NBA All Star Weekend: Punks Show Their Game

Jet here,

Just got done watching the "NBA All-Star Rookie Challenge and Youth Jam" (I refuse to mention the stupid sponsor in the title). Wow, this was actually entertaining to watch even though the Sophomore's stomped the Rookies by about 40 points. Personally, I was disappointed - Portland fan here, I had tuned in to watch Brandon Roy, who deferred the whole night and wasn't very involved. Oh well, I guess this sort of event isn't really tailor-made for Roy (he's not a flashy player).

The guy I was impressed with was Monta Ellis. Wow, this guy can absolutely fly! I had no idea! Why isn't Ellis in the dunk competition? I'm sure he'd be better than some of the guys they've got this year, and he could have been in there last year easily. Nate Robinson is just going to miss about 15 dunks again, why do we have to watch him? (oh yeah, he's the champ after totally robbing Andre Iguodala)... Dwight Howard can certainly touch the clouds, but when was the last time a man that big did anything impressive in the slam dunk competition? If a young Amare Stoudemire can't win this contest, Dwight Howard certainly isn't going to. Ellis looked like he was on wires for a couple of those dunks in the Rookie Challenge... I think the NBA is dropping the ball on this one.

David Lee gets the MVP for the game after making a ridiculous 14-14 shots (probably 10 of them dunks). He shouldn't have been the MVP, but I have to feel good for Lee, who absolutely has no business not starting for the Knicks. I guess Isiah Thomas prefers watching Quentin Richardson brick shots and pull back muscles over Lee's hustle, defense, and surprising (for a white boy) ability to throw down finishers. The jury is still out on whether Lee is an East Coast version of Nick Collison or something special, but there's no doubt that he deserves more minutes than any other Knick.

The real reason the Sophomores dominated was the play of their stud point guards, Deron Williams and Chris Paul. Williams set the tone and had the ball whizzing around to Sophs for open shots and uncontested dunks. He was the MVP, in my eyes.

The Sophomores really had a loaded team - Paul : absolute stud (what is it with Chris Paul, he suddently pulls out these bada$ dunks sometimes), Williams : awesome. Granger - sick athlete and some great handles for a pretty big guy. Lee is the hustle player that every team needs. I still think Bogut is a bit of a stiff, but he's got the potential to be a Divac type some day. Ellis certainly looked sick tonight (see above). Head and Felton are both nice players, - there's just no way the Rookies had a chance in this.

On the rookie team, I thought Bargnani looked pretty good. Morrison can score, I'll give him that. As a Blazer fan, I can tell you that Roy is much better than he showed tonight. In his defense, they had Foye running the point while the starters were playing, and Foye just doesn't pass. I guess it was the Rookie Challenge, but Foye was a black hole in this game. He's an impressive player, but I think he's less of a point guard than Brandon Roy is right now. Millsap is a great hustle guy who is all over the glass. They should have started him, then maybe they would have had a shot to keep in under a 20 point lead for longer than the first 10 minutes of the game. Morrison, Gay, and Bargnani were like matadors on that Rookie interior defense. Gay is a freak of nature with his leaping ability and wingspan. I saw a nice shooting touch out there, too. I know Shane Battier is a great "glue guy," but I think the Rockets might really regret that draft-day deal in a few years.

Some impressive young players, it will be fun to see how they develop over the next few years. I think Brandon Roy still wins Rookie of the Year, but Gay, Foye, and Bargnani could be primed to give him a run for his money over the second half.

-Jet out

Images : Noah Graham (NBAE), Kevork Djansezian (AP), Mark Terrill (AP)

NBA : Valentine's Day Prognostication

Jet here,

Back to make some more NBA predictions, and the NBA has a whopping 13 games scheduled for Valentine's Day. Too bad none of us will be watching them.. Anywho! There's some difficult games, and some that I feel are fairly easy calls. I'm going to take shots at some from both categories.

San Antonio (3.5) at Detroit (-3.5)

The Spurs woke up from their road trip nightmare with a cake-walk win over the decimated Nets. Knife or I should have predicted this in the blog, but we were too lazy to post. The Spurs play back to back with a trip to Motor City, but should be fresh having rested their starters in a blow out. Somewhat related, I heard Steve Kerr recently testify that one of the great myths in the NBA is that back-to-back games are a big disadvantage. He said barring injuries, this is not true. The players get to rest the entire second day without practicing, and actually feel more rested at game time. Anyway, I see the Spurs carrying some momentum into this game and perhaps winning in Detroit.

Milwaukie (N/A) at Boston (N/A)

The losing streak ends. Milwaukie is a lame duck team right now with no Michael Redd. Villanueva would have been a weapon for them to use on Boston's weaker interior defense, but he's injured again. Paul Pierce looked to be in form against the Timberwolves, and he should have his way on V-Day. If the Celtics can't with this game, they could certainly threaten that NBA longest losing streak of 23 games. My crystal ball says The Truth will be told : Celtics win by double-digits.

Cleveland (4.5) at Utah (-4.5)

How 'bout those Jazz? No Boozer, no problem. Mehmet Okur is developing into one of the most clutch players in the league. The game: Cleveland is perhaps the easiest team in the NBA to gameplan for. Their offensive schemes are non-existent - give the ball to LeBron and watch him go one-on-one, somebody chuck up a three if he dishes ... ugh. Boring to watch when LBJ isn't throwing it down, too. The Jazz have a two-pronged attack to stick into Bron Bron called Kirilenko & Harpring. AK47 will hound him with his perimeter defense and Harpring will throw his Bron-sized frame into him the rest of the time. Jazz win this game handily.

Portland (7) at Orlando (-7)

The Blazers are a reflection of Nate McMillan right now - scrappy and proud even as they take losses from more mature teams. I contest that this team is a good pick whenever they are heavy underdogs. The Blazers are coming off a double-digit loss to the Heat that was closer than the final score suggests - Wade's Superman act in the fourth quarter of that game blew it out of proportion. Against the Magic (a young team in their own right), the Blazers keep it close and have a chance to win.

Denver (N/A) at Minnesota (N/A)

Two mediocre teams, but this game has huge implications for the Western Conference playoffs race. The X-Factor for this game was Camby, who had been missing time with a sore groin. He played on monday, but didn't appear completely healthy. Still, his presense should be enough to keep Denver in this game. I think it goes down to the wire with both teams laying it all on the line. This game could determine if either of these teams has the will to drive for a playoff seed in the crowded West. I'll stick my neck out and say the Wolves win by a bucket or two at home.

Washington (-1) at Philadelphia (1)

Gilbert Arenas is one strange cat. Having just stuffed his foot down his throat with his "I'm gonna drop 50 on the Blazers" prediction, he should be reining in that monster ego for a bit. He and Eddie Jordan are making nice after their incredibly lame media-mediated cat fight following that loss. I think Washington is far from a good team right now, but they should be able to handle the lowly Sixers. You can tune into Sports Center hoping for some new cryptic riddles from Arenas, but I think all you'll get is some nice dunk highlights from Iguodala and a final score of Washington 105, Philadelphia 100 (oh no he did-int!).

That's a wrap - Jet out.

Image: Brian Babineau (NBAE) via Getty Images

FBA 102 : Techniques For Building An Unbeatable Fantasy Team

Jet here,

Today I'm looking at some simple principles that can help turn a good team into a dominant one. If you haven't read my first FBA post, "The Foundations of a Winning Team," you should go back and check that out.

Again, when I talk Fantasy Basketball, my discussion is framed around Head-To-Head, Re-Draft, Daily-Transaction type leagues.

All right, let's say you've drafted a solid fantasy basketball team by avoiding risky picks in the early rounds and choosing consistent players who usually avoid major injuries. What are the steps that one can take towards improving this team? I'll introduce some extremely simple techniques for honing a squad. Most of them involve trades - it's very difficult to make serious changes to your team any other way. Also - I'm not going to waste your time with the obvious advice to "buy low, sell high" - I hope you've picked up that strategic mantra already, and probably well before you even knew what Fantasy Basketball was..

Technique #1 : Concentrate Your Core

What is the "core" of a fantasy basketball team? Simply put, it's the best players on your team (for most sized teams, say around 6-7 players), and the ones that you'll usually start when they have games scheduled. The core is what forms the personality of a team : its strengths and weaknesses. Since these are dominant players, the true cream of the crop, their stats will influence the team's overall stats to the greatest degree (also, you'll be playing them whenever you get a chance, with perhaps a few exceptions). Let's take an example - let's say you've got Gilbert Arenas. Arenas is a dominant player that you absolutely can't sit, but he's going to bring certain advantages (points and threes) and drawbacks (lower FG% and turnovers) to the table along with him.

Ok, so what does it meant to concentrate a core? As you might surmise, this means turning deals that trade away quantity in your mid-tier and lower valued players in order to bring in increasingly dominant players at the top. In fact, you can think of this as "concentrating the top" of your core (if you visualize your team vertically).

The only way that you can bend your team and achieve this effect is to make trades (usually, a whole series of trades.. it can take a whole fantasy season). Managers have to master two kinds of deals : "The 2:1 (the short hand stands for "two for one:)" and "Best Player Deals". The former is much more effective, but harder to swing. The latter takes finesse, but even savvy opponents can be talked into a statistically even deal where you get the best player if the conditions are right. In both cases, you'll often be taking a short term loss in order to cash in down the road. Let's go ahead and call out these two key categories for trades and give them short definitions:

The 2:1 Deal :

Actually, it doesn't have to be a 2:1 (again, this means "two for one" - as in two players for one player). The trade can be 3 players for 2 players. You get the idea, it's swapping quantity for quality. You're giving up an extra player, so the total value equals out. However, you're taking back the better players in the deal. The assumption is that you'll be able to "make up" the depth later by making waiver wire adds. This always works in the long term as long as you've got the moves to add players. Always. There will eventually be a player available from the wire that will, when added to the players you took back in the trade, make your side of the deal better. Master these trades and look for opportunities to pull them!

Best Player Deals :

Self-describing. These are deals involving multiple players, perhaps 2:2 or 3:3 trades. Overall, the value is probably even (unless you managed to pull the wool over someone's eyes). However, you're getting the best overall player in the trade. Against experienced opponents, this is often the only way that you can concentrate your core. Perhaps everyone else in the league can't even recognize that this is a Best Player Trade. Certain players get hyped, or maybe a player had an extremely inflated pre-draft value and you've recognized that ahead of everyone else. If you pull a best player deal and everyone is convinced you lost it - only to find out later that you won handily (maybe when you're holding the trophy)... you're good.

Technique #2 : Build Teams On Shooting Percentages

There's several categories in any Fantasy League Format. Almost every league worth talking about counts FG% and FT%. Some go on to include 3PT%. Still, percentages usually constitute at most a third of the total categories to be won. So why single them out?

The most consistent teams are those that win percentages. Why is that? The remaining categories, which I'll term "cumulative categories," are dependent on the total games played by your players in a week. As you probably know, that varies widely from week to week. Injuries or "short weeks" (like the Holiday week or All-Star week) can make those variations even more extreme. Percentages, however, are less dependent on total games. If your players shoot the ball well (think: Steve Nash - ah yes, perhaps the ultimate weapon in percentages!), you can continue to win those categories even if you have a huge deficit of total games with respect to your opponent that week. Over the course of an entire season, this is a monster advantage.

I really should have introduced this idea before discussing the draft, since it obviously helps if you draft based on this principle if you're planning to collect a whole team of players with good percentages. Luckily, the most consistent players (consistency was one of our three foundations, if you remember) also have good percentages. Even if you ended up with some "percentage anchors," you can still make a key trade to get yourself out from under them. Make it a priority!

That's it for now, keeping it simple with this post. I'll expand on these principles later, and add some more complexity (such as how to best pull the category of deals that we just defined).

- Jet out

Images - Steve Nash: Jonathan Daniel, AFP, Shawn Marion: Nathaniel Butler, NBAE (via Getty Images)

NBA: Peering Into the Crystal Ball

Jet here,

Well, I said we were going to try and make predictions, so here it goes. We have some interesting games on tap for today (Sunday, Feb. 11). Let's run down the schedule:

San Antonio (-1) at Miami (+1)

Early game, 10am PST. This is basically a Pick'em, with San Antonio favored by 1 point on Miami's home court. Miami experienced a let down recently at Cleveland, but I see this as a bounce-back game. The Spurs are reeling from a heartbreak loss at Orlando, and could experience some hangover from that last second dagger from Howard. I think it will be close, but I say the Heat win.

Portland (7.5) at Washington (-7.5)

McMillan has the scrappy Blazers thinking that they can win on any given night, and they have some added incentive from Gilbert's "I'm going to drop 50 on the Blazers" blog declaration. Seriously Gilbert, you're a big star now. Go ahead and brush that 200 lb. chip off your shoulder.. I think this is going to be a fairly close game - neither team plays defense well, Washington is missing a key front court player in Jamison, and Portland has played well on this road trip. Look for Randolph to have another huge scoring game, and he'll get support from Portland's young backcourt duo of Jarrett Jack and Brandon Roy (who could have a very nice game as Arenas conserves all energy on the defensive end so he can try to make good on his unnecessary prediction). Blazers keep it close and have a chance to win.

Los Angeles (3.5) at Cleveland (-3.5)

Cleveland faced a must-win at home against Miami, and they turned in a solid performance. I look for them to build on that win with another impressive show against the Lakers. L.A. is at the end of a brutal road trip that's featured back-to-back losses to the Pistons and Raptors. Cleveland is probably the worst out of that group of three, but they're catching the Lakers at the right time. Larry Hughes will hound Kobe Bryant and Cleveland's bigs will bully the decimated Laker front line. Cleveland covers the spread.

Boston (9) at Minnesota (-9)

Minnesota is not playing good basketball right now. Turnovers and defensive lapses continue to plague the Timberwolves, but they get a lift at home versus the hapless Celtics. Paul Pierce is back for the Celtics, but he'll likely be limited again to 15 0r 20 minutes of court time. The young Celtics gunners Delonte West and Rajon Rondo are playing well together, but the veteran Timberwolves will be far too much for the Celtics in this game. With a healthy Pierce, I would pick them to cover the spread, but he's going to be limited and rusty. Timberwolves win in a blow out.

- Jet out

Image: Joe Murphy/NBAE via Getty Images

FBA 101 : The Foundations of a Winning Team

Jet here,

I figure for a first content post, I would kick off a series that I'll call "FBA 101" (for lack of a better title, and it stands for "Fantasy Basketball Association 101" - you'll hear different acronyms thrown around out there for fantasy basketball, but this is one that stuck with me). The goal will be to start out with the simplest principles to use when building a winning fantasy basketball team, and then build towards more complex strategies. I'll introduce three "foundations" for success: Win Your Draft, Consistent Players Equal Consistent Wins, and Own Players Who Play.

Before I go any further, I want to qualify what I'm talking about specifically when I post on Fantasy Basketball. First of all, I specialize in Head-to-Head leagues. I find Rotisserie (or "Roto") to be extremely boring. I do fantasy leagues with friends, and the weekly matchups and playoffs that come with the Head-to-Head format make it infinitely more immersive than Roto (a format that continuously builds stats over an entire season, and has no weekly matchups or end-of-season playoffs). This topic turns into a religious war amongst some fantasy basketball luminaries, but it seems like a no-brainer to me. I think of college basketball versus college football - do you favor the excitement and the rush of March Madness or the "all-but-four-teams-are-usually-out-of-it by midseason" doldrums of NCAA football? Secondly, I'm not a believer in "keeper leagues," where teams flag players that they carry over into the next year. I'd rather start each year with a clean slate (this is dubbed "Redraft Leagues"), and it's hard to picture a keeper league over any substantial length of time that wouldn't deteriorate into 1 or 2 competitive "super teams" and a bunch of bored managers that are out of it. Finally, I'm going to frame my discussion in the context of "Daily Transaction Leagues" - that is, leagues where you can set your lineup day-by-day, rather than burn it in for an entire week.

Since we're starting from the ground up, I'm going to call this installment "The Foundations of a Winning Team."

Foundation #1 : Win Your Draft

Obviously, any fantasy basketball team begins with the draft, and it's the most important set of decisions that you'll make all year. Every year, I win my draft - and I do it against some individuals with a lot of basketball knowledge. I actually believe that many of the more prolific & followed fantasy basketball analysts out there do a disservice to their readers... These guys are scraping for anything novel to write about, and they invariably get into a bidding war of hyping players that are going to "break out." This makes for an interesting read when you're eagerly awaiting the basketball season, but draft participants always take the hype too far and "reach" with their picks. This is the opportunity for savvy owners to win in the early rounds - never take risks with your top 5 picks. Play it safe, and draft known commodities. I might even widen this to the 6th or 7th round, depending on the size of your league. You get the point though - protect your draft by beating back the urge to "reach" with those early picks. In the middle rounds of your draft (a draft usually has 13-15 rounds), you should target underrated players that will slip. These are guys that should have gone in the 4th or 5th rounds, but that are flying under the radar. From experience, I can tell you that these players are commonly very consistent without loading up in the categories of three-pointers, steals, and/or blocks. These players are seen as "un-sexy," and should usually slip in a draft (examples: Andre Miller, Richard Hamilton, Zach Randolph). Finally, you should make very sure to win the late rounds of your draft. Familiarize yourself with the players that started for their teams during the preaseason. If there's a guy that's just won a starting job for the first time, and he's been passed up on, he should be a primary target for a late round pick.

Foundation #2 : Consistent Players Equal Consistent Wins

Judging players by their stat totals or averages ignores important information that doesn't show up on the stat sheet. It doesn't take much digging to find out that some players are just more consistent than others (just open up their game logs). This should be very important to you as a fantasy manager, since you'll often have to make lineup decisions on nights where there are many games. This is difficult when you don't know what to expect from a player. When evaluating a player, take note of the way his stats deviate from one game to the next. Some players are extremely predictable in over 3 categories or more if you include shooting percentages (think: Kevin Garnett, Ray Allen) Others vary wildly week to week or even game to game (think Ben Gordon). Target the predictable guys. Especially in daily transaction leagues, where you might need to start a group of players based on the stats you need to pull out a win, you're going to want a roster of guys that don't pop a lot of surprises. Note: There are some sites on the Internet that track statistical consistency of players in a metric you can compare (also the consistency of the minutes that each player gets per game). For an example of this, take a look at basketballmonster.com.

Foundation #3 : Own Players Who Play

Injuries are the wild card in any fantasy season. They can turn a dominant team into a non-contender in a matter of weeks if a manager is extremely unlucky. While there's never a way to predict injuries exactly, there are definitely players that do a better job of avoiding injuries or playing through them. If you're new to fantasy basketball, you can gauge this by looking at the total number of games that players have managed to play over the previous few seasons. Some players consistently get on the court 75+ times (or even 80+ games) nearly every year (think: Joe Johnson). These are the players you want to own. If you see a player that's played around 50 games in his recent seasons, stay away (e.g. Baron Davis).

That's it for now, I'll be back in future posts to revisit more complex practices that will help build consistent winners in fantasy basketball.

- Jet out

Images : Kevin Garnett (Greg Nelson/SI), Richard Hamilton (K.C. Alfred, Union Tribune), Ray Allen (AP Photo), Joe Johnson (AP Photo)

It's done

Let me explain this as simply as possible using the picture to the left as an analogy. Channing Frye represents all other basketball blogs in the world. Alonzo Mourning represents BBall Oracle.

You see, Channing Frye thinks he is some white hot shit and that he has the ups to embarrass Alonzo Mourning. How tough could it be to dunk on an old guy with one measly kidney? Should be a facial, right?

Wrong. Zo is a chiseled mass of pure muscle who has the experience to send that weak shit packing. You don't dismiss players over 2000 times without knowing a little something about the game. So too will this blog put other basketball blogs to shame.

Click here to see how this showdown ends. (Warning: NOT for those with weak stomachs)

Let's do this

Jet here,

How many hours do I spend musing basketball during a day? NBA hoops in general, Fantasy Hoops, my favorite team the Portland Trailblazers - I don't even wanna to know. Time to open this up. I got the goods, but you can judge for yourself. I'm calling in my homey Knife, he's killing this too. Time to break this down - melt it into its base elements, hammer it out, sharpen & polish this until it cuts... Let's talk hoops, people.

- Jet out