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.

Question Marks Galore

On the eve of the kickoff to the NBA season, I'm starting to worry a bit about my team. For various reasons, many of my middle-round picks are not looking to hot these days:

Mike Dunleavy - Word has it his knee is still bothering him, enough that he'll miss at least the first game. Considering that I drafted Dunleavy in the 4th round, this is not good news to say the least. However, I did manage to grab Marquis Daniels off of waivers, who should fill the void until Dunleavy returns. There will undoubtedly be a dropoff in production with Daniels but he'll be starting in Dunleavy's place and will hopefully be able to produce some decent STL's and AST's.

Jamario Moon - It's unclear how many minutes Moon is going to get, given his weak preseason play. Given the efficiency make up of my team, Moon plays a pivotal role in securing me some blocks and steals. I'm going to keep him on the bench in cases where my lineup is full and wait to see if he can get back on Sam Mitchell's good graces again.

Peja Stojakovic - I've already mentioned how this was a mistake pick for me. However, given the question marks on my team, I'm tempted to start him if only because he should help my PTS's and maybe STL's. The ideal scenario would be for him to go off with five or six 3-PT's in a game so that I can trade him and get someone more suitable for my team in return (e.g. AK-47, Deng, Salmons).

Nick Collison - He's a minor question mark due to the surprisingly solid play of Johan Petro in the preseason.  But with Wilcox on the dinged up, I think Collison should get his minutes even if he's not at center. 

Here's my lineup for the week as well as my opponent's.

PG - Calderon (me) / Billups (him)
SG - Daniels (me) / Kobe (him)
G - Andre Miller (me) / Turkoglu (him)
SF - Amir Johnson (me) / Beasley (him)
PF - Garnett (me) / Duncan (him)
F - Al Jefferson (me) / Okafor (him)
C - David Lee (me) / Nene (him)
C - Collison (me) / Perkins (him)
Util - Brewer (me) / Bibby (him)
Util - Carter (me) / Derrick Rose (him)
Bench - Westbrook (me) / Posey (him)
Bench - Sean Williams (me) / Pietrus (him)
Bench - Peja (me) / Fisher (him)
Bench - Dunleavy (me) / Jeff Green (him)
Bench - Moon (me) / Grant Hill (him)

My opponent has a pretty solid team, with obvious strengths over my team in PTS and 3's and probably BLKS's too. I think I've got him beat in FG and TO's and I probably have an advantage in STL's. That leaves REB, FT and AST as the toss up cats. I think I can improve my REB's by rotating Moon and Williams in while Westbrook should probably be able to help me with AST's. Regardless, I would consider myself an underdog this week so I'm definitely going to have to get a little lucky.

H2H Road Map

As an H2H newbie, I fully expect this season to be an ongoing learning experience.  The biggest challenge will probably be figuring out how to adjust and improve my team after the seasons begins and my team's strengths and weaknesses become clearer.  My league has 12 teams and each team has five bench spots so the waiver wire is going to be pretty thin throughout the year.  Since I'm playing with a bunch of new people, I'm not sure how easy it'll be to make trades.  I've got a few question marks on my roster so for now I'm just going to adopt a wait-and-see approach.

Despite being new to H2H, I do have some specific strategies that I will employ that I believe will lead to success:

Understand Your Opponent

This is probably the biggest difference between H2H and roto.  Most teams you face throughout the season will have some sort of team profile: Big Ball, Small Ball, Efficiency, etc.  While you hopefully have your own team profile, it is beneficial to assess your opponent's strengths and weaknesses in deciding which players on your team to play.  Quick example: if your opponent is a classic Big Ball squad and you have a Small Ball team, then you just play your best players and hope to win the x-factor categories (in this case, probably PTS).  However, let's say you and your opponent both have Big Ball teams.  In that case, I might focus on trying to exploit your opponent's weaknesses and start a few guys who can help you win 3's and AST.  It all depends on the makeup of your team and how it matches up with your opponent's team.

Load Up the Lineup 

My league has daily transactions so my plan is to never leave anyone on the bench unless their position eligibilities forces me to do so (e.g. I have a center on the bench and both C and Util spots are already filled).  Even though I am trying to win via the efficiency strategy, the benefits still outweigh the drawbacks in having as many players generating numbers as possible.  Bear in mind that this means you'll need to check your team on a daily basis, which I think shouldn't be asking too much if you're a serious fantasy basketball player.

Ready to Contribute

In order to successfully load up the lineup, I'm going to need to have a bench that can contribute right away.  This means not unloading from the bench any guys who are injured (e.g. Manu, Ellis, Arenas) or who may not get substantial minutes early on (e.g. Eric Gordon, Jerryd Bayless, Wilson Chandler).  In roto, you're afforded the luxury of keeping guys on your bench and waiting for them to blow up since game caps limit how often you can run your players out on the court.  In H2H, stashing guys on your bench is a risky bet because it essentially eats up a spot that could be used by someone else who can add value to your team right now.

Flexible When Possible

Due to the frequent lineup adjustments, it is to your advantage to have players with flexible position eligibilities (e.g. PF/C's, SG/SF's).  This will help you play as many guys each day as possible.  Unfortunately, my team is not very flexible, as I seem to have a crap load of PG's and PF/C's (doesn't help me with SG and SF).  Now this is not to say you wouldn't go after a guy who isn't eligible for multiple positions; I'm not going to ding Deron Williams because he only plays PG.  But if you're deciding between two players who offer fairly equal value, there's something to be said about going with the one who can play the most positions.

Ride the Hot Hand (aka "the Ramon Sessions Phenomenon")

Invariably, there will be a couple random guys that come out of nowhere and go off for a few games.  In roto, I might dismiss that as flukey and not worth my time.  But in H2H, I'm going to grab that guy and run him out on the court as long as he's hot.  Once he fizzles out -- which we know he will -- then you can move on to the next flavor of the week.  The key is to always have one spot on your bench that you can quickly swap guys in and out on a whim.  Utilizing this strategy, I'm expecting to squeak out a couple cheap victories during the season.