Hello, boys and girls.  Welcome to another installment of Dr. Quez’s Good Advice.  This one’s gonna be a quickie, because it’s New Years Eve and there is much to do here in the snow-covered paradise also known as Brooklyn.

Every week brings us new surprises in the NBA, and thus in Fantazzle Fantasy Basketball as well.  This piece will focus on a short list of players who have offered excellent value over the past seven days, and who should be at the top of your list going forward anytime they offer you a four-game schedule.

David Lee, New York Knicks

Over the past seven days, Lee has averaged 45.8 Fantazzle Points Per Game (FPG), good enough to rank 7th best on the Fantazzle Player Rater (FPR).  He also is in the midst of a four-game schedule, so kudos to those of you who were wise enough to sign him for the current week.  At a 90K salary, you can’t really find a better value in Fantazzle Fantasy Basketball at the moment.

How is Lee doing it?  For starters, as the Knicks have transformed themselves into a respectable club, they have also slowed down the pace of their offense.  This means more pick-and-rolls for Lee, who excels at beating larger defenders to the basketball off the dribble, and who is perhaps the most ambidextrous finisher in the league.  Lee has also gained confidence in his mid-range jump shot, which has lately become very reliable, and is also a crucial part of his pick-and-roll repertoire.  When the defender plays over the pick, he uses his speed to get to the rim, and when the defender plays underneath it, he steps back and splashes a fifteen-footer.

Look for Lee to make his first All-Star team this year, and don’t be surprised if Knicks re-sign him this offseason instead of chasing after a more celebrated big man, like Chris Bosh.  He’s a perfect fit for D’Antoni’s offense, and has blossomed into a premiere post player.

Gilbert Arenas, Washington Wizards

Arenas offers a classic example of a player who can only benefit from the Fantazzle Fantasy Basketball scoring system.  In traditional formats, Arenas’s value is limited because of his piss-poor field goal percentage and astronomical turnover rates – two categories that are not part of the Fantazzle scoring system.  Here, there really is no down-side to paying Agent Zero his 115K salary when he’s actually playing good basketball, which he has been doing for a couple of weeks now (finally).

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that Arenas has averaged 46.7 FPG over the past week, because once upon a time, before all of the injuries, Arenas was a bonafide superstar, and a clear top-10 fantasy player, if not better than that.  Now, about two months into his comeback campaign, we are starting to see flashes of the old Gil, which means its time to start sticking him back in your lineup.  Sure, he’s no bargain at 115K, and he might not average 45+ FPG every week, but Arenas has one of the highest ceilings of any player in the game when he’s healthy, which he appears to be.  My money is on him being a top-10 Fantazzle player again going forward.

Rajon Rondo, Boston Celtics

With Paul Pierce out and Kevin Garnett also ailing (he is considered day-to-day), Rondo has been forced to shoulder more of the offensive burden lately.  Remember the Rondo who looked like the best player on the court during the 2008 NBA Playoffs?  Well, he’s baaaack.  Over the past seven days, Rondo has averaged 38.5 FPG, ranking him 17th on the FPR.  The main difference has been his scoring, which has jumped to 20 ppg during this run, while his assists (9.3) and steals (2.3) remain robust.  At a 90K salary, few players currently offer better value than Boston’s young point guard.

Wilson Chandler, New York Knicks

With an asking price of just 60K, Chandler is one of the cheapest options in the Fantazzle game, and yet he ranks among the top 75 on the FPR over the past seven days.  True, he has had a fairly up and down year, and you never know when he’s going to lay a stinker on you, but you can afford to take that chance with a young player in a good offense who has been on a roll.  The nice thing about Chandler is that he’s clearly viewed as a building block for the franchise, which means that even when he struggles, he will get his minutes.  And because he contributes in four different categories (points, rebounds, steals and blocks), he can get you points even when his shot is off.  He has averaged 27.3 FPG over the past seven days, and he is currently in the middle of a four-game schedule, which means he has offered excellent value to those  who were smart enough to sign him for the week.

Have a safe and happy New Year, everybody!

- Dr. Quez

Fantazzle Fantasy Basketball (fantazzle.com)

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Seven weeks into the NBA season and a nice cluster of Fantazzle fantasy basketball gamers has emerged.  I’m seeing a lot of the same faces in my weekly fantasy basketball leagues now, and it’s becoming clear who the real heavy hitters are.  These are the guys who have grasped the most fundamental rules of the basketball salary cap game, and are simply just looking for good value on a weekly basis, rotating in a familiar cast of characters any time they have a four-game schedule.

This post is really not for you guys.  I don’t want to waste your time telling you things you already know.  Check back with me in the New Year, thanks for checkin’ in.

For the rest of you, let’s go over two of these so-called fundamentals.  Maybe I can win you some money, so listen up.

The first rule of Fight Club is…there’s no such thing as a three-game player.  At least not in my universe.  The pool of rosterable Fantazzle players is not nearly as vast as you might think.  And that’s because it never makes sense to pay a guy to play a three-game schedule when there’s another guy, of comparable value, who is playing four games that week.

Take the case of Mo Williams versus Brandon Jennings.  Both are having really good fantasy seasons in both traditional formats – both among the top 30 – and in Fantazzle, where both are among the top 75.  This week, Williams and Cleveland have a four-game schedule while Jennings and the Bucks only play thrice.  Jennings is a top 30 Fantazzle Player (so far) while Williams is not even in the top 50.   Meanwhile, Williams commands a 90K salary while Jennings only goes for 80K.  You might be tempted to go for the young southpaw, thinking that on any given night he could go for 50 (Fantazzle Points…or actual points, really), so maybe he’s the better play.  Right?

Wrong. You never go for the guy with only three games, no matter how much you like him, and now matter how good the value.

Is Carlos Boozer a steal at 80K?  For shizzle.  Should I pay him 80K to play three games when I can pay Amare Stoudemire 110K to play four?  Nooope.

In this format, there’s always another good option available who plays a full four.  No, Stoudemire is not the steal that Boozer is, not the same great value.  110K is a lot of money, I know this.  And yes, you could take that 30K in savings and spend it somewhere else.  But you just cost yourself points there, buddy.  In order for Jennings to total the same amount of points as Williams, he’d have to play like top 15 player for a whole week: average nearly 37 FPG.  (The math: if Williams does what you expect him to do – average about 27 FPG, he’ll net you about 110 FPG for the week).

Now, this is of course something that could very well happen, since Jennings has already shown us that he can go off for 40, or even 50, on any given night, and he does average over 33 FPG.   But its certainly not something you can expect from the kid either.  The numbers just don’t support it.

And at the end of the day, no matter how you slice it, fantasy sports is just a game of numbers.  The Fantazzle fantasy basketball salary cap format is like a jigsaw puzzle – whoever can fit in the most high-value pieces into the same picture wins.  That’s the way it works.  Sure, you  might get lucky some of the time, pick guys based on intuition, or from watching them play on TV.  But if you rely on these two things are ignore the cold, hard facts, those black and white boxscores every morning, you will lose more than you win.  At least around here, in these parts.

Now, with that being said, it shouldn’t take a whole lot of time to figure out who you ought to play. Because for some weeks, there is a pretty short list of tier-one guys (think top-20 players) who are actually running a full four game schedule.

This week, for example, you can count them on one hand: Amare Stoudamire, Tim Duncan, Marcus Camby, Steve Nash and Baron Davis.  If I’m missing somebody, please call in now, the hotlines are open!  That’s 1-800-DJ-SALT-E-NUTS.

Which I suppose brings me to my next point, which is that it always pays to be pay LeBron.  And Kevin Durant, and Dwight Howard, and the rest of the upper-echelon guys who go for $100,000+ in this racket of a game we call the ‘Tazzle.  Well, nobody really calls it that (yet), but I’d bet my bottom dollar that you’ll see it in this here blog again.

True or false, you have had the following debate with yourself the first few times you played this game: am I better off trying to fill out a balanced roster, loaded with pretty good, but not really great players?  Or should I load up on them Brons, go nuts with them Kobes and say screw it, pass me a little Timmy Duncan while you’re at it?

It’s the classic debate that any Salary Cap Game worth its salt creates.  Here, I think the answer is pretty simple.  It’s kind of like the idea that you always want to take a safe, yet still-upsidish kinda guy in the first round of your draft (say, like a Pau Gasol), and then take your chances in the later rounds with those true high-risk, high-reward type players (say, like a Gilbert Arenas).

Here at Fantazzle, you always want to load up on those rare guys that are like money in the bank. Because if you are doing it right, you basically get to make about three or four first round picks in this game, and then go about finding slick value the rest of the way.   The one thing you absolutely don’t want to happen is pay good money (say, $100K or more) for a guy, and have him put up a 20 spot for you.  That’s what you call a flop, ladies and gentlemen, and make no mistake about it – it’s what costs you them shiny cash prizes, at the end of the day.

My goal with every squad that I pick is to have about three or four guys averaging upwards of 40 Fantazzle Points Per Game  (FPG), another three or four averaging in the 30’s, and then of course you sprinkle in a couple of them 20-point, 50-70K type value-buys (think Anderson Varejao or Trevor Ariza), and don’t look now, but you have yourself a 1400-point monster.

(The math: if the scoring average of every player on your team comes out to be about 35, and every player on your team is playing four games, that’s what you end up with).

If you are allowed to spend an average of 100K per player, then it stands to reason that you can afford to bag a couple of big ticket items as long as you can also snag your fair share of bargain-barrel pickups.

It’s kind of like this: you know that you could always get a better value for that electronic gadget if you wait until Black Friday, and then get up at four o’clock in the morning to wait on line outside of Best Buy with hundreds of equally crazy, broke ass idiots.  Or, you could just pay full price for it now, when you really want it, in December, and get to enjoy it all year long.

Yes, you have to shop for value but no, its not the only thing that matters – not when there are guys like David Lee floating around out there with 90K price tags.

Or think of it this way: will the Cleveland Cavaliers hesitate to offer LeBron James a max-level contract this summer when he becomes a free agent?  No, they’ll pray that he takes their money.  And that’s because he’s the only guy in the league who’s the best guy in the league; there’s always only just one.  Sure, LeBron costs you more than everybody else, but he’s also a lot better than everyone else, too, so you just pay him and smile.

Could Chris Paul be better a better fantasy play than James in a few months?  Sure, if he has a career year and sets a career high in steals.  But if that happens, you can just pay him instead.  Or maybe not – maybe you just pay him too.  The nice thing about this format is that you don’t have to choose between guys like that: you just have to be smart enough to know who else can help you in the 70K salary range to balance out your roster.

It’s OK to even overpay for a guy who is solid friggin’ gold when you’re getting 50 points, and you can also get 30 points from another guy, like Carlos Boozer, who makes 80K.  As long as you also find your bargains, it all balances out.

But will you ever get a 50 point bargain?  Maybe, but they’re awful hard to come by.  And certainly not on a regular basis.  (In case you’re wondering, LeBron is averaging nearly 48 FPG this year).

So now we’ve got our first two rules down.  Any questions?  There will be more to come in the weeks ahead.  Dr. Quez is open for business, everybody.  If you have a comment, just leave it here on the page.  Otherwise, hit me up at agoliaat@gmail.com.  Happy Chanukkah, boys and girls.  That means you, Scot Hirschfield!

Fantazzle Fantasy Basketball Games

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If you have ever selected a roster for Fantazzle’s weekly fantasy basketball game, you probably know the feeling: I know who’s the best in my regular fantasy basketball league, but who is the best in THIS format? It’s that moment when you scratch your head, shrug your shoulders and just pick some guys, even though you know that there has to be a more scientific way of building a team especially when its a fantasy basketball salary cap game.

Sure, you know that blocks and steals are highly valued, and the percentage-based categories don’t mean jack, but how do you put that abstract information into practice?  I know he’s the man, but is LeBron James really worth $165,000?

Well, that’s what you have me for.  I have created a scoring system to rank every single NBA player according to Fantazzle’s unique metric.  As of 11/28/09, here are your Fantazzle scoring leaders:

Note that the players are ranked according to per-game averages, not total points accrued, which is why Kevin Martin is currently ranked sixth here, for example.  As you scan this list, you will probably be surprised at some of the results.  You probably would have guessed that Monta Ellis was going to be a top 25 player, but 11th overall?  And you knew that his stellar percentages certainly increased his values in standard leagues, but did you think that Steve Nash, a clear top-ten fantasy player this year, would barely even crack the top 50?

One of the cool things about fantasy sports is that it allows you to test your own personal perception of a player’s ability or value and compare it again the cold, hard facts. Sure, statistics can’t tell you everything about a player’s performance.  Bill James and them fellas still can’t figure out a good way to measure defensive ability in baseball, for example.  But they do give you an objective standard against which to compare two players, which is precisely what the Fantazzle Weekly fantasy basketball game is all about, when you really think about it.

So let’s take some time to sift through these numbers, and see what anomalies we can find in the Fantazzle Player Rater.  Who else enjoys such a spectacular boost in value when you switch around the scoring parameters like Fantazzle has?  And who else isn’t worth the hefty salary that they command in the Fantazzle fantasy game?  Perhaps most importantly, who else has taken the time to read this blog, and also figured out not to pay Steve Nash to play for his team?

***

I think there is really only one place to start with a fantasy basketball blog this year. And that’s with the biggest story of the first month of this young season: Brandon Jennings of the Milwaukee Bucks.  Jennings has been simply fantastic in his first month as a pro, and he will one day be viewed as the catalyst for a new and inevitable trend in American basketball: elite players by-passing the college experience and instead playing for megabucks in Europe.

Not longer after the NBA adopted it’s “pre-to-pro” policy in 2006, and thereby prevented high school players from being drafted by NBA teams, Jennings was a high school senior at the Oakhill Academy, one of the most prestigious high school basketball programs in the country.  Its roster of alumni include Carmelo Anthony, Kevin Durant and Rajon Rondo.  Jennings was considered one of the top high school point guards in the nation, and was offered a scholarship to attend the University of Arizona, which is a breeding ground for future NBA stars, such as Richard Jefferson, Mike Bibby, Jason Terry, Andre Iguoadala, Gilbert Arenas and Damon Stoudamire, among others.

Instead of doing what he was “supposed to do”, Jennings decided to sign a contract with Lottomatica Roma, an Italian basketball team, which paid him handsomely for his services. However, after spending the vast majority of his first and only season with the team riding pine, most analysts agreed that Jennings had hurt his draft position by going overseas.

Yet, despite his nearly non-existent season and corresponding lack of draft buzz, Jennings declared himself eligible for the 2009 NBA draft.  And then on draft day, he nearly slipped right out of the lottery, a fate that seemed nearly inconceivable at the end of his high school career.  He might have even fallen right out of the top-2o were it not for the Bucks, who turned a lot of heads when they selected him with the 10th overall pick.

Now, just one month into the season, Jennings is running away with the rookie of the year award, and Milwaukee brass is looking like a bunch of bonafide rocket scientists.  Despite averaging 22.3 points, 5.5 assists and 1.2 steals per game thus far, everything was pretty under-the-radar for this sweet-shooting lefty until he exploded for 55 points against the Warriors on November 14th.

Sure, it came against one of the truly horrific defensive clubs in recent memory, but still!  I remember it clear as day.  It happened on a Saturday night, and not just any Saturday night, mind you.  No, this was the Saturday night of Chach & Caroline’s millionth-annual Pre-Thanksgiving party, only arguably the biggest party of the year for me and my nefarious cohorts.  Needless to say, the Kid got extremely toasted on that particular evening and didn’t get home to get his nightly fantasy hoops intel until approximately 4 a.m.  I’ll never forget feeling like my eyes were going to pop right out of my skull when I read that stat line: 55 points, 5 assists, 5 boards, 21-34 from the floor and 7-8 from downtown.  Perhaps the most absurd stat is that he was just two weeks into his rookie year!

The first thing I thought to myself was: Uh, did he just break the all-time rookie scoring record?  In week two?  Uh, who even owns that record?  What IS that record? (Note: as it turns out, Wilt Chamberlain owns the record, which is 58 points.  Jennings’s 55 is the most since Earl Monroe went for 56 in 1968.  Jennings is also the second-youngest player to score 55 or more points.  The youngest is LeBron James, who dropped 56 in 2005).

The second thing I thought to myself was: why didn’t the Knicks draft this sonofabitch!  Damn you, Donnie Walsh and the rest of your funky bunch!  Why did you draft this Jordan Hill character who, despite playing for the WORST team in the league that is going through a REBUILDING process, CANNOT play a single frigging minute of a single frigging game all frigging YEAR?!?!

But I digress.  Brandon Jennings, with this one singularly nuclear performance, re-wrote his own history, not to mention the fate of the many legions of high school seniors who will surely follow in his decidedly enormous footsteps.  Don’t you think a high school senior now has to think twice about inking that deal to play in college when he could make a nice chunk of change balling in Europe for a year without even sacrificing his draft stock?  Now these kids will surely think (preferably in a Chris Tucker, Smokey from Friday voice): well, Brandon Jennings can do it, why can’t I?  College sounds fun, but damn!

Except one has to wonder: did playing in Europe actually make Jennings any better?  How good would this guy be right now if he had actually played a full season at Arizona?  I have no doubt that European basketball is comparable to the NCAA in terms of overall talent; I think Team USA’s well documented struggles in various international tournaments has made that quite clear.  But I do wonder whether it really made him a better player to just practice with these guys.  He played like 8 minutes per game in Italy!  Wouldn’t he have been better served starting for the Wildcats in a title run?

But that’s really the ONLY thing that makes me question whether Jennings represents the dawn of a new era in international basketball.  And who’s to say that the next guy to go over there won’t be benched by his dumb ass Italian coach?  I mean seriously, how stupid does THAT guy feel right now, whoever the hell he is?  I’d love to know who exactly was so good over there in Roma that Mr. Spaghettihead couldn’t find enough time to get Mr. ROY on the floor.  Whoever that player was, I bet he couldn’t drop 55 in an NBA game if his life depended on it.

OK so that’s my Brandon Jennings rant.  Sorry, it was a long one.  But really, kind of like my man-crushes on Chauncey Billups and Kevin Durant, he soooo deserves it!  Let’s wrap this up by pointing out that Jennings currently fetches just $80,000 in the Fantazzle game, and considering the fact that he’s a top-25 Fantazzle player, that’s what you call a gimme.

Yea, I know, you love me.  You can thank me later with a tweet or dap or something.

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Welcome back to Fantazzle Fantasy Basketball.  The 2009-10 NBA season is now in full swing, which means that it’s time for Dr. Quez to start writing some prescriptions.  If you’re a fantasy basketball junkie, and need more number-crunching, mind-numbing analysis than your run of the mill, ESPN type fantasy basketball websites are prepared to offer, then you’ve come to the right place. Fantazzle offers weekly fantasy basketball games for cash prizes.

Last season we launched Fantazzle’s unique brand of fantasy basketball games, and in my blog entry entitled “Introduction to Fantazzle Fantasy Basketball,” I explained the rules of our game.  The rules remain intact this season and the format is a fantasy basketball salary cap game; all that has changed is the values of each player and your own comfort level with the Fantazzle scoring system.  Learning a new system is never easy, but once you get a handle on what kind of players it tends to favor, you have an immediate advantage over your adversaries.

Last season we spent some time talking about the primary wrinkle of the Fantazzle scoring metric: the absence of FG%, FT% and turnovers as scoring categories.  The obvious result of this difference is that certain players, such as Dwight Howard, whose traditional fantasy value is somewhat limited by poor performance in these categories, are much more valuable in this game because they are not penalized for some kind of offensive inefficiency.  Dwight Howard, who is a top fifteen fantasy player in traditional formats, leapfrogs just about everyone in overall value in the Fantazzle game, which ignores percentage-based categories and instead places a premium blocks and steals.

Now that we are nearly a month into the season, we are beginning to get a sense of what everyone’s true value really is.  As with any season in any sport, there is a long, interesting list of surprise performers and slow starters.  Then you have that all-important class of young players who are developing into legitimate stars, as well as the core group of established players who you can count on to provide steady numbers, year after year.

In the next several fantasy basketball pieces, I’m going to sift through each category of players, identifying several key players in each group that are worthy of discussion, whether it be because their performance is going to change or because they are an interesting topic unto themselves.  Along the way, we’ll unearth some useful nuggets of fantasy information that can help you win in both your weekly Fantazzle fantasy basketball games and your traditional fantasy basketball formats. Stay tuned and let the fun begin!

Dr. Quez

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As we approach the All-Star break, its about time to look back at five of the most intriguing story lines of the first half of this NBA season. We’ve listed them in no particular order, and the list is not meant to be comprehensive, so let us know you think we’ve missed anything.  I will be posting a more fantasy-germane entry next week, FYI.

1.  The Most Boring Team in Sports is at it Again.

In case you haven’t noticed, the San Antonio Spurs win championships every other year like clockwork. They are like the A-Rods of NBA titles (what, you haven’t noticed that ever since he joined the Yankees, A-Rod alternates between really, really incredible years and just merely good ones?  Go ahead, look it up).  Nobody has really been paying much attention to them this year, what with the Meteoric Rise of the Cavs, the Return of Mr. Big Shot and the Lakers .800+ winning percentage, but there they are, sitting right behind LA with the second-best record in the Western Conference again.  Oh, and in case you forgot, the Spurs did make it all the way to the Western Conference Finals last season.  And who knows how it would have played out if Manu Ginobili had actually been healthy?  Well now, Manu is healthy, and the Spurs keeping reeling off victories.  Would it really surprise you to see them knock off the Bynum-less Lakers in the West and continue their pattern of winning every other year?

2. The Resurgence of D-Wade and the Miami Heat.

This year Wade has shown everybody exactly why he is one of the most valuable players in the game when healthy.  Last season he battled knee pain until finally shutting it down with nearly a quarter of the year remaining, and Miami ended up winning just 15 games all season.  At the half-way mark of the 2009 campaign, a fully-healthy Wade has led Miami to the sixth best record in the Eastern Conference.  Granted, he hasn’t done it by himself, as he is enjoying a full season of Shawn Marion and #2 overall pick Michael Beasley.  But really, this is all about D-Wade.  He is toe to toe with LeBron James for the NBA scoring title, averaging over 28 points, 7 assists and 1.5  blocks per game. If Miami continues at its current pace, Wade will have led the Heat to one of the greatest single-season turnarounds in NBA history.

3. Cleveland’s Meteoric Rise to the Top.

When the New York Knicks traded Jamal Crawford and Zach Randolph to clear cap space for the vaunted summer of 2010, the entire league’s attention shifted to James, who will be the most prized free agent of that year’s bumper crop.  As LeBron danced around the issue of whether he will be relocating to Madison Square Garden, the Cavaliers slowly began to gel as a team.  Almost overnight, the Cavs went from being a 50-game winner to a bonafide heavyweight, and with a 39-9 record, they are second only to the Lakers in winning percentage this season.

Granted, LeBron has taken the Cavs all the way to the NBA Finals already, so on some level this team has already entered the NBA elite.  But that year (‘06-’07) the Cavs were a decided underdog in each of the final two rounds, whereas this year’s model should be considered at least even money against anybody they face, including the defending champion Celtics (who they took to 7 games in last year’s conference semi-finals, by the way).  

Could this be the beginning of the LeBron era, the year that he separates himself as far and away the premiere player in the league?  Some fans may believe that he has already done this, but there is no clear consensus; there are still many people who can and will make a strong case for both Kobe Bryant and Dwayne Wade, each of whom, unlike LeBron, have led their teams to at least one NBA title.  I think that this is his year, and once he climbs the mountain, there will be no looking back.  He will win his first championship and his first MVP all at once, and really, the only question is whether he will go on to become the greatest of all-time.  That will require at least four or five rings, so I suppose we’re getting a little ahead of ourselves here.  But when you’re talking about this kind of talent, you can’t help but wonder what he will become.

4. Mr. Big Shot Strikes Again.

How quickly the fate of a franchise can turn.  When Denver traded Marcus Camby to the Clippers in what amounted to a textbook salary dump, fans all over the great state of Colorado must have let out a collective gasp.  Their franchise, after being mired in mediocrity for so long, had finally assembled an exciting core of talent built around Carmelo Anthony, Camby and Allen Iverson.  The Camby deal was the functional equivalent of waving a white flag and saying, OK, we surrender!  Granted, the club wasn’t going to win a title as currently constructed, but they surely could have gotten more for a stud like Camby, couldn’t they?  As it turned out, that deal paved the way for the emergence of the long-forgotten Nene Hilario, who is perhaps the NBA’s most improved player this season.  Nene has been an absolute monster this year, averaging over 15 points and 8 boards per game, along with a league-best 62% field goal percentage.  He has proven to be a fantasy gamer’s dream, because he is filling up that the stat sheet in the defensive categories too, where he is averaging nearly 1.5 steals and blocks per game.  

But the real story in Denver this year is the trade of Allen Iverson for Chauncey Billups.  The trade made perfect sense for both teams: Detroit’s core had grown stale, and GM Joe Dumars rightfully concluded that he could not win again with that cast of characters.  The deal allowed Dumars to swap Billups’s monster contract (which runs through 2011) for Iverson’s expiring deal, meaning Detroit will be under the cap this summer.  Denver, on the other hand, was able to balance out to a roster that had two elite scorers but no true point guard to create shots for them.  While Detroit has predictably struggled to incorporate Iverson into their offense, Billups immediately embraced his role as the team’s new floor general, and the Nuggets have coasted to a 33-15 record, which currently ranks 3rd best in the NBA’s rugged Western Conference.  Armed with a proven clutch performer like Billups, Denver might just be that one team in the Western Conference playoffs that one no one will want to face.

5. The Evolution of Kevin Durant.

ESPN’s Bill Simmons, one of the great sports writers of our time, really hit the nail on the head with this one.  Sure, everybody figured Durant was going to be a great pro, but very few people insisted that he should have been taken first overall in the 2007-8 draft ahead of Greg Oden.  In a June, 2007 column for ESPN.com, Simmons wrote, “So if Portland takes Oden, it will happen because of conventional NBA logic (you always take the franchise center)…I’m not saying those reasons are wrong. In fact, I understand them completely. But if I’m Portland’s GM, I’m taking the guy with a legitimate chance to go down with Bird, Magic, MJ, Baylor, Oscar, West, Duncan, Pettit, Havlicek and every other great non-center who ever played in the National Basketball Association. I’m taking Kevin Durant.”  

Of course, this debate is far from over, but as things stand today, I don’t think there’s any doubt that if Portland could go back in time and do this one over, they have to take Durant.  Granted, Oden lost a full year of development due to injury last season, and it’s probably true that he is alot better than he has looked so far this year, but still – Durant has already emerged as one of the league’s 10 most productive players, and he is only 20 years old.  It’s truly amazing how quickly this guy is developing.  Think about it: he spends one year in college, averages over 20 points per game in his rookie year, and now, halfway through his second season as a pro, he is averaging about 25 points, 6.5 rebounds, 1 steal and 1 block per game, all while shooting 47% from the floor and 85% from the stripe.   True, his team is still terrible, and until he can lead them deep into the playoffs he will not be considered a truly great NBA player.  But still, there is no denying the fact that we are watching a future superstar blossom right before our eyes this season.  Four years from now, when Durant is LeBron’s current age and LeBron is Kobe’s current age, it will be interesting to see whether we are having the same debates about who the best player in the NBA is.  If Durant is good enough at age 24 to actually make a case, then the NBA will have itself another newly minted superstar, and Bill Simmons will end up being right.  Again.

– Dr. Quez

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As the real-world economy continues to spiral downward, many of us are tightening our purse strings and hoarding our pennies.  In order to win Fantazzle’s Salary Cap Challenge, you need to bring that same thriftiness to your desktop when you are crafting your roster.  Fantazzle’s brain trust assigned a dollar value to each fantasy-relevant NBA player, and in order to win your tournament, you must be able to sift through the aisles and figure out which players are being offered at a discount.  And as is often the case this time of year, we have many, many bargains out there for the taking. 

Now, I won’t do your job for you and give you all of the gems, but I will give you a head start on your holiday shopping by identifying a group of players that are currently being undercompensated by the powers that be here at Fantazzle.  Let’s take it from the top, shall we?

1. Spencer Hawes, C, Sacramento Kings.

This rookie has quietly put together the most surprising rookie performance of the season thus far.  Despite collecting fewer than 30 minutes per game, Hawes has averaged 12 points, 7.3 rebounds, 1.8 blocks and nearly 1 steal per game.  As unassuming as those statistics may seem, they are enough to rank him 23rd in overall points and 7th among centers according to the Fantazzle scoring system.  Put this together with his ridiculously low $38,000 salary, and what you have here is the most valuable player in Fantazzle Salary Cap Basketball.  If you haven’t had him in your lineup this season, you simply just aren’t paying attention.

2. O.J. Mayo, G, Memphis Grizzlies.

Mayo has been playing with the kind of composure that is hard to find in a rookie, and he is paying handsome dividends to those clever owners who snatched him up in the later rounds of fantasy drafts this fall.  Not only is he the only rookie to crack the top 20 in Fantazzle points this year, he has also been the 7th most productive guard in the game, ahead of stars such as Jason Kidd, Brandon Roy and Allen Iverson.  The former high school and college prodigy is only commanding a salary of $61,000 in the Fantazzle game, which makes him just the 35th highest paid player at the position and $50,000 cheaper than Iverson, $40,000 cheaper than Kidd and $30,000 cheaper than Roy.   He is a must-own during any cycle in which he plays 2 games or more.

3. Andris Biedrins, Center, Golden State Warriors. 

This 22 year old Latvian’s numbers have been up across the board this year, as his scoring has jumped from 10.5 to 15.4 per, his rebounds have jumped from 9.8 to 12.0 and his steals have gone from 0.7 to 1.2.  Due to his statistical versatility (and the fact that his .609 free throw percentage is being ignored) Biedrins actually ranks 7th in Fantazzle points for the season.  With a sticker price of just $80,000, Biedrins is just the fifth highest paid center in the Fantazzle game, and he will cost you nearly $50,000 less than the biggest kahuna, Dwight Howard.  If you can explain to me why you aren’t signing this guy every week, I’d love to hear it.

4. Zach Randolph, Forward, Los Angeles Clippers.

Debo seems to be on a mission this season, doesn’t he?  And as much flack as we’ve all given Isiah Thomas for assembling such a misshapen roster in New York, the deal for Randolph doesn’t seem nearly as dumb these days, does it?  Look, I’m not saying that Randolph is an all-star, or that he is anything but a liability on the defensive end.  But anyone who has watched him play this year knows that he has been absolutely unstoppable offensivily, and in the fantasy realm, that is kind of a big deal.  Sure, he won’t give you many steals or blocks, but what he will do is collect more double-doubles than nearly anyone else in the league.  He is averaging 22.4 points, 11.2 boards and 1 steal per game for the season, which puts him right there along side Biedrins in the top 10 in Fantazzle fantasy points.  Signing Randolph will only cost you the small pittance of $78,000 right now, which qualifies him as one of the biggest bargains in our game.  When Chris Kaman cames back from injury, Randolph may very well collect fewer points and boards, but the big fella isn’t due back any time in the near future, so ride this gravy train for as long as possible.

5. Derrick Rose, G, Chicago Bulls.

After limping through the summer league and underwhelming prognosticators in the preseason, Rose has been nothing short of brilliant in the early going this year.  His 278 Fantazzle points are good for 32nd overall in the game and 13th best among guards, while he commands just a $65,000 salary.  Although he does not qualify as the ultra-bargain that Hawes does, Rose carries the potential of a top-10 fantasy player this year.  No. 1 overall picks tend to have that kind of upside, especially point guards that come out of the gate firing as Rose has.  Although Kirk Hinrich will return at some point this season, my money is on someone else’s numbers taking a hit (sorry, Ben Gordon).

Happy shopping, and may the force be with you. 

–Dr. Quez (aka Dr. Dreidel)

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Welcome to Fantazzle Fantasy Basketball, a truly one-of-a-kind fantasy gaming experience. Fantazzle will begin its offering with the Fantasy Basketball Salary Cap game and look to add more games as the season bounces along. You will be asked to select 3 Centers, 5 Forwards, 5 Guards, and 3 “Utility” players. The players you select for the Utility slots can play any of the 3 positions – the choice is yours. In the Salary Cap Challenge, each player is assigned a dollar value, and you must select a combination of players that fit within your $1,000,000 budget.

The scoring system is simple, and similar to standard fantasy basketball scoring. You receive one point for each assist and rebound that your players compile, as well as two points for each block and steal. You also receive one point for every actual point that each player notches, meaning that you will receive two points for a field goal, one point for a free throw, and three points for a three-point field goal. Please note that, unlike most fantasy basketball scoring systems, field goal percentage, free throw percentage and turnovers are not categories.

This leads us to our first strategic observation: certain players will have drastically different values in Fantazzle’s game than in your typical fantasy league, so you must adjust your player rankings accordingly. The most obvious example of this anomaly is Dwight Howard of the Orlando Magic. In standard fantasy leagues Howard is noticeably less valuable than superstars such as Dwayne Wade, Chris Paul and Amare Stoudemire, because unlike these other players, Howard essentially causes you to forfeit a whole category (in this case, free throw percentage). Meanwhile, in Fantazzle’s format, Howard is just as valuable as any of these players, and by season’s end could quite possibly end up being the most valuable player in the game.

Fantazzle’s Fantasy Basketball games run twice a week. The first batch of games run Monday through Thursday, and the second batch of games run Friday through Sunday. This leads us to our second strategic observation, which is that not all players will play the same amount of games in any given cycle. Most players play two games per cycle, but some players play just one game, and others play three. Therefore, it will behoove you to avoid one-game players and load up on as many three-game players as possible when selecting your roster. Fantazzle goes to the trouble of telling you how many games are on each player’s schedule for that cycle, so it is very easy to implement this strategy.

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There you have it – an introduction to the game itself. Now please allow me to introduce myself, your trusty fantasy basketball blogger, analyst and bonafide hoops enthusiast, Dr. Quez. I joined my first fantasy basketball league in 1993, at the age of 13. At this time, I did not even own a computer, or even know how to use the internet. My father noticed that every morning I would race to the kitchen table, annihilate the sports section in what seemed like mere moments, and then sit there studying box scores for the next half hour. One day he saw an ad in the newspaper for a “rotisserie basketball league” and signed me up. Next thing I knew, I was sitting in some dude’s living room with 11 other strangers, drafting my first fantasy basketball team. We negotiated trades over the phone and submitted our weekly lineups and waiver moves via regular mail. I will never forget the surge of excitement that I felt when I got home from school and saw that envelope with the updated standings and rosters waiting for me in my mailbox.

In hindsight, it was probably the best training conceivable to become a good fantasy player. I was nearly half the age of the next youngest player – a fellow whose name escapes me now, but who named his team “F.U.B.A.R.” – and found myself calling grown men to negotiate blockbuster deals. Their wives must have been perplexed when out of nowhere, some squeaky-voiced twerp was suddenly calling her husband on a regular basis to discuss that big Latrelle Sprewell for Karl Malone trade.

I never did win a championship in that league, but I got awfully close. In 1995, I found myself in last place when Michael Jordan announced his comeback. According to our league’s waiver rules, this meant that I had the top waiver position, which also meant that I suddenly went from zero to hero. Next thing I knew, F.U.B.A.R. had me on the phone, offering me a rookie point guard by the name of Allen Iverson and his 1996 first round pick for my new best player. I can’t remember who I took with that extra first round pick in 1996, but it doesn’t really matter – no matter who it was, I got fleeced in that deal. F.U.B.A.R., indeed.

That league got me hooked, and I never looked back. Back in 2003, I couldn’t organize enough people to start my own fantasy basketball league, so I joined a random ESPN league that was full of deadbeat owners. You know the type – guys who miss the draft, end up with a crappy team, begrudgingly pay attention for the first few weeks, and then, once they realize their team totally blows, disappear forever. It was in this league that I bumped into a fellow by the name of Ryan Erb, who ended up taking over one of those deadbeat teams and surging past me into first place. We completed a few trades that season, and at the end of the year, Ryan invited me to join a fantasy sports league known as “Ricketts,” which is one of the most competitive leagues I’ve ever been a part of. This is where I really cut my teeth as a fantasy gamer, as guys like Ryan, Jared Hayes and Chris McCarthy won title after title, and I spent years figuring out what it takes to win against truly knowledgeable players.

Shortly after my initiation into the world of Ricketts, I began working at KFFL.com as a fantasy baseball analyst. There, I wrote impact reports on players, contributed to their annual Draft Guide by writing about undervalued players, and eventually ended up writing weekly positional analysis pieces. Although I didn’t always agree with their editorial decisions, I think I came of age as a fantasy sports writer during my tenure with the company.

I became involved with Fantazzle several months ago when Ryan Parr, an old college buddy (and the website’s founder), contacted me through Facebook and told me about the project. The rest, as they say, is history, and I am excited to be a part of the Fantazzle team. I will be posting a weekly blog entry where I will discuss fantasy basketball news and offer strategic suggestions for winning your weekly tournaments. Keep your eyes open for my next post, and I look forward to hearing your feedback!

–Dr. Quez

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