***2012-13 NBA THREAD!!! New Season/New Thread - LET'S GO!!!!!***

[stevemcqueen1]

I perfer the latter format. If you win that category, you score that point. That's the format I'm used too. Now with the auction draft, does ESPN cater to it, or would we have to go elsewhere?

ESPN does auctions. I've usually done auctions so I'm familiar with the format. It's the same principles as a FF auction, $200 budget to go out and fill your starters and bench up. It goes a little quicker than a football auction because there are only 13 to fill for each team.

The advantage of an auction is that it gives every team a shot at acquiring every player. If you really want Durant or LeBron, you can have them, so long as you're willing to spend the money for them. You don't have to rely on pure luck to get the first or second overall pick.

To me, it's demoralizing to go into a new fantasy league and get like the 7th pick and you know you've probably already lost your league.

A lot of people are hesitant about the auction format, especially if they've never done it before. The best thing for them is to go do a mock auction or two to get the hang of the format. That's all it takes. After that, you'll probably find it addictive.

It looks like ESPN custom leagues have five scoring formats:

1.) Roto - teams in say, a 10 team league, are ranked 1-10 in each of the 8 statistical categories. This finds an absolute winner and doesn't have a playoff IIRC. The plus side of this is that you don't get screwed for having the second best statistical week in the league--and you went up the guy who had the best.

But the negative is that you lose a playoff and you lose a lot of the intrigue that head to head creates. Still, this is the most common format apparently.

2.) Head 2 Head: Each Category - you get points for each of the 8 categories you win against a weekly opponent you match up with. So say he wins 5 and you win 3 of the categories, then your record at the end of the week is 3-5. If we don't do Roto, then I would strongly recommend this format.

3.) Head 2 Head: Most Categories - you get a weekly matchup, the guy who wins the most categories gets all the marbles, electoral college style. i.e., if you win 5 out of 8, your record for the week is 1-0. You can also tie in this.

The big disadvantage here is it potentially rewards highly unbalanced teams and encourages "category punting." For example, you can field a team entirely composed of completely awful free throw and 3 point shooters and still win and get full credit because you loaded up on scorers and rebounders and shotblockers, etc. You can't do this well in roto each category formats. Going with each category scoring is also nice because it keeps more people into contention deeper into the season and you get credit for having teams that are really good at certain things.

Finally, 4.) & 5.) are Points-based and H2H: Points based formats. I've never done it this way before, and I'll say up front I don't have a ton of interest in this format. What you do is assign points to certain stats, fantasy football style. i.e., assists = 2 points, rebounds = 1 point, & turnovers = -1 pt, so on and so forth. I don't really like this format because I feel like it's hard to come up with a good set of scoring that isn't arbitrary/biased towards certain stats, and I have a hard time seeing how shooting percentages play into it. We should stick to the categories or roto formats instead IMO.

My personal vote is for either a Roto league or a Head 2 Head: Each Category league. Either one are good to me.

[stevemcqueen1]

Here are some more details on fantasy basketball.

- The regular season begins Tuesday, October 30th. Figure we'd do our draft/auction on the weekend prior, either Friday evening on the 26th, Saturday on the 27th, or Sunday the 28th.

- Draft format will be either a live draft or live auction.

- Barring any objections, we'll do the league at ESPN.com, so to participate, you'll need to register for one of their free accounts if you don't already have one.

- If we do an ESPN standard format league, we've got two scoring options: Roto, and Head 2 Head Each Category. There are 10 teams in each standard league.

- ESPN standard leagues have 8 categories for which are scored: FG%, FT%, 3 pointers made, Rebounds, Assists, Steals, Blocks, and Points. (FG%, FT%, 3PM, REB, AST, STL, BLK, PTS)

- ESPN standard leagues have 13 roster spots, 10 starters, and 3 bench spots. Starters are PG, SG, SF, PF, C, G, F, and 3 Utility players of any position.

- Roster changes can be made daily, but lock at game time. Scoring in head 2 head matchups is done weekly IIRC.

We've got three posters who want in so far,

- DCranon21
- stevemcqueen1
- MLSKINS

It should be fun. I'll create the league in October, after I gauge the interest level and see if we need to do a 10 or 12 team league. You've got over a month to figure out if you want to do it and/or familiarize yourself with fantasy basketball if you've never done it before. FBBall is tons of fun. Take the plunge if you've been curious about it but never done it before.

All I ask is that you don't join if you don't think you can be active for most of the season. The leagues are much more fun if everyone updates their team at least once a week. Some people will miss certain weeks, it happens. But if you think you'll fizzle out after the first month or so and stop checking your team, don't join up.

[DCranon21]

Steve, I'm down with the H2H. Let's do it. So far we have 3 people.

[Renegade7]

Do ya'll really believe the wizards are a playoff team this year? Interesting...

[stevemcqueen1]

Steve, I'm down with the H2H. Let's do it. So far we have 3 people.

H2H sounds good to me. That's what we'll do then. The advantage of that is that more teams will be in contention later into the year than they would be in roto format. You get a couple hundred rebounds behind by mid season in roto and you know you are out of it and then you stop playing.

I'm going to wait until the beginning of October to make the league. ESPN standard only allows for 10 teams. If in two weeks it's looking like we'll have an enough interest for 12 teams, I'll make a custom league for 12 spots.

[nuposse87]

Do ya'll really believe the wizards are a playoff team this year? Interesting...

Talent wise, at least on paper we should be in contention. Miami, Knicks, nets, Pacers, 76ers are all locks IMO. That is 5 spots gone right there. 76ers should be about the same IMO as last year, even with the addition of Bynum. People are forgetting that they are losing a great playmaker in AI and that team as a whole just sucked in the second half last year. Chicago I think takes a huge step backwards this year. People saw how they just fell without rose last year in the playoffs. I think until Rose comes back people won't be as intimidated. That and they didn't really add any necessary pieces...and they also lost knock down shooting in Kyle Korver...

Than look at teams like the Cavs, Bucks, Raptors and Detroit...I don't think you can either of those teams, on paper mind you, are that much better than Washington. I'm saying the Bulls don't make it because they'll just lose too much early on. I also don't think ATL will make too much noise early on, and may do a true rebuild at the trade deadline.

If wall develops an average jumper, than I'll be very confident in our ability to make the playoffs.

[stevemcqueen1]

Do ya'll really believe the wizards are a playoff team this year? Interesting...

I think they've got an outside shot at the 8th seed... on paper.

- Brad Beal and John Wall should very quickly be one of the better guard tandems in the conference. Beal is a type who should thrive as a rookie and Wall is at that point in his career where he could take a big step forward like Rose and Westbrook did.

- 60 games out of Nene means we're getting quality play out of the PF/C spot. Throw in a fairly healthy season from Okafor and the emergence of Kevin Seraphin as a decent starting two way center and the bigs are actually looking pretty good. That, combined with good guard play is usually enough to win games. Plus Ariza and Vesely should bring some defensive credibility to the group. It's a young team with a good chemical makeup, lots of upside, and some balance throughout the roster.

- The schedule should be majorly working in our favor. Charlotte and Orlando are absolutely horrible and we get 8 games against them. That's probably 8 wins for the Wizards right there. Atlanta doesn't look that good any more either now that they've started gutting themselves. That could be a few more wins. Miami is really the only good team in the division now. Contrast that with the other two divisions. All five teams in the Atlantic are decent, playoff-worthy teams. The Celtics and Knicks are in and the Nets and 76ers are very likely getting in too. Poor Toronto has a good team, but has too play all of those guys 16 times. And in the Central, Chicago whups everyone else, and Indy and Milwaukee are both pretty good. Plus Detroit and Cleveland are no cakewalks as the bottom feeders from that division, they'll win some games.

The Wizards are actually more talented than teams like the Hawks, Bucks, and Raptors on paper. Whether they play up to that? Anybody's guess. Regardless, those should be the teams fighting it out for the final seeds. Cleveland and Detroit aren't there yet. Greg Monroe is a fantastic player but the rest of that roster is pretty dysfunctional and untalented outside of extremely young players like Brandon Knight and Andre Drummond. And as good as Kyrie Irving and Anderson Varejao are, Tristan Thompson and Dion Waiters are nowhere near ready to majorly contribute to a playoff team.

---------- Post added September-14th-2012 at 08:34 PM ----------

Talent wise, at least on paper we should be in contention. Miami, Knicks, nets, Pacers, 76ers are all locks IMO. That is 5 spots gone right there. 76ers should be about the same IMO as last year, even with the addition of Bynum. People are forgetting that they are losing a great playmaker in AI and that team as a whole just sucked in the second half last year. Chicago I think takes a huge step backwards this year. People saw how they just fell without rose last year in the playoffs. I think until Rose comes back people won't be as intimidated. That and they didn't really add any necessary pieces...and they also lost knock down shooting in Kyle Korver...

Than look at teams like the Cavs, Bucks, Raptors and Detroit...I don't think you can either of those teams, on paper mind you, are that much better than Washington. I'm saying the Bulls don't make it because they'll just lose too much early on. I also don't think ATL will make too much noise early on, and may do a true rebuild at the trade deadline.

If wall develops an average jumper, than I'll be very confident in our ability to make the playoffs.

The Bulls are a good team that's proven they can win without Rose in the regular season. They'll make the playoffs, and Rose will probably be back by then. If he's playing well, they'll be a dangerous mid to late seed. Especially since there's a good chance a really flawed team like the Knicks or Pacers or Nets might be the #2 or #3 seed.

If Horford is healthy and Josh Smith maintains his level of play, the Hawks should be better than all of the other bubble teams. Joe Johnson was hurt most of the year and generally played like crap yet they were still a somewhat dangerous playoff team. I think they get back into the post season and leave one final spot for the bubble teams you mentioned.

I think Detroit is a bit of a mess. I don't see them being a factor at all, despite how good Greg Monroe has become. Only thing that can change that is Rodney Stuckey getting back to his form from like three years ago. I don't see that happening at all. Count them out. This team is just not that talented.

I think Cleveland is way too young for the playoffs. Kyrie Irving should grow and improve as a scorer but this is a team that's going to get shellacked defensively, especially on the perimeter. Tristan Thompson may have promise but he's not going to do anything this year. Maybe he gets to 30 minutes a game and something like 10 points and 7 or 8 rebounds, but I'd be shocked if we saw more. Varejao is good but not someone you rely on for a whole season as your #2. Big step down from Nene in talent IMO. And I don't see how Dion Waiters is going to even come close to living up to the hype and his draft status. He's a decent shooter and he can slash but it's not like he's a world beater. As someone who couldn't even start on a college team with no other significant NBA prospects, he's not going to carry them to the playoffs any time soon. Count Cleveland out.

The Bucks are interesting because they're a tough defensive team with a solid coach and a good mix of players. Ersan is pretty good. Monta can score and maybe gives them enough offense to reach the postseason. Brandon Jennings can't score well, but he can put pressure on defenses with his speed and playmaking ability. Losing Bogut isn't too big a deal since he hadn't been healthy in a while. But I could stack the Wizards roster up against Milwaukee's and prefer them in every individual matchup except maybe the one against Ersan. Wall and Beal should be substantially better than Monta and Jennings IMO. Not only do they fit better together, I think each are superior talents. I think we take the Bucks.

The Raptors are the only team that really impresses me from the group. Lowery is a good PG. Bargnani kind of sucks for anything but fantasy, but at least he can score. Landry Fields didn't look good at all the past year. Terrence Ross should be less of a factor than Beal, and is far less talented. Amir Johnson and Ed Davis are worse depth than Booker and Seraphin. DeMar DeRozan has been a disappointment and I wouldn't be surprised if Vesely is better than him outright this season. At any rate, Ariza should be better than him. Wall should be better than Lowery. And Toronto's division features four other teams who are each substantially better than them.

Basically, Valanciunas is going to need to come in and be a stud as a rookie and live up to all of this monstrous hype he's getting for them to get to the playoffs. I doubt it happens. I think we can take them and get the 8th seed and the right to lose to Miami in the first round.

[RonArtest15]

An AMAZING read on JR Smith.

The Miseducation of J.R. Smith
Is the Knicks' erratic shooting guard misguided or just misunderstood?
By Jonathan Abrams on September 20, 2012

PRINT

Earl Smith Jr. found salvation in his jump shot. Smith could always shoot, and in basketball a shooter can live forever. In college, he clashed with his coach at New Jersey's Monmouth University, unable to understand why the second team remained the second team, even when they were routinely drubbing the starters in practice. When he'd finally had enough, he confronted his coach, said everything he wanted to say, and stormed off. That was the end of Earl's college career. But his shot never left him. He frequented Belmar's Jersey Shore League for the next decade, making cameos in other semipro leagues, popping up whenever a team needed someone who could stretch a defense.

Link

IMO, he's one of the most talented players in the NBA. COULD have been a player similar to, or BETTER than Ray Allen. When it's all said and done, he'll be talked about amongst the likes of Rasheed Wallace, Lamar Odom, and Derrick Coleman. Good players who should have been much better. Not just much better, but great.

[stevemcqueen1]

Watched the 1994 All Star game on NBATV today and one of the things that struck me was how versatile and gifted Sean Kemp was. Dude was actually a terrific passer and highly willing to spot up and shoot mid range jumpers. They were running him at point forward (although he got stripped at mid court by Scottie Pippen and gave up a breakaway dunk in the first quarter). Kemp could defend above the rim too. We all remember him as a hyper athletic finisher and rebounding machine, but there was so much more to his game I had forgotten about. In 1994, he looked like the second best player on that West team behind Hakeem.

Blake Griffin draws a lot of comparisons to Shawn Kemp, but he's got a ways to go before he gets as good as Kemp was in 1994 IMO. He'll also never be as versatile as Kemp, can't defend above the rim, can't handle the ball, can't catch and shoot from long range. Griffin is much more a pure big man than Kemp was.

[RonArtest15]

Yea, I'll say it...Lebron is a better passer than Magic Johnson.

[DieselPwr44]

nm........

[Bostic Hog]

Do ya'll really believe the wizards are a playoff team this year? Interesting...

Nope. Not even in the neighborhood.

Ya'll seem to be forgetting that the Sixers picked up the best big-man in the East ..... but that's OK, I like being the underdog

[stevemcqueen1]

http://espn.go.com/nba/story/_/id/84...ayers-flopping

http://espn.go.com/nba/story/_/id/84...ayers-flopping


ELIZABETH, N.J. -- The NBA is about to act in hopes of stopping the floppers.

Spokesman Tim Frank said Thursday the league is finalizing procedures to deal with flopping, the art of falling down when little or no contact was made in an effort to trick referees into calling a foul.

Frank said the competition committee met two weeks ago and discussed plans that would go in place this season. Commissioner David Stern believes too many players are deceiving referees by flopping and has been seeking a way to properly penalize them.

Good. Action needed to be taken. Flopping was becoming a serious problem and was hurting the credibility of the game. I hope they find a way to eliminate it.

[ixcuincle]

Good. This is basketball, not European soccer

[AsiaticSkinsFan]

Good. This is basketball, not European soccer

FIFA have had a law against flopping for at least 5 years now.

Its a yellow card. The NBA are actually catching up to FIFA, not the other way around.