Hey guys,

Here are the new standings:

NBA ROTO LEAGUE STANDINGS 1/21

I don’t really have much to say about them, except that the Knicks are no longer in last which I feel I have to point out since I usually point out how bad they suck.  So instead I’m going to look at some per 48 minute stats.  In general these aren’t too mindblowing provided you stick with all player (Chris Paul gets the most steals per48, Marcus Camby gets the most blocks per48) but a few are real interesting and you can get some real interesting results if you look by position.  The first one I’d like to look at is fouls because even though it isn’t a roto stat any “expert” will tell you the most important fantasy stat is minutes and fouls have a huge impact on those.  When I limit my search to players that might be owned in fantasy leauges Andray Blatche, Paul Millsap, Mickeal Pietrus, Nazr Mohammed, Joel Pryzbilla, Sean Williams, Shaq, Tyrus Thomas, Eric Dampier, Mikki Moore, Andrea Bargnani, and Luis Scola all average more than 6 fouls per48 which is pretty horrible.  I would avoid these players and even try and trade them away if I had them because they could end up with a bad game even if they’re performing well just because of foul trouble.  It is also interesting to note that if David Harrison was allowed to play a full 48 minutes he would foul out twice.  Turnovers per 48 is another helpful thing to look at the best (ie rarely turn it over) guys with some fantasy relevance are: Peja, Raja Bell, Keith Bogans, Anthony Parker, Shawn Marion, Ben Wallace, Jamario Moon, Mikeal Pietrus, Shane Battier, Antonio McDyess and Tayshaun Prince  I don’t think most fantasy owners appreciate how much not turning it over is worth so you can probably trade for some of these guys for cheaper than you should.  And these guys (who turn it over a lot) you can probably get more value for than they are really worth: Dwayne Wade, Steve Nash, Kidd, Shaq, Tinsley, Deron, Melo, Josh Smith, Yao and Ginobli.  Now each of those guys is a very good fantasy player (except Shaq) but just know that their Turnovers hurts their fantasy value and if you can get somebody who approximates their stats (which for a few of these guys would be impossible) you should certainly think about it.  Now I’m going to start looking for the best players at getting certain stats that are not associated with their position.  The best PF/C at getting assists are Diaw, Matt Barnes, Garnett, Nowitzki, Tim Thomas, Brad Miller, Josh Smith, Duncan, and Camby.  A few of those guys are proabably availible in most leagues and can really help with assists since they don’t won’t be knocking out a player who would also be contributing assits.  For Gaurds the best rebounders are Kidd, Delfino, Mike Miller, Azibuke, Dunleavy, Bryant, Ginobli, Kyle Lowry and Jason Richardson.  None of those guys who’d be on any waiver wires are GREAT options so I’d use this more for guys to target in a trade if you need rebounds for the same reason bigs that get assists help more.

Until Friday,

DL

Come back Monday

Udates on Monday and Friday of next week to make up for today.

Sorry about this (I gotta stop schedualing flights on Fridays),

DL

Hey guys,

Another Friday, another standings:

NBA ROTO League Standings 1/11

The standings still pretty much have the good teams at the top and the bad ones at the bottom (execpt the Pacers and Grizzlies contiue to be hugely overvalued and the Hakws continue to be hugely undervalued, or perhaps their record is only pretty good because they’ve been lucky) Today though I’d like to look at how much it helps to be great at something, even if it’s just one thing, and how much it hurts to suck at something, even if it’s just one thing. Here is a list of teams that are in the top two in at least one category: Jazz, Suns, Mavs, Raptors, Warriors, Magic, Pacers, Sonics, Nuggets, Pistons. Okay, so most of those teams are pretty good with the only exceptions being the Pacers and Sonics who are the top two teams in rebounds which is a stat I’ve learned not to trust since I’ve started this blog as it seems to have no relation to rebound differential. If you insert the top two teams in rebound differential (Celtics and Rockets/76ers in a tie for second) you still have Philly but it looks a lot better. So it appears that every team, except the 76ers, who is among the top two in even one statistic is a serious contender to at least go deep in the playoffs. How about being terrible at something though? Here is a list of every team that is in the bottom two at something: Bulls, Clippers, Bobcats, Heat, Hawks, 76ers, Kings, Knicks, Grizzlies, Blazers, Spurs, Pacers, Sonics. This list looks pretty good (and by good I mean all the teams suck) except for the Blazers and Spurs who are bad in steals and blocks respectively, stats that I decried the importance of last week. However, if we again replace rebounds with rebounding differential we’d have to add in the Suns and Warriors, two very good teams but teams that play at a pace that offsets their rebounding woes. So it also hurts a lot to suck at even one thing, unless it’s steals, blocks or rebound differential for a fast-paced team. Obviously it is more important though to be pretty good at everything (the only teams in the top half of every category are the Suns and Pistons, who I wouldn’t be especially surprised to see in the finals) and it hurts much more to suck at everything (like the Knicks who I wouldn’t be surprised to see get the first pick in the draft).
Until next week,
DL

Hey guys,

I hope you had a good holiday season. I’m back with fresh new NBA Roto League standings for the new year:

NBA ROTO LEAGUE STANDINGS 1/4

Right now 12 of the top 13 teams in these standings are set to make the playoffs with the top team (Phoenix) having the best record in the west.  However, after that it goes kind of screwy so I’d like to look at the teams that this overvalues and undervalues and why.  I’d assume that as most of these categories are offensive, and the only defensive categories (steals and blocks) don’t really give a good picture of how good a defense is, that it would overvalue good offensive teams and undervalue good defensive teams.  With overvalued teams this seems the case with the Warriors, Pacers, Nuggets and Sonics being among the teams I’d consider most overvalued.  However, the Rockets are also among the most overvalued being the first team in these standings that is not currently set to make the playoffs.  The categories that the Rockets are best in are 3’s, Rebounds, Steals and Blocks, outside of 3’s these are basically the defensive categories so this seems to be a case where a good defensive team is measured fairly accurately, or even overvalued, by roto scoring.  I think the three most undervalued teams in these standings are the Celtics, Spurs and Hawks.  Two of those teams are clearly among the best defensive teams in the league (Boston and San Antonio) yet when you look at San Antonio it becomes clear that the defensive stats do not measure defense very well as the Spurs getting less than 5 points in each of the defensive categories: rebounds, blocks and steals. Also, the Spurs are doing very well in all of the offensive categories except points.  I however do not think of the Hawks as a dominate defensive team and they are actually doing pretty well in both blocks and steals.  Their weak categories are 3’s, points and assists and what they are very good at is not turning the ball over and getting turnovers, which actually basically makes them a good defensive team, go figure.  Also, a couple of funny notes to anyone who isn’t a Knicks fan: the Knicks are actually getting worse in these standings and they are 42 blocks behind the Spurs who are the second worst in the league.  To put that in perspective if the Spurs had 42 more blocks they would get 16 points in that category instead of 2.

Thanks for reading,

DL