Morning Glory? Not Exactly

I woke up early this morning, a little earlier than usual. As I thought about everything that was going on in my life, I felt good and confident. I felt like writing, but about what? I got on the bus on my way to work and I checked on my fantasy basketball teams so I could change my line ups when I noticed I lost in both of my leagues yesterday. In my main league I'm still in first place but in my random league I've fallen to second place.

The lost in my random league isn't that significant. I had a slim margin between myself and the person in second place. I won my matchup as far as winning the majority of stat categories, but with me only winning 5-4 and the person ahead of me winning 6-2, he took a one game lead over me.

The lost that interests me the most is the lost in The Syndicate. This lost was significant for two reasons. First, it is only my second lost of the season. Secondly, the lost was to one of the better players in the league. This was our third time playing each other this season in what I think have been epic battles. When the league first started and the draft was complete, I was fussing about David's Team because in my opinion he had one to the top 3 teams. I remember telling Big Mike that he had the Dream Team of Fantasy Basketball. What made matters worse was that I played him week 1. I wasn't too thrilled about playing him week 1, especially since I had missed the draft and my team was auto picked. To my surprise, it wasn't that bad. In fact, I ended up winning by just a few points. Crazy part about this victory was I was losing the whole week and I somehow managed to sneak up on him that Sunday.

The second time we matched up was week 8 and this time it was nothing like week one. I won the match by 241 points. There was two things that I can attribute to this win. First, I had Russell Westbrook in the lineup. As you all remember, Westbrook didn't play his first game until a few weeks after the start of the sesason and when he came back he was lighting it up. I didn't have Westbrook available the first time I matched up with David's Team. Secondly, Michael Carter-Williams got injured during the matchup for David's Team. I didn't really know who Carter-Williams, but I sure knew who he was after week 1.

Last week was somewhat similar to week 1. All week it was pretty much neck to neck. There were a few lead changes, but it remained close throughout the week. On Saturday I slept though. I was watching college basketball and sometime around 1:30 I decided to change my lineup for the day. I was too late because the Milwaukee Bucks were already playing and I had Brandon Knight on the bench. I believe this was a critical mistake because my other two players on the bench, Mike Conley and Westbrook, are injured and I needed to start as many players as I could. Sunday morning I was down by a few points and even though I had Kevin Durant, who went for 41 points yesterday, it wasn't enough. Durant did his job, but Rudy Gay and Spencer Hawes didn't show up... especially Hawes as we witnessed Blake Griffen hold his own slam dunk contest against the Philadelphia 76ers.

So, right now I'm down but I'm not out. I'm still holding down the #1 spot for now, but I know real soon imma have another matchup with All the Kings Men. On the bright side though, I play Big Mike this week. Perfect matchup to bounce back from a defeat...

Taking Over Control

In a very interesting yesterday, I went to the season-ending fantasy football meeting for my main league, Roughing the Picker. It was at the same place we had the draft, Buffalo Wild Wings in Torrance, CA. It was cool, but I'll admit it was a bit awkward for me. Awkward may not be the correct word, but for now I'm going with awkward. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed myself and it was good getting with the fellas. However, it was kind of awkward because for some reason I couldn't recognize everyone, and people were coming up to me giving me dap, and I knew I had just played these same guys in a grueling fantasy football season, but I couldn't put a name to a face. Weird part about it was they knew who I was. Knew my team. Knew my blog. But then again, maybe the reason why I was out of zone was because I was deeply worried about my fantasy basketball team.

Last week in my main fantasy basketball league, The Syndicate, I was matched up against the league leader, All the KING'S Men. I already lost to this chick once. Yeah I said it, I lost to this CHICK once. Again don't get me wrong, I don't have a problem with females on that PhantasySteez. In fact, I love it and encourage. I can't wait to teach 2 Cs how to play. I'm just saying, I've already lost to her once. It's my only loss in this league this season, so I was kind of anxious all week. I mean, this girl has what's turning out to be a fantasy dream team. check it out...

This lineup has wrecked havoc in the league. Highlighting her squad is LeBron James, John Wall, Damian Lilliard, Klay Thompson and Blake Griffin. My team is highlight by Kevin Durant, Rudy Gay, Deron Williams, and Russell Westbrook. As you can see, the two of us have the two most dynamic players in the NBA, but in my opinion, the rest of my squad are role players. Also, let's not forget that Westbrook is injured, so is Deron Williams, both who have been in and out all season. Not to mention I had to find someone to replace Ryan Anderson who was out all of last week and probably for most of the remainder of the season. 

I picked up Jonas Valanciunas to replace Anderson, and I had came up with this grand scheme to drop him on Sunday for another center. My theory was to start more players than she, as she only had one player for Sunday. But I was sitting there at Buffalo Wild Wings while the winner of our fantasy football league was presented the trophy and we went over rules, I was worried about my fantasy basketball team when I noticed something. First thing I noticed was that I was winning on Sunday morning with four players starting to her one. But then I wondered how was I able to overcome such a fantasy basketball juggernaut. The answer is simple...

In the screenshot above that I took today, she has Jrue Holiday on the bench, but yesterday she had Holiday starting. Holiday has been injured since last Wednesday in the fourth quarter and is expected to be out for at least a month. My worthy opponent failed to notice this and kept him in the lineup. Isn't that cute? She could've picked up someone like Kyle Lowry, Nick Young, Reggie Jackson or Darren Collison. She didn't, I scored more points. I won. I claimed first placed.

I Got Russell Westbrook and Al Horford On the Same Team

Fantasy Football is over, and yes I lost in all three of my main leagues, Roughing the Picker, Coast2Coast Ballers and Thieveland Ohio. Congratulations to Mr. Hindsman who did end up winning the Coast2Coast Ballers league. I like how Big Mike had to confirm that I didn't win...

Yes, I didn't win. The leagues that I did win championships in were just random leagues that I didn't pay as much attention as I did with my three main leagues. However, when it comes to our fantasy basketball teams, the roles are reversed my friend...

Even though I'm way overdue when it comes to managing this team and writing this post, I must make some adjustments though as there are still many weeks left in the fantasy basketball season. I could easily slip down a few spots before the All-Star break. For some weird reason, I have both Russell Westbrook and Al Horford on the same team. Both Westbrook and Horford got injured last Friday. Westbrook is expected to be out until after the All-Star break. Horford is done for the season.

At this point, I'm not too concerned with replacing Westbrook. I think I already have a lot of guards on my team already with Mike Conley, Deron Williams, Brandon Jennings and Brandon Knight on my squad. My squad is PG heavy so I should be able to hold out until Westbrook gets better. However when it comes to Horford, I'm not that deep when it comes to center. I got Spencer Hawes, Ryan Anderson and Horford as eligible centers. I was already feeling that this position was the weakest link of my team, and now I have to replace Horford, who ironically is my team's leading rebounder and is out for the rest of the season.

When I looked at free agency it was kind of difficult to decipher who had the most value because of two reasons. One, I don't really watch much NBA, and secondly there aren't as many resources when it comes to fantasy basketball like there is in fantasy football. After going over who was available in free agency I had narrowed it down to two players: Andrew Bogut and Robin Lopez. At first neither of these two seemed too appealing to pick up, but I looked at the stats over the past two weeks and I decided to go with Bogut. Bogut had accumulated the most rebounds over all the other available centers in free agency in a two week time period. In most of the matchups that I've had so far, my team has come short in the rebounding department. I still may  have to consider dropping one of my guards to pick up another rebounder though.