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...

Don't Sleep

So I was supposed to post this yesterday, but when I'm at home people bother me. When I'm at work people bother me. So, this post is a day late. If  was working for a major publication, this would be totally unacceptable, my editor would probably demote me to mail room clerk or something, and I would end up a starving writer. I got to grind harder. Excuse the pre-rant, just a little vexed. Yeah, that's it. Vexed.

Anyway, something rare happened yesterday... I mean Sunday. Well, rare might be a little overkill because it might not be as rare as it once was at the beginning of the season. Unusual, yeah, I'll go with something unusual happened yesterday... I mean Sunday. I got to watch some NBA action. Now that football season is near completion, the NBA puts games on regular TV on Sundays. Sadly, this is how I will get to watch some games until my diabolical plan reveals itself. Not only am I going to be able to watch games but these are nationally televised games which usually produces a good match up. Yesterday, I mean Sunday, I was treated to the San Antonio Spurs vs. the Miami Heat in a "NBA Finals rematch" followed by the Los Angeles Lakers vs. the New York Knicks.

I was quite interested to see both games because I had players from both games on my fantasy basketball
team. In my main league, The Syndicate, I didn't have any players in these two games, but in my back up league which I randomly joined and I didn't even name the team, I had players from the Heat, Chris Bosh and Dwayne Wade, and from the Lakers, Jodie Meeks and Nick Young aka Swaggy P.

Now here's where it gets interesting. I don't have cable or internet at the house so I rely heavily on my Galaxy Note 3 for just about everything. My Note 3's battery life is stupendous. I can have it in frequent use and still get about 10-12 hours battery life. If I'm just idle with it or using it occasionally, I can make it last for about 20-28 hours without needing to charge it. Of course these estimates are exaggerated, but point is my phone lasts longer than yours. This weekend, I left my charger at work. This created an interesting situation because the Note 3 has a very unique looking charger. I doesn't take the standard micro USB plug that most Samsung phones take. The plug for the Note 3 looks like two different plugs in one.

Galaxy Note 3 Charger Plug

On Saturday, I came up with the great idea to use an external battery charger that I had for my last defective phone where the port on the phone was broken. This worked but I had two problems, first it took forever to charge just the battery and then the second time around I ended up breaking the charger. So yesterday morning, I mean Sunday morning, I needed to charge my phone again and I figured if I could just use the standard micro USB charger in the section that looks like a micro USB port, if that makes any sense. It worked!! I love this phone/mini tablet. It was right before the first tip off when I discovered my old charger would work, but I figured I would just let it charge without turning on my phone because I had a feeling it would take longer to charge with the old charger, which it did. Also, even though I had Bosh and Wade on my team, I figured that I had them starting. Plus, with Wade and his current knee situation, I wasn't too worried if he was in the game or out. Lastly, I low key didn't want to be bothered, but that's another story for another day.

I had Chris Bosh and Dwyane Wade on the bench Sunday

I was wrong. I had both Bosh and Wade on the bench. Sad part about it, I didn't turn my phone on until after the game. My assumption was wrong, I made an ass of myself. Coming of the bench, Wade's stats were below mediocre at best. Bosh had a decent game with 24 points and 5 rebounds. At least I had him in the game on Thursday when he had 31 points and 6 rebounds against the Lakers. That wouldn't be enough though as I ended up losing in this stat category league 2-7 where I lacked in field goal %. free throw %, rebounds, assists, steals, blocks and turnovers. If anything, I could've used Bosh yesterday to get a better field goal and free throw percentage. I definitely slept on Bosh, who has been having above average games since Wade only plays every three games. Bosh is taking advantage on that "Y'all Must've Forgot" steez.

The next game was the Lakers vs. the Knicks, which I thought as a Laker fan we had a chance to win. To me, the only difference between these two teams was that the Lakers play in the Kung Fu Strong West and the Knicks play in the East where with a losing record is good enough for a playoff spot... Well, not for the Knicks. But Melo was coming off of a 63 point game and he followed that up with 35 points against the Lakers. Meeks kind of did his job scoring 24 points but the Lakers' leading scorer Swaggy P only had 13 points. I'm not sure what exactly happened, I fell asleep during the game.

I got blew out

Even though I was able to retain first place, I lost badly last week. I had always assumed that I needed to upgrade at the center position with rebounding and blocks kind of like I need to upgrade that position in The Syndicate. However, losing 2-7 tells me that it's not just rebounding and blocks. While many of the the of the categories I lost in where by small margins, the one that concerns me the most is the assist category. There was a 35 point differential in the this category. When I look at my guards, I don't have many superstars at the position outside of Wade, who as I mentioned earlier is not playing every game. Out of all the guards I have though, the only other point guard I have is Jamal Crawford. The rest are all shooting guards who are also eligible to play small forward.

Once again I slept. You see, I had Jordan Crawford on my squad two weeks ago when he was still playing with the Boston Celtics and starting at point guard. In the middle of the week he got traded to the Golden State Warriors with the return of Rajon Rondo. I dropped Crawford because I had a feeling that his production would drop coming off the bench. Where I messed up is replacing him. I picked up Meeks to replace Crawford which sounded good at the time, but Meeks doesn't play point. From a scoring standpoint it was a good pickup, but from an assist point of view it was a horrible decision considering my lack of point guards.

So now it looks like I have to look for a guard, a point guard in specific to get my rep up. I'll be looking but if you have anyone in mind let me know. Leave a comment or e-mail or something, because I as you can see, I really don't know what I'm doing.

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.

Fantasy Football Championships and Abruptly Switching to Fantasy Basketball

I went to a Christmas Eve party with my sister a few days ago.  Hanging out with my sister can be interesting because it always seem like the most random occurrences happen when we get together, and this night was no different. Besides the fact that we were in Compton and there were children running around everywhere, I wasn't too much into the party. Me being me, I was just laying back in the cut plotting on the low.  I was thinking about ways to improve my blog.  More importantly,  I was thinking about ways to improve my PhantasySteez.

Now when I started this I let it be known that I am not some type of fantasy expert, just a regular guy and my fantasy football record for this season proves that. I started off with 15 teams. Six of those teams went to the playoffs. Three went to championships.  One of those three teams lost.  Another team won and was crowned champion.  I still have one active though in an ESPN league with a two-week championship game.

Going into the second week of this championship game I have a 32 point advantage advantage against my opponent. I actually just put in Colin Kaepernick this week. He started off as my starter, but for the past five weeks Tony Romo has been my starting quarterback. It looks very doubtful for Romo this week so I had to bench him.

I already took out the Detroit Lions defense for the Cincinnati Bengals defense.  Starting the Lions D was an experiment I tried last week when they played against the New York Giants. They did earn me 10 points last week, but for right now I'm going to stick with the Bengals D against the Baltimore Ravens. Come to think of it, I might have to reconsider because the Ravens are fighting to get into the playoffs. I'm going to have to do more research, something that I haven't been doing because I've been playing fantasy basketball. I think I've found a way to incorporate the fantasy basketball into PhantasySteez, but for now I'll just give you a small synopsis of whats going on.

So I have these two fantasy basketball teams which I may have mentioned in previous posts, but I never really got into it. I don't really play fantasy basketball, but when my boy Mike invited me, I took it as another way to get my rep up on that PhantasySteez. Besides, I was getting mopped up in Mike's fantasy football league, so I figured why not. I went ahead and picked up another random league just to compare. Like I said I don't really play fantasy basketball, so there was no need to go all out and draft 15 teams like I did with fantasy football.

I only have 2 Fantasy Basketball teams

I'm doing a little better than I expected. Both squads are in 2nd place. The scoring formats in these leagues are different. In Mike's league, you have to win a majority of the stat categories to get a win. For example, if I win 6 out of 9 stat categories by the end of the week, I get the W. In the random league, you the stat categories you win goes towards your record. For example, if at the end of the week I've won 6 out of 9 categories, my record is 6-3. Interesting, but we'll see how this plays out now that I'm about to fully transition to fantasy basketball.