I won my fantasy basketball league.

Unfortunately I was not able to help Alan win his.  I think I gave as much bad advice as good advice.  But that’s okay, next year we might be competitors in that league.

My MVP was Steve Nash.  My biggest surprise was Marc Gasol.  My favorite player was Monta Ellis who later became somewhat of a disappointment.  I think the Warriors should trade him.

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In the finals I was not nearly as concerned about my opponent as I was in the semi-finals.  It turned out I underestimated my opponent somewhat.  My strategy was to win FG%, rebounds, assists, steals, blocks and be competitive in FT%.

I was winning most of the way but in the middle of the second week the Lewisville Rockets became incredibly hot and at one point was 7-1-0 against me.  The only categories I was winning in was assists.

I tried to catch up to him in rebounds but I just couldn’t seem to do it.  I also tried to catch him in steals and almost did it until Mike Conley got 7 steals.

But just when things started to look bleak my team got hot and I suddenly started catching up in rebounds.

On the last day of the season, Wednesday, I loaded up on rebounders hoping that:

1. The Lewisville Rockets wouldn’t counter by loading up on rebounders.
2. The Lewisville Rockets wouldn’t notice that at least their best player, Lebron James, wasn’t playing on Wednesday, and possibly Joe Johnson.

Fortunately the Lewisville Rockets didn’t do anything.  On the last day of the season Lebron and Joe didn’t and Emeka Okafor only played six minutes.

I won this matchup because in the end my team played six more games.  And the effective number is actually more since on the second last day of the season his three Atlanta Hawks barely played.

If Kwang had been managing the Lewisville Rockets he would have won.

I learned a few leassons from these head-to-head playoffs.

1. Make sure you have accurate predictions.  I had a spreadsheet predicting how I would do against my opponent.  In the first round I kept Matt Barnes thinking he was a .500 shooter.  It turned out he was a .430 shooter and he ended up shooting .188 for me.  In the second round I thought I would win rebounds until I realized after a week that I had not counted Chris Bosh’s statistics for his team.
2. Don’t let a player go to free agency if you really like him.  In the first round I let Thabo Sefolosha go to free agency because I thought Kwang wouldn’t want him.  Kwang ended up grabbing him in a few hours.  Fortunately Sefolosha did poorly in the second week.  In the second round I let Anthony Randolph go.  Kwang picked him up in a few hours.  That kid might be a stud next season if Nelson lets him play.
3. Don’t assume you’ll win a category.  I assumed I’d win steals when I had a ten steal lead and that was gone in two days and I never got it back.
4. Don’t do head-to-head again.

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There were a lot of holes that I suddenly had to fill as the playoffs commenced.  In the first round, the semi-finals, I was matched up against Kwang’s team, which was the strongest team because of his shrewd late season pickup of Lamar Odom and his earlier fantastic pickup of Rajon Rondo.  Kwang grabbed Lamar Odom before I had a chance but in the case of Rajon Rondo I was being lazy, I should have gotten him off waivers.

I looked at the statistics and realized there was almost no way I could win.  Since he owned Dwight Howard I figured I could win free throw percentage (FT%) and with Calderon, Kidd and Wade I was confident I could win assists.  Normally I do well in field goal percentage (FG%) and rebounds but against his team I knew it would be almost impossible to beat him in those categories.  Therefore I tried to picked up a lot of guards to win three pointers and steals.  I was also hoping to win blocks by adding Ronny Turiaf and Chris Andersen, two block masters.

Just a few days in I realized I had to abandon blocks because Ronny and Chris weren’t doing it for me while Odom and Howard were blocking everything.  The funny thing was the day after I dropped Chris he got six blocks.  I decided to go after three points completely.

However it turned out that Kwang was better at picking guys who can shoot three pointers.  His big pickup was J.R. Smith who had burned me several times but was on fire throughout the playoffs.  I picked up O.J. Mayo whom Kwang dropped but he sucked for me.  Of course after I dropped O.J. Mayo he played great in the finals against me.

By the last weekend of the semi-finals I was behind Kwang by so many three pointers that I was resigned to defeat.  Then on Friday at midnight I suddenly had an eureka moment.  When I saw Kwang drop Jermaine O’Neal and pick up the last good three point shooter I realized he had no rebounders left except Lamar Odom and Dwight Howard.  Dwight Howard, fortunately for me, had no games scheduled for the weekend and Lamar Odom had only one.  Kwang was ahead of me by about 70 rebounds so I am sure he wasn’t concerned that I could catch him.  But I realized that if I completely turned over my lineup Saturday just before lineups were to be locked that I could gain significant ground on him.

For the next few hours I figured out who the best rebounders were that were available.  Then I sent a long email to Paul Kahn with instructions about what to do because I was going to be on the road on the way to Legoland.

At 1:40 PM Paul completely revamped my lineup, changing it from three point shooters to rebounders.  The first game was at 2 PM and I did this at the last minute hoping that Kwang wouldn’t notice and change his lineup.  At 2:01 PM I had Paul then change my lineup, grabbing all the good rebounders available for Sunday and even putting a couple of good ones on my bench so Kwang couldn’t get them.

I expected at the end of Saturday’s games to be still down by 20 rebounds but I ended up passing Kwang and almost catching him in FG% (thank you Jeff Foster for grabbing 18 rebounds).  Saturday night Kwang changed his lineup to have only rebounders but it was too late because the guys he picked up weren’t as good.  Sunday I continued to beat him and even passed him in FG%.

Kwang’s team really was better than mine.  It was quite a chess match as we made moves back and forth throughout the week to try to beat the other person.  In the end I had the last move, it was acutally like two moves, which is why I won.

I am never doing H2H again.

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I am both proud and relived to say I won both of my fantasy basketball leagues.  The head-to-head league turned out to be very difficult to win and consumed a lot of time which is one of the reasons I have not blogged for so long.

Head-to-head leagues have playoffs at the end of the season and like real life if you have injuries during the playoffs then you’re out of luck. I had dominated my head-to-head league all season but when the playoffs came around my roster was somewhat decimated.

1. Andris Biedrins, one of the top centers in the league most of the season, twisted his ankle and was out most of the playoffs.
2. Jamal Crawford, who dominated especially during the early part of the season, ended up playing so badly near the end of the season that I dropped him before the playoffs.  Ironically he ended up playing very well for my opponent in the finals before his back failed him.
3. Chris Duhon, a top ten point guard most of the season, began to fade badly and I dropped him before the playoffs.  My opponent in the semi-finals, Kwang, picked him up for one game and he had one of his best games in several weeks for him.  Kwang pushed his luck though by playing Duhon again and he failed him.
4. Paul Millsap played like a top twenty fantasy player most of the season but began to fade before Carlos Boozer came back.  I dropped him after he lost his starting job though I played him a few times in the finals and he did have at least one grand game for me.
5. Dwayne Wade, my MVP, hurt his ankle at the beginning of the playoffs and missed a game at the beginning of the semi-finals causing me to panic.  And in the finals he missed the last two games to rest for the real playoffs.
6. Caron Butler, my All-Star underachiever, was out the entire semi-finals until the last game but fortunately played well in the finals.

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My fantasy basketball team is pulling away from the pack but I am still playing around with it, seeking perfection.  Now I can welcome Jesus Shuttlesworth to my team, aka Ray Allen.

Mon, Feb 2 4:01 PM PST my trade ofer for Ray Allen was accepted.  It went through Wed, Feb 4 4:29 PM PST.  It looks great based on the 2009 stats.

Ray Allen is playing better than expected and I don’t expect it to be kept up.  But on the other hand Brand and Ellis are damaged goods and Bargnani is too inconsistent.  All three were on my bench.  Plus I get Boozer who hopefully will come back strong from injury though I am not counting on it.  I actually dropped Boozer a month ago so it’s nice to get him back.  Sorry Alan I traded Bargnani.

The weird thing is now I have too many good players.  Do I put Joe Johnson on my bench?  Or Charlie Villanueva?  I guess it’s a nice problem to have.

Update: Just after I orignally wrote this post it was announced that Elton Brand will have season ending surgery.  I discovered that after noticing that the team to whom I traded Brand had dropped him.  Talk about trading someone just in time.

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