Mind of Migg

I hate fantasy football.  I also love fantasy football.  It’s so addicting and absorbing that once you’re into it, there’s no turning back.  I had a good start to my fantasy football career.  I won the league title back-to-back years, and took first in the regular season the other year.  I felt unstoppable.  Once we shifted to a pay league that included keepers, I knew I would be winning championships for years to come.

Only, it didn’t happen that way.  I feel like the 90’s Buffalo Bills.  I have great regular seasons, a good team, and continually fall short of winning the title.  The problem is, no matter how much you plan, how effectively you strategize, and who your players are, there’s always a factor of complete luck.  You’re dealing with nothing but statistics.  There’s no team chemistry, there’s no on the fly game adjustment, or substitutions.  You pick the players that you believe give you the greatest statistical chance of winning and then wait and watch.

It’s practically torture.  You can build a team that appears invincible and then watch as a bunch of no names steal touchdowns from you while playoff teams rest their starters down the stretch.  That is exactly what happened to me this year.  A combination of injuries and bad luck led to yet another disappointing year.

What made it sting more is that I gave up a lot thinking I was in a great position to win it all.  I gave up future draft picks and quality keepers.  I managed to get DeAngelo Williams when I already had Ray Rice, Joseph Addai, and Marion Barber (we start 3 rb’s).  I also swung a last second deal for Chad Ochocinco for the stretch run.  But then it all went downhill.

Here’s what happened during my semi-final matchup:

-       Ochocinco and Donal Driver had very similar stats and played teams with similar pass defenses.  Following the “go with who got you there” mentality, I went with Driver.  Result?  Similar receiving yards, but Ochocinco had a touchdown and a long run.  Difference – about 7 points left on my bench.

-       DeAngelo Williams ran for only 13 yards before leaving his game with an injury.  On my bench, Marion Barber rushed for two touchdowns.  Difference – about 15 points left on my bench.

-       Kurt Warner threw a pass backwards to Anquan Boldin for a touchdown.  They would later rule it a lateral and rushing td instead of a passing td, so my opponent, who starter Warner, would lose 6 points, increasing my chances.

-       But of course, he gets two touchdowns from, of all people Fred Davis and Steve Smith.  Sure Smith had a lot of yards this season, but he only had 7 td’s, one of those being the week I played him.  And Fred Smith?!  C’mon!

In the end, after subtracting the Warner touchdown, I lost by only six points.  It was heartbreaking.  What made it worse is the fact that in the following finals week, my points total in the third place game would’ve been enough to win it all had I advanced.  But that’s the way fantasy football goes.  You can have the highest scoring players at every position, but when the end of the season is near, and teams are resting up for the playoffs, you can watch your guys go scoreless while backups like Fred Davis go wild.  Bring on next season.

Football season is finally just around the corner.  I’ve had a long, unlucky fantasy baseball season and am a bit burned out by the long haul of summer.  I’m leaning towards sitting out next baseball season and giving fantasy basketball another shot.  Nothing compares to fantasy football though.  There’s more at stake (money and trash talking), there’s more involvement by everyone in the league, and there’s more excitement.

We are in our fourth year of a 12-team football keeper league.  We have only lost two players in the four years, so everyone knows each other’s strategies and bargaining styles.  Everyone except newcomer Victor, who is destined for a number one pick next season (we draft in reverse order of standings).

This year, we decided to do a live draft.  We went all out: a conference room in Eric’s office, a draft board with player name stickers, and people flying in from out of town.  We had nine of the twelve guys in the room and the remaining three on video conference.  We had a timer projected onto a screen that had a buzzer sound when time ran out.  We had laptops out, magazines bookmarked, and people scrambling to cram some research.  We were ready for a draft.

Imran started things off with his only good pick of the day, Maurice Jones-Drew.  He had the unfortunate circumstance of trading Tony Romo and losing Tom Brady all in the span of 24 hours last season.  I found it hilarious.  He spent his season selling players for draft picks left and right.  You would think stockpiling three extra picks and making an effort to have good young keepers would really benefit him coming into this draft, but no.

There were no real surprises in the first round picks.  Adrian Peterson, Michael Turner, Matt Forte all followed the first pick.  I was choosing seventh and took Larry Fitzgerald.  I know it was risky taking a WR before a RB, but his consistency makes it worth it in my eyes.  Our first real questionable pick of the day came courtesy of Ching when he took Knowshon Moreno in the 4^th round.  I’d be uncomfortable taking him in the 7^th round so I’m not sure what he was thinking.  I gave away a 5^th round pick and an 8^th round pick to Keith and Imran, so I really had to make the most of my early round choices.  I based my draft around my keepers and tried to fill my roster at each spot.  I feel like I was successful doing that, but we’ll see. Fantasy football is so completely unpredictable because you never know who’s going to get hurt for an extended period and which scrub on a last place team is going to score 3 touchdowns on you in the worst possible week.  It’s part of what makes fantasy football so much fun.

We had our first draft day trade a few rounds later.  Tridi made the call from Austin to Phil and swapped picks to move up in the 6^th round.  It was exciting to see Phil get the call one pick away as he agreed to the deal.  Tridi took Julius Jones, whom I was tempted to take.  In hindsight, I’m happy he used the trade to grab him because I would’ve regretted that pick.  There’s something about Julius Jones that always makes him more tempting than he should be on draft day.  He always let’s you down.

Tridi made a similar deal with Keith in the 12^th round.  It’s such a crapshoot in those later rounds as everyone around the table asks, “who’s that?” with each pick, so I’m not really sure what the value was in that.  But trades are always fun and I’m jealous I didn’t do it.  After those deals, it came down to IDP (Individual Defensive Player) picks and kickers.  By this point, James was choosing players based on funny sounding names (Tapp, Atari Bigby), which always seems to work out for him.  And by always seems to work out for him, I don’t mean it makes his squad better; he’s never made the playoffs.  I mean he consistently has the best-named players on his roster year in and year out.  You have to take successes where you can.

I feel pretty confident about my draft results, but then again, I always do.  I’m surprised players like Le’Ron McClain and Donald Driver slipped to me in the 9^th and 13^th rounds.  I’m not saying they’re fantasy all-stars, but the value from the rounds is potentially high.  I’m also happy with my team defense selections and defensive players.  I resisted the temptation to reach for “sleepers” and focused on value as much as possible in the later rounds.  All in all, I’d rate my draft third behind Phil and Eric.  I really like the total team they were able to put together considering they both drafted towards the end.  I liked Phil getting Marques Colston in the 3^rd round, followed by Jason Witten.  I liked some of Eric’s later picks: getting Hines Ward late and investing in Shonn Greene and Hakeem Nicks.

As for worst drafts, I think Ching hands down had the worst pick of the draft: Matt Leinart in the 14^th round.  I’d put two kickers on my roster before drafting Leinart.  He’s not even guaranteed a backup position yet.  Overall, I think Imran had the worst draft, which is impressive considering he had the top pick.  In his first six picks he took a guy everyone thought retired (Derrick Mason), a guy everyone thinks should retire (Willie Parker), and a tight end in the 4^th round that I would bet money doesn’t outperform the tight end I took in the 11^th.  That would be bad enough, but he followed those picks up with more trouble.  He took the first team defense (never something to brag about) and then three straight IDP players, essentially saying, “no guys, I am not interested in looking for any sleeper players or keepers for next year.  You all go ahead.”  In all fairness, he did sneak in a few offensive players with the picks he had traded for, but then he took more IDP players and a kicker.  The best thing though, was his selection of JaMarcus Russell, which would’ve won worst pick of the draft if not for Ching.

It was a lot of fun doing the draft in person and I hope we make it a habit.  I’m looking forward to making waiver wire moves before injured players are done being carried off the field, questionable deals, and trading more draft picks.  Let the 2009 Fantasy Football season begin!

When the NBA Finals matchup was set – the Lakers vs the Orlando Magic, I knew it was only a matter of time before the inevitable happened. The Lakers would be champions again. I resigned myself to this and accepted the exponential increase of Laker flags on the 405. As much as I despise the Lakers as a rival team to the Suns, from a simple unbiased fan of basketball perspective, I was very disappointed with this year’s Finals.

Full disclaimer: I hate the Lakers. I enjoy when they lose. I enjoy being in the city of Los Angeles when the Lakers are losing. I hate Kobe Bryant. I know he’s one of the greatest players ever to play, but I don’t like him. He doesn’t appear to be a good teammate. He’s so image conscious it’s a joke. So there you go.

Besides my own personal hatred of the Lakers, this was an ugly series in general to watch. As Bill Simmons wonderfully covered a few weeks ago, NBA refereeing is at an all time low. The calls are so inconsistent. It’s like strike zones: sure, each ump is going to have to their own interpretation, but the players adjust. The umps don’t change their strike zone in the middle of the same game though. This is exactly what’s happening in the NBA. Players get roughed up until someone gets pissed and then the slightest touch is called a foul the rest of the way. Not only that, but home court advantage in terms of calls has reached WWE levels of ridiculous. The calls being made in this series were so frustrating to watch most of the time, for both teams.

The coaching by Stan Van Gundy was awful too. I hate listening to games on ABC and ESPN because it means being forced to hear the jaded, funny once every ten attempts musings of Jeff Van Gundy. Jeff Van Gundy goes out of his way to rip everyone he can – except of course his brother, even when playing the entire fourth quarter of a crucial game 3 without a point guard. Seriously, Stan Van Gundy couldn’t have screwed up his rotation any more than he did in his handling of bringing Jameer Nelson back. He overplayed him in Game 1, underplayed him in Game 2, and then had no clue what to do after that. Yet never a word from Jeff. If Stan had eased Jameer into the rotation, not thrown ball handling responsibilities onto Hedo in crunch time, and adjusted more quickly to the Lakers’ defense of Dwight Howard, we would’ve had a series. In spite of all his efforts, the Magic still came two tough shots (Courtney Lee’s missed lob layup and Derek Fisher’s clutch 3) away from a 3-1 series lead going into last night’s game.

The fact that it was closer than the final series outcome indicates goes to one other point that bothered me throughout the playoffs. Once it was down to the final four teams, it was clear there would be no great team this year. Every team had some flaws and none of the teams had that championship mindset that so many other great teams have had. We all knew Denver was full of headcases and would fall apart eventually, but during the regular season, it wouldn’t surprise anyone to see the Lakers or Magic get blown out by the Grizzlies on a lazy night. You couldn’t say that about teams like the early 2000’s Lakers, the Spurs, or even the recent good Piston teams. It’s been said better than me by many others already, but teams were so conscious of cost savings that there were no big trades this year for that “missing piece” on teams that were close. Everybody showed up to the playoffs with whatever weapons they had. That led to some close, exciting games at every round, but no great teams. It’s fun to watch a great team click, even if they do so finishing off the team you’re rooting for.

Finally, one thing I got sick of was hearing how badly Kobe wanted this. Sure Kobe’s great, but it takes a team to win it all. I don’t think he’ll ever know this, holding up four fingers and congratulating himself on a job well done at the end. Let’s not forget that this was a below .500 team with Kobe running the show until a highway robbery trade landed them Pau Gasol. Kobe’s personality reflected the image of the entire team. This Laker team was so boring to watch. They clocked in at tip off and clocked out at the final buzzer. They had the player talent to be a dynasty, but they’ll settle for flawed champion in a tough economic year. You want to see the anti-Lakers, look at the Cavs. They were fun to watch. That was a team that played as a team to exceed expectations. When you see the roster on paper, there’s no way they should have been so close to the Finals. Besides Lebron, there’s nobody on that team that can be considered a viable second option.

This year’s NBA Finals was definitely anti-climatic. I only hope that the league will take a long hard look at their referees and how they’re developed in the coming seasons. I also hope that the lack of a dynasty team and a more level playing field will continue to lead to some very exciting games next year. I just hope I don’t have to watch Kobe jut out his lower jaw and scream at his teammates because he really wants it anymore than I did this year.