Week 1 "Victory" + Streakness

So I managed to squeeze out a victory in Week 1, thanks in part to Westbrook's late flurry of steals last night. The boost in steals sealed the deal for me at 5-4, which isn't pretty but a win nonetheless. Or so I thought.

When I logged in this morning, I noticed that I was in 6th place, one game behind the leader. Much to my dismay, Yahoo counts the total cats that you've won/lost, as opposed to actual weekly opponents that you defeat/are defeated by (similar to fantasy football). As a result, three teams who finished 6-3 and one team that won 5-3-1 are all above me and another guy at 5-4. I'm not even sure why the other 5-4 guy is fifth and I'm sixth. I looked through Yahoo's explanation on tiebreakers and it doesn't exactly say so I'm thinking the first week tiebreakers are decided by random coin flips. I'll definitely need to keep an eye on this as the season goes on.

But back to the Week 1 victory. After one week, my team's strengths and weaknesses have already begun to materialize. In order from strongest to weakest strengths and weakest to strongest weakness:

Strengths
FG
AST
STL
TO
REB
FT

Weaknesses
3's
PTS
BLK

My strengths are pretty on par with what I thought they would be, though I am a little surprised by how strong I am in STL. The biggest surprise is probably my weakness in BLK, though I finished ranked 9th in the league but only six back from the team in 1st. So I'm thinking blocks is more a cat that's somewhere in the middle of a strength and a weakness (streakness, anyone?).

For this week, I'm going up against a team that's strong in 3's, FT and maybe TO's. He looks pretty weak in every other category so I think I might have a shot to take this down 6-3. However, he has 45 player games this week compared to my 40, though he also has Redd and Chandler, who are both banged up. So when it's all said and done, we probably will end up playing roughly an equal number of player games this week. To be honest, the greatest concern right now is that I've got a number of players with questionable PT at this point:

Anthony Carter

By now, I'm sure you've heard about the AI/Billups trade. The biggest loser in the trade has to be Carter, as he will likely be relegated to Billups' backup unless Karl decides to get creative and start Billups at PG and Carter at SG, which doesn't make sense given that JR Smith is on the bench right now. I proposed a few borderline ridiclous trades to some teams to see if anyone might still have faith in Carter. The chances are slim but it's worth a shot before I dump Carter to the waiver wire.

Amir Johnson

He put up a stinker in his last game due to the fact that he was in foul trouble for most of the game. His inconsistent minutes worries me, especially if he continues his fouling ways. However, with McDyess shipped off to Denver, there's a chance that Amir will see an increase in minutes moving forward.

Darrell Arthur

He only got 13 minutes in his last time out. In looking at the box scores, my guess is Warrick played well and Ivaroni decided to ride the hot hand. This is slightly troubling because if Warrick can keep it up, I don't see Arthur getting too much playing time at either the SF or PF spot.

Ronnie Brewer

Kyle Korver has been cutting into his playing time so far and it doesn't look like that's going to change any time soon. The good news is that Korver has a wrist injury right now so Brewer should get more minutes in the short term.

Feeling Nervous + Digging Deep WW-Style

Now that the season is under way, the waiver wire in my league has been blazing.  With 12 teams and five bench slots, it's pretty slim pickings out on the WW.  This is unfortunate because my team is struggling big time right now.  Some reasons for concern:

 

Peja - I decided to play him to try to improve in 3's this week.  Things were going great last night until he sprained his ankle.  It's unclear how long he'll be out but it sounds like it could be awhile.  This mean I will have to carry both him and Dunleavy on my bench as they recover -- probably not a recipe for success in H2H.

 

Moon - He only got 24 minutes of PT in his first game, as Mitchell played Kapono at the end of the game.  During that 24 minutes, he put up a very pedestrian line, which makes me worry that last year was a huge fluke.  I plan on running him out there a couple more times but I'm preparing myself to cut bait if necessary.

 

Sean Williams - He got zero minutes in his first game so I dropped him for Darrell Arthur.  I know Arthur is a rookie but I think he's got enough athleticism and energy that he can put up decent numbers in rebounds, blocks and steals.  Plus Memphis is going to be terrible this year so there's no reason not to play the rookies.

 

Going back to the waiver wire -- I didn't fully realize how thin it was until I tried to pick up certain players.

 

"Chalmers looks like he had a good game.  (Look up Chalmers)  Damn, already drafted."

 

"Prince might have some good value.  (Look up Prince)  Wow, someone actually drafted Tayshaun?"

 

And so on and so forth. 

 

Other guys who I had my eye on (Mason, Jason Thompson) were quickly snatched up after their strong performances.  At this point, there's not a whole lot of value left on the WW.  However, there are a couple guys I'm monitoring if I do decide to make some moves:

 

Francisco Garcia - He's hurt right now but he should be back some time in mid to late November.  Once he returns, I think he can help out in terms of steals and 3's.

 

Paul Millsap - I know he doesn't get a ton of minutes in Utah but he's ultra productive when he plays, to the tune of averaging almost a block and a steal last season while pulling down 5.5 rebounds.  He's a good fit for my team and his value would only shoot up if someone on Utah's frontline gets hurt.

 

Jordan Farmar - You'd think at some point, he'll take over for Fisher, though I think Phil Jackson probably prefers him leading the second unit.  Regardless of whether he starts or not, Farmar should be good for AST, 3's and maybe some steals.

It's not looking good for Week 1, as I'm currently down 6-3.  At this point, I'm hoping to eek out cheap wins in a couple cats to take it down 5-4.  Assists (34 to 41) and 3's (9 to 10) are the most logical choices, followed by steals (11 to 19).  With Calderon, Miller and Carter playing tonight, I should probably be able to take AST down.  3's are going to be tricky without Peja so I'm hoping Calderon and Carter can surprise me.  STL's is such a tossup cat but here's hoping Moon and Arthur go nuts with the thievery tonight.

Quick Rewind

Morning After

As a seasoned fantasy basketball player, I'm usually pretty good about not freaking out early on in the year. And while I'm not quite in freak-out mode yet, I am definitely a little worried about Garnett this year. My observations from last night's game:

The Good: Got a healthy 36+ min and looked active and energized.
The Bad: He was mostly shooting jumpers and he seemed to have trouble boxing out Varejao for rebounds.
The Ugly: 5-15 from the field. 1-4 from the free throw line. 6 rebounds. 0 blocks. Not exactly the type of performance you'd expect from your first round pick.

But like I said, I'm not really worried yet. I'm hoping he was just caught up with the whole ring ceremony so here's hoping he bounces back on Friday against the Bulls.

Matchup Check

So my opponent has jumped out to a 7-1 lead, mostly because his team played four guys to my one last night. In looking at the breakdown, I think the cats that I will need to focus on to win this week will be TO, FG, STL, BLK and then hopefully two of the following three - FT, AST, 3's. At this point, I think I'll probably punt PTS unless someone on my team goes off tonight.

Lineup Choices

Tonight is a full slate of games so I won't be able to start everyone. I'm deciding between Peja, Brewer, Westbrook, Marquis Daniels and Moon and I can start three of them (players in red are the ones I'm leaning towards):

Peja - I'm surprisingly close in 3's (currently only down by 1) so I'm thinking about playing him tonight against Golden State and then reassessing after tonight's games.

Brewer - I like the STL's and FG but he's not going to help me anywhere else (not that he was in the first place).  

Westbrook - Could be huge in terms of 3's, STL's and AST's. But he could all kill my FG and produce a ton of TO's.  Plus he's got that pesky timeshare with Watson so I'm going to keep him on the bench for now.

Daniels - I'm not really sure what he's going to bring to the table while Dunleavy is out. In the preseason, he was putting big time numbers in 3's, REB's and STL's.  Detroit's not the best matchup in the world but I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt for now.

Moon - Apparently, he's going to start but that doesn't mean he'll get enough minutes to be productive. If he plays though, he should be a huge boost in terms of BLKS, STL's and REB's.  

I have a feeling I'm going to be tinkering with the lineup up until the last minute.