New season approaches. Fantasy season too

I know I haven’t been updating this blog for a while. It’s just that I am working like crazy, and it will go on like this until October 15th. Whatever.

The good thing is there is nothing worth commenting in Sixers world, so we are not missing anything. This article by Sixers beat writer Marc Narducci shows that there is no big news in these days: reading quotes such as “The Sixers will announce Monday that they are taking a 17th player to training camp, 7-foot-3 center Shagari Alleyne, who played three seasons at the University of Kentucky but sat out last season when he transferred to Manhattan” one can realize that journalists have troubles filling a whole article about our favourite team… 

All the attention in Philly is captured by the Phillies late run (I started to check MLB scoreboards and standings…) and the Eagles start of the season.

Same for Philly/Sixers blogs, with the notable exception of Jon (+ Brendan) of Passion & Pride, who is doing a wonderful job, always finding something interesting to cover, even taking it from the past (videos, analysises, memories..), so if you want to have your almost daily dose of Sixers stories, log on to their site while I am away.

With this remarkable off season posts, P&P confirms once more it’s by far the best Sixers blog you can find on the net.

Back to the new basketball season(s), I joined a couple of Yahoo NBA Fantasy leagues – one with guys from the Sixers board of philly.com, the other with serbian friends from B92 forum – so I thought that switching to some fantasy topics would be fun.

I have to be honest: I am a VERY WEAK FANTASY BASKETBALL MANAGER: I do suck. Really. I am like a fantasy Scott Layden.

I suck at 360°, I am “the complete package”: I suck in drafting, in trading, in setting the line ups.

Last year I played in two leagues, one roto and one head to head: in the roto I finished like second last, with the last team’s manager quitting after the first week or something like that; in the H2H I ended up 6th out of 8 players. Again, managers #7 and #8 weren’t playing…

Some notable moves I made were: drafting Nazr Mohammed as starting C (= projected to play big minutes in Ben Wallace’s place, the former Spur was buried on the Pistons’ bench for the whole season), trading Boris Diaw for Josh Smith (=Diaw had a below average year, while Josh Smith was an absolute beast and provided all the numbers I lacked at the end), waiving Mo Williams (= career year)… I could go on but you got the point.

Not only I have a talent for f’n teams up in every fantasy basketball league, I also set some rules that (I assume) prevent me for doing better: for example some players would NEVER make my team, because I just can’t stand them. Names? #1 of course is Kobe and, in general, all the Lakers (excluding my boy Lamar Odom) + all the Celtics… + Shaq, Antoine Walker etc etc…

That’s why my tip before reading my Sixers fantasy breakdown is: to be successful do the opposite of what I suggest. 

S4G PICKS

Andre Iguodala. Everybody is expecting him to have a wonderful year, something around 18+6+5, and I think he will do that. He’s the #1 SG in my pre-rankings. Can also play SF so provides also some flexibility. Definitely a player you can build your (fantasy & real) team around.

Andre Miller: solid pick. Never misses a game (touching my balls while typing this), will always give you assists and won’t hurt in the other fields (%FG, points, % FT…)

Kyle Korver: need threes and some nice scoring at SF? He’s the man. You know he will always play his 25-28 minutes so no fear to see him in a minor role. His 91 FT percentage helps too. 

Sam Dalembert: I had him last year in both my teams and he had a very good season stats wise. Problem: he was my starting C … so 10 + 9 + 2 with 54% FG (and a nice 74% FT) is ok but compared to what Yao, Howard, Duncan etc were putting, is not enough…  Would be perfect as a back up, though.

S4G WAIVERS:

Willie Green: enough said.

Rodney Carney: you’ll never know if he’s going to play and how much (not 100% his fault anyway). Poor rebounder, poor FT shooter for a SG/SF.

Reggie Evans: well, if you desperately need rebounding… in case I would suggest to pick another player with less weaknesses on offense (Jeff Foster type)

Calvin Booth, Herbert Hill, Derrick Byars, Shavlik Randolph: not sure if they are even ranked…

Kevin Ollie probably is but…

S4G LIMBO

Jason Smith and Thaddeus Young could be very nice steals as low picks. Sort of sleepers. Wanna bet on them?

One could take a risk also drafting Lou Williams. 

Fantasy managers could hope in a break out season of the last three guys I mentioned to reach some unexpected goals.

Just like Billy King and the Sixers organization are doing in the real basketball world.