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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Just a quick reminder for everyone that Fantazzle is running a DOUBLE fantasy football games promotion right now. Make a deposit (reload deposit, first deposit, it doesnt matter, any deposit counts) and you receive a double bonus promotion at Fantazzle. Remember, Fantazzle doesn’t use Thursday NFL football games in its weekly games so you have up until 1pm on Sundays to play our fantasy football games.

Plan for the future. Even if you are kicking @ss in your traditional leagues, it will end in Week 16 so what are you going to do in Week 17 and the playoffs? Fantazzle will have fantasy games then so deposit now and take advantage of the deposit bonus. The time is NOW!

By user request, we have also lowered our minimum deposit amount to $10.  We found that you all want to try our fantasy games with a smaller financial risk plus the economy SUX right now so there ya go! You get a bigger deposit bonus at the $50 and $100 mark, but you’ll still be able to get the double deposit bonus starting at a $10 deposit.  Don’t forget we accept PayPal so you can use that to make a deposit or ANY major credit card (Diner’s Club and Macy’s card excluded ; )

This is the time to give Fantazzle Fantasy Football a shot everyone. With the bonus, the injuries in Week 10, and the playoff race possibly being a thing of the past for your traditional leagues, give Fantazzle’s Weekly Fantasy Games a shot. No commitment. Play when you want and enjoy free fantasy games live scoring. And did I mention that our fantasy basketball salary cap game and fantasy hockey salary cap games are now live as well.

Come give Fantazzle Fantasy Sports Games a try!

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Fantazzle Weekly Fantasy Sports Games is proud to announce a deposit bonus. The deposit bonus is in effect now and will end this Monday (11/23). The fantasy bonus is celebrating the release of our fantasy basketball games and fantasy hockey games. Plus its to commiserate with all of you fantasy football players who are all but eliminated from their traditional fantasy football leagues.

Make a deposit anytime from now until Monday and we will DOUBLE the bonus points you receive from Fantazzle. These points (called FantaStock) can be used to play any of our fantasy games for free. For more details on FantaStock and the bonus, check out Fantazzle’s fantasy sports promotions page.

Take advantage of this bonus while you can and make a deposit to try our new weekly basketball and hockey salary cap games or continue your fantasy football season playing weekly games.

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Weekly fantasy basketball games are now live and ready to go at Fantazzle Fantasy Sports. This year Fantazzle will be offering a weekly fantasy basketball salary cap game that will start every Monday and end Sunday every week of the NBA season.

Fantazzle’s fantasy basketball salary cap game will give users a $1,000,000 salary cap and players must choose 2 Centers, 3 Guards, 3 Forwards, and 2 Utility players. You make your picks before the first NBA game on Monday and your set! There are no player changes which makes it easy for users and provides a fantasy basketball game thats simple to play. All fantasy games award cash prizes immediately at the end of the last NBA game on Sunday. There is no season commitment or week to week commitment.

Fantazzle will offer free fantasy basketball games with cash prizes for a limited time so you can try the games risk free. The entry fee games will have much bigger cash prizes and range from $5 to $10 to start and will increase with demand later in the season.

Stay tuned for fantasy hockey. Fantazzle will have fantasy hockey salary cap games within the week including free fantasy hockey games and entry fee fantasy hockey.

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