A Trade That Effects My Teams

The over hyped trade deadline has passed and while no major moves were made, there was one move in particular that could have impact on my fantasy teams. Spencer Hawes has been traded from the Philadelphia 76ers to the Cleveland Cavaliers. I was hoping we could get him to come to the Lakers, but I guess that was just wishful thinking. The reason why this is interesting to me is because I have him on both of my fantasy basketball teams. I wonder how this move will effect him on the Phantasy Steez.

In my first league, the Syndicate, I picked up Hawes after missing the draft and feeling like a needed to pick up a center. In my random league I ended up drafting Hawes as a back up center. Even though Hawes' stat line isn't that impressive, to my surprise he has been a pretty good all around player from a fantasy point of view. He's averaging 13 points and 8 rebounds a game. Where his fantasy values comes from is his field goal percentage and the fact that he can hit the 3.

Hawe's is joining a very interesting Cleveland Cavaliers team. The Cavs have been pretty active during the season trading away Andrew Bynum for Luol Deng, and now with a new general manager he was itching to make a move before the trade deadline. Also, word on the street is the working environment in Cleveland is not ideal. The Cavs have Kyrie Irving, Luol Deng, and Dion Waiters, just to name a few. Hawes could have an immediate impact on this squad, but then you have to wonder what will happen between him and Anderson Varejao.

Varejao is having one of his better seasons this year averaging almost 9 points a game and 10 rebounds. He's owned in about 74% of Yahoo leagues. Right now he's injured but when he comes back he will resume the starting responsibilities. This could hurt Hawe's value directly as he will be going from a starter to an off the bench guy, not getting the minutes he's used to getting on the 76ers. Best case scenario would be if Mike Brown figured out how to utilize both of them, maybe by moving Hawes or Varejao to power forward. I don't know how long Varejao is going to be out, but I'm going to  have to come up with a back up plan just in case.

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...