Jack is tough as shit but works better on the deep end of your team so keep lookin. Bargnani, fell 3 blocks short (last year) of going 2 seasons straight with +100 blocks and +100 tre's. Nani likes to party, and i'd sure as hell like to get invited to said party.

Van Fundy's Magic got the obvious (D-12), as well as the sketchy (Rashard Lewis, Jameer Nelson). Neither Jameer nor Shard(anymore) aren't worth the long term investment, be scared if you do, and dump em quick if it comes down to that. Half man half season only came up short in January but I wouldn't feel right keeping him over a youngin. After all Vince is a liability, as soon as he gets addicted to the next Call of Duty he'll sit for months.

Danny Granger rivaled the Durantula for potential CP3-Bron usurper this year, he hasnt quite achieved such a status yet (although Durantula could/should rank in top 3 in 10/11 season), but the Sex Bat threw down. He also tacked on a few suspensions for disorderly conduct (fighting) on the court which displays gritiness, sadly you don't get points for beating up hookers (or Ron Artest would be ranked top 3).

They should call New Jersey the Grizzlies, cause looking at they're roster is fucking grizzly. Having said that, Brook Lopez is undeniable, sporting splits of (18.9pts, 8.7rebs, 2.3ast, 1.7blks, 50% fg, 81% ft). Now his turnovers WILL rape and maul you, then leave you for dead in a Darren Collison 2010 like ditch, but count on the double-double split next year. Devin Harris we all seem to like. Right? Kinda? Yeah, he's young, give him a go, steals & tre's dont grow on fucking trees, but base that decision on your other keeps. Courtney Lee needs time before he's considered, but I'd keep a watchful eye on him.

Bron Bron is out of our reach. Anyone whose got him ain't movin him, forget about it. Antawn Jamison went 0-12 from the floor in his first game with the Cavs. Has he done anything since? This is the first it's occured to me since then that he even exists. Mo Williams is a Vince Carter - esque keeper, trust in his experience, yet not of his longevity.

This year was heavy duty for Gerald Wallace. Obvious keeper. He's so grimy he washes his hands before AND after he takes a piss. With an aformentioned All-Star appearance, instilled characteristics of unselfish play and 110% effort gauranteed, only injury can prevent further domination from Gerald. Truly bred from a steller race of ball players. Stephen Jackson on the other hand, has never been a keeper, never will, more of an early draft pick once scoring becomes your white whale.


Blatche? He's beefy, number wise that is. Should you keep? Split stats Feb through Apr say yes. Thick scoring and unshabby defense. This prayer is fronting 21pts per while gobbling up a shade under 10 boards per. The 20-10 club is exclusive, Zach Randolph doesn't just let anyone join, but Blatche is creeping on membership. The lack of C's in Washington is spine tingling, so it looks like Blatche will be seeing 30+ min per, and if thats not keeper worthy, its worthy of stressing over during the first few post-keep picks.

In Boston, only Rondo & Pierce seem to make me take notice. Ray is too old/up & down / bald / topsy turvy with his shooting. KG is old as shit too. Rondo's got the youth, the assists, the steals, the quickness. Pierce isn't for me, but could round off your team nicely as a final keeper. Value is everything, and in between injuries, Pierce gives you just that, if you hang on, be weary of the right time to push him on someone else.

Before the length of this behemoth spirals too far out of control im gonna ration it. Next up we look at Miami & Milwaukee's potential for dynasty construction. Can Beasley stay out of rehab long enough to win you a championship? Do you have the patience? Should he get a haircut? Fuckin rights he should.

DON NELSON, THE ANTI-CHRIST MESSIAH


CONGRATUFUCKINLATIONS NELLIE!!!
You are now the winningest coach in NBA history, 1333 Ws. Nice work. Well done. Retire this off season. Pretty please. Can't argue with his reality results, but this man has crushed the fantasy potential of some of his beloved players, teasing the bear with his delicious picnic of young talent.



Now we can hope that next year there will be no "here's Donny" for the likes of Tony Randolph, Tony Morrow and Andris Biedrins. Consistent minutes are the only thing holding these guys back from being fantasy studs, or at the very least fantasy relevant. My major beef is with Randolph. In his rookie season, the bear developed an obsession with his impressive production in limited minutes. Some of us dared to dream of what of this 20 year old German could do in 36min. However, Donny Mac bludgeoned those dreams to death with his tight fisted hoarding of minutes at the 4 spot. Insistent on starting Cor-Magnum, or one D-leaguer or another as his PF, Full Nelson descended into madness. Before going over on his ankle and ending his season, T-Rolf had been starting but playing just over 20min a game. I realize his inexperience and toothpick build made him a project, sometimes a liability on defense, but why not plug him in and make him learn the hard way? The days of Dirk-crushing playoff runs are gone, why not develop the youngin? Ant-Ran managed to stay on the floor for over 36 twice this year and through both games tallied this total of big man stats: 27pts, 17rebs and 9blks. Roto prime rib, succulent roto veal, meaty bigman smorgasboard in a vegan lineup...
Why Don? Why? It's time to hang up your whistle, you've done a lot in the NBA maybe it's time for a new challenge. For instance Donny you could move to Asia, rediscover your passion for coaching at a circus, training goats and monkeys.
Please, if you have a soul and you do not retire, do one thing, do it for the bear. Kill your baby seals in a more human fashion; like with a 50. cal, or a poisoned dart gun, or with a clan of ninja assassins. What I mean is play Tonys squared and the Latvian, and stop rescuing D-leaguers. Yet the bear salutes you Nellie. You got made, you are now the Godfather, the Don of NBA dubs. Good on ya.

Friday, April 9, 2010

Yahoos season end roto glitch and h2h streaming

I love fantasy. Not just fantasy basketball, but fantasy sports in general. I primarily play Yahoo for fan ballin' these days, but I've dabbled in espn, cbs, 365fantasysports, a little bit of sporting news, and they're all great but generally I sign up my max teams per account (4) on yahoo. I used to be a pure roto kinda gm, too. I eventually discovered the joys of weekly head 2 head matchups though, and am now devoted to both ends of the spectrum. The adrenaline highs of anything-can-happen H2H and the crushing lows of knowing-your-season-is-over-before-it-began roto. So I am not opposed to doing anything you can to get by. To whiff that year end 'chip is to fill oneself with a kind of Phil Jackson like zen that stays intoxicating until you draft all rookies next year. One form of stratego that is employed in h2h is streaming. This is the practice of punting the volume sensitive categories (%'s, TO's) and trying to load up on the counting cat's that won't hurt you (Pts, Rebs, Stls, Blks, 3's, Assts). I've heard more than one owner cry foul over this strategy but all is fair in love and fantasy. There are precautions that commissioners can take to foil streamers, such as adding a weekly transactions/adds cap or putting a cap on whole season moves. It's part of the fantasy life style though, and as much as you hate it, sometimes you just have to give the red-headed step child a hug. Since were in the do anything you can vein of winning, I'd like to expose a little known glitch that yahoo has for roto leagues. Are things coming down to the wire? Top 4 teams all within 2 points of each other? Going bald from stress? Can't afford your mortgage payments? Well shit, here's what you do: If your in a league that has been generous enough to offer you two spots at one position, (2 Utils or 2 forward spots or 2 guard slots or two center sprots) and you have only one game left @ each on your max games counter, you can can squeeze two games out of it by STARTING TWO PLAYERS FOR THAT ONE GAME @ THE SAME TIME. Example: I'm down to one more guard start in my 15 man roto league, am about 20 assists away from certain victory and my girlfriend will leave me if I lose. I've got Darren Collison @ home against the Jazz starting at 7 o'clock and Derrick Rose playing the Nets in NJ also at 7 pm. So I slide them both into my 2 flex guard spots and POW! Yahoo shits its pantsuit , doesn't know what to do, so it locks both players in 45 minutes before the game and POW! You've just secured yourself the Catalina Wine Mixer...er...Fantasy Championship.

Next up we rank the top 250 players after the top 250 players are off your draft board for next year. Can Joey Graham remain an elite top 300 contributor? Does Royal Ivey have the cajones to play more than 7 minutes a game? Will Aleksander Pavlovic ever return to his top 350 form? Our readers weigh in!

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Nice Work Reggie Williams!

Reggie, Reggie, Reggie, you can't come up in here dressed like that son! This ain't Club Med baby! I picked up this hot shot off the waivers mid march in a balls deep league and I'm currently overwhelmed with uncovered studliness. Reggie Williams strokes a hell of a ball. 286 pts in 19 games thus far. D-leaguers are taking over Oakland. And Don Nelson, who like the ring, hates and loves himself, is handing out minutes like the roofies he hands out on halloween. Check it, last night Reggie had 2 of everything except TO's to go along with 18 sexy points. In a league where permanent waiver abominations like Daniel Gibson, Jared Jeffries and Keith Bogans are all thats kicking around, its safe to say me and Reggie are laughing our way to fantasy basketball bliss.

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Post Easter Fantasy Hate/ Love

In the spirit of this last weekend and for the remainder of the season, Lincoln High's fictional superstar (yours truly) will be blogging about 3 you should bury, 3 you should resurrect, and 1 baller who you should fear the impeding return of. Let's get it.

EAT THE CORN! (fantasy love/ resurrect):

Andrew Bogut: the former #1 pick has an average rank of 21 on the season, and has been putting up big man numbers like he should. Second only to D12 in blocks, Bognuts blocked 2.5 to go along with 16pts and 10rebs while shooting .520 from the field. This year he stepped it up and found some consistency, and he's one of the major reasons the Bucks were decent(?) to watch this year. I'm buying next year, this Auzzie has the juice to make fantasy freaks (and emos) across the globe cut themselves.

Steph Curry: wow, really, the boy killed it at Davidson but he's still just a boy.... WRONG. When a rook pg finds himself sandwiched between Chauncey and Deron in average ranking, take notice. His roto game is precise: nice %s, almost 4 stls-tres a game, and 16-4-6 to round it off. Get some, plain and simple.

Marcus Thornton: in a nutshell this guy is everything that we imagined Ben Gordon could be. He's a great scoring 2 guard, decent %s and big time 3s. His season high in pts is 37 and he's hit 6 treys in a contest. Oh and he's a rookie. Oh and he's hardly played beside CP3. So, you probably shouldn't sleep on the kid.

DO NOT TOUCH WITH A TEN FOOT CLOWN POLE! (fantasy hate/ bury):

Jose Calderon: get used to seeing Raptors in this space.. Last year Jose promised the fantasy world a defenseless yet hyper efficient roto game. No dice. Jarret jacked his minutes, but even for a platoon situation his numbers are bullshit. No one expected him to shoot from the line like he did last year, but his ft % has dropped by 18. In 27 min this year he has averaged 6 dimes, 3 years ago he averaged 5 dimes in 21min. That is not progress. That is making a monkey out of Brian Colangelo after he paid you.. How do you say douche bag in spanish?

Elton Brand: part of this is me living in the past, that's when EB was a 20-10 and 2 guarantee or in fantasy terms: big man GOLD. After 2 injury riddled years some of us (at least I did) thought EB might be back with a vengeance... maybe not with a Bruce Willis level of vengeance, but at least with more vengeance than that mac pushing joker from the most recent die hard. These days Elton couldn't sell an iphone to a preschooler and is averaging career lows in pts, rebs, and blks. The sun has almost set.

Chris Duhon: ok, we all knew from the giddy up that his ceiling was low, but being a coach's pet in the D'Antoni system comes with a certain set of expectations, like being rosterable in fantasy leagues. But no. I'm pretty sure Duhon has been using his sense of smell to aim his jumper this year. Check the gamelog lowlites: he has hit 20% or less of his field goals IN 19 GAMES THIS YEAR!!! WHAT IN THE FUCK???

NO RUBBER, SHOULD YOU BONE? (impending fear/ risky sex: you could get burned, or have the greatest time of your life):

Gilbert Arenas: seven mack 11s, about eight 38s, nine 9s ten mack 10s the shit never ends.... It's been about 3 years since hibachi was known as the ballsy, dead eye, back breaking (basketball) shooter he once was. Injuries and legalities have kept him from being an elite level fantastar. But with some jail/halfway house down time, a hollowed out Wiz squad, and a new number agent 6 is poised to fire at will once again. You're rolling the dice, but the dividends could be major. Once again here is the metaphor: you know the girl at the bar is down, you know she's a potentially infectious hoe, you know your outta jimmy-hats (in the words of humpty hump)... question is, do you do the humpty dance?

Sunday, April 4, 2010

Shutter' Down Boys!

Like Winnipeg City Workers on a barely raining day, lets take a quick look at what you can expect to see as far as who's resting and whose not in the home stretch.

Danny Granger is always a risk but Indy is toast as far as playoff hopes, and with lighter games comin up his minutes shouldnt take to much of a hit.

Marc 'Centra' Gas called it quits for injury purposes, but the potent mix of youth & dead playoff dreams in Memphis means Rudy, OJ and Zach are gonna keep on truckin. And Conley was an absolute sex panda in march, now that it doesn't count he's gonna show you what he's got.

The OKC freaks are fighting to get they're foot in the door of the playoff rollercoaster, which means that Durant is appalling every night, and Jeff Green fanatics like us are pitching tents left and right. Russell Westbrook is intergral for this battle as well, so keep running him.

The Usual Suspects might see a day or two rest for the Lakers. Kobe, Pau and even Odom (thinks he deserves some rest). Ron Artest is probably gonna see some sideline next week too, after he poses shirtless on the cover of another Mens Health magazine.

Gallinari & David Lee are free to roam the countryside triple dubbing at will, especially considering Wilson Chandler & Al Harrington are both shutdown for reasons other than the 0% chance of NY making the playoffs.

Iguodala might succomb to certain borderline injuries now that playoffs are out and take a rest, and i'd be completely shocked if Elton 'John' Brand didnt miss any time. Thaddeus Young? Pffft, see ya next year.

Boston and Atlanta are batteling it out for 3rd seed in the East, the bruisers of both teams should be making every minute count, which contributes considerably to Fantasy owners. Give lots of run to Ray Ray, KG, Ragin' Rajon, Pierce, Perkins(if thats your thing) as well as J-Smooth, Joe Joe, Bibby, Crawdaddy and the big Horf.

Dallas & Denver are engulfed in a battle for position so both teams are projected to let the regulars do they're thing till the end.

Charlotte is so close to theyre first playoff birth Michael Jordon can feel it gently massaging his shoulders, expect Gerald, Captain Jax and Felton to freak like they've got a pair.

Toronto is still trying to sneak into the big show, and it's gonna take thick efforts from CB4 and Nani every night to stave off Chi-Town. Don't expect any rest to be dealt out by Jay 'main vein' Triano.

Van Gundy can't sleep at night until he's seen Dwight go 20-10 while missing 8 of 10 free throws, so thats a good sign for owners.

And finally Monta Ellis is batteling a mystery flu, how much more can the little guy take? He's projected to see the end of the teams current roadtrip, but till then theres a few hot upstarts in Morrow, Watson, Reggie Williams and Tolliver who'd gladly latch onto whatever minutes come they're way.