Basketball is upon us

ATerrificLife readers all know that the NBA is by far my favorite professional sports league, and that I love basketball!

I had my first Fantasy Basketball draft with my Fantasy Football league and a few other buddies on Monday.  I had second pick, and took Lebron James, and then proceeded to grab a number of bigs, my team is fairly risky, since there are a number of injury risks, but I have plenty of backups, so it should be fine.  I do not have any 3 pointers, but I hope to counter that by dominating FG%, Points, Rebounds and Assists and hoping that Tony Allen and some of my other guys can come up with steals and FT% get myself into the championship.  Looking for Ty Lawson to have a breakout year as well!

As far as real basketball, my Celtics are in pretty tough shape this year.  They failed to acquire Chris Paul and recently lost Jeff Green for the season (hope you are alright man!) which means our 5th best player is Brandon Bass, who will be coming off the bench.  I think the C's are going to struggle regular season, and sneak into the playoffs, where they will probably do some damage for the last time.  The lack of depth and athelticism of our star players, and New York, Miami and Chicago all young and bound to improve on already impressive seasons last year, and the surging Indiana Pacers and Philly 76ers are going to present a number of challenges.  In the West, it is going to be exciting to see the Clippers and Thunder who are being touted as favorites to win the Conference.  Scrappy Memphis, quiet Portland, aging San Antonio and the angry Lakers are all going to be in the mix as well.

I can't wait for Christmas day!

Fantasy Basketball Preview

I am extremely excited for the NBA season. I am a huge NBA fan, and my Celtics are my favorite team in the league. The Rondo trade rumors are a bit hyped this week, and I hope that he stays. I think Rondo is great for the other guys and he truly can be a difference maker in many games. He is also fun to watch, I simply wish that he could shoot better. His FG and FT percentages are extremely poor, which brings me to fantasy basketball. I am doing fairly well in my Fantasy Football league, and have a crucial matchup this weekend to determine playoffs (more on that later.) I play with a similar pool of friends for NBA and I am pretty hyped for this year, beginning on Christmas.

I am going to go avoid injury prone guys this year, since we are going to have a shortened season, and people will be playing more often. With a higher frequency of games, the edge will definitely be on the well conditioned guys who will play more minutes. I am going to avoid Derek Rose, Arame, CP3 and others. I am targeting Carmelo Anthony fairly early, and hope to get him, since I think under D'Antoni he might score 10,000 points this season! Drafts for this and hopefully one or two other leagues will be held fairly soon, so I will be prepping even more.

My draft strategy is to read a ton of fantasy analysts predictions and projections, since I respect these guys who do this for a living. I like to indentify players who have a lot of upside, think Jimmy Graham and L. Blounte in the NFL. I also like to identify non-sexy players like Matt Forte in the NFL who can really make a difference, although fairly quietly. I make power rankings for the first 4 rounds, then decide on a few guys that I am interested in during later rounds. I do consider team needs, but not until later rounds, since trades are always a way to pick up some positional pieces later on with a trade offer.

Another interesting aspect for this year is that we are going to be instituting a "keeper" option. We are each going to hold onto 3 players for next year, which means the players we are picking early on are going to be extremely important. For this reason, I am going to try hard to get Kevin Love, since he is a young, tough player who puts up a ton of stats. This rule means 30 players will be held out of the draft next season, which will make things extremely interesting. It will also have a big effect on trades, since they must be considered in the long term as well as the short term. I think there should be a penalty for holding onto certain players, but I do not have a great system.

I will add more thoughts over the next few weeks leading up to the season, but I can't give out too much, because other league members could definitely be ghosting my site!

My Fantasy Football League Draft

 

Last night was our league's fantasy football draft.  Yes, I know it was a bit last minute, but we wanted to make sure the league would be serious.  We are only doing a $20 buy-in, but it should be enought to keep things serious, and we can bump it up to $50 next year if things go well.  I was happy to get the 2nd pick, but I knew that would mean I would be in for long periods without being able to draft anyone, no bother. 

The league commissioner, managed to get first pick, and took Peterson, so I decided to go with Jamaal Charles, although I considered Ray Rice and Mike Vick (who ended up going 5th).  The only surprise of the first round was Aaron Rodgers went 3rd overall, but that was by @GoGreenMorimoto who is known for making unorthodox picks.  Corey's team was able to draft Andre Johnson 9th and Lasean McCoy 12th, which is pretty strong. 

I was able to grab Drew Brees in 19th, although I wouldn't have been upset with Philip Rivers who went 20th. @ComedyDogg foiled me by taking Larry Fitzgerald at 21, but it was alright, because I took Greg Jennings 23rd.  @MrRodgersBelt took Matt Ryan with the 26th pick, which I thought was extremely bizzare, since I had considered Matty Ice for a 12th round backup QB pick.  I wanted Matt Forte as my 2nd RB, but @Draze45 snatched him at 25th, so I settled for LaGarette Blount (we ended up making a trade, later)  Obviously, this was a speculative pick, but Draze was planning on picking him up in the next round anyways.  I took Mike Williams 42nd, which may have been a mistake, looking back on it. 

Since I wasn't in love with Williams, I decided to take Mario Manningham 59th, who I will probably use as my WR/RB flex guy, and could possibly be my second string receiver (I am expecting to have a big year, even as a 2nd option)  Then I took Shonn Greene 62nd, which I believe will be good value.  Matt Carle made a fairly speculative pick on Mark Ingram 68th, which is a bit aggressive/hopeful, but could pan out quite well. 

I took Fred Jackson 79th, which I still regret, but its more of a bet against CJ Spiller, who I underrate dramatically.  TE Zach Miller was taken 80th, so I decided to grab my TE, Jimmy Graham at this point, which turned out to be a good move, since I had him ranked 7th TE overall, and @Draze45 was planning to take him next (included in the trade)  I definitely think Jimmy will have a big year.

I was somewhat upset that Julio Jones was picked up 86th, since I planned to take him with my next pick.  Instead I took Joseph Addai, who will probably be relied on heavily, especially with Peyton Manning's season in question.  I know my next 3 picks would be seen as somewhat speculative, and probably have no problem making it through, so I grabbed Eli Manning, who is a solid backup QB, and with 2 great weapons (Nicks & Manningham) will throw for plenty of yards/TDs this year.  (People had already started drafting Kickers/Defenses at this point, LOL)

I was happy the I could grab Greg Olsen, who may be my starting TE, after the trade with Draze with pick 119.  I took Michael Crabtree and Danny Amendola, who could both have breakout style years, or be busts, I am fine with that.  With my final 2 picks I was plenty happy to get the Bears D/S/T and Oakland's Sebastien Janikowski, they will both do fine and I wouldn't want to waste earlier picks to get someone marginally better.  @ComedyDogg made a clown pick and took Mark Sanchez with the last pick, and he already had 2 QB's, but was just doing it for the laughs, since we were all ragging on him for taking Sanchez in the 6th round in his other draft.

Now, for the trade I mentioned.  I have Jamaal Charles as my 1st running back but I had my eye on Forte as a backup, since he gets a decent amount of catching yards in addition to his running, and I don't have a ton of faith in Cutler throwing the ball.  However, @Draze45 picked him up before I could get him, so I settled for Blount, who is unproven, but could definitely break out this year.  I was also pretty happy with my Jimmy Graham TE pick, but he's not a sure thing.  I was presented with a bogus trade offer that included Ochocinco, but responded back with a real offer, since I knew he was interested in Blount.  I offered Blount and Graham for Forte and Marcedes Lewis.  Many would rank Lewis above Graham and everyone considers Forte is more solid than Blounte, so I think I made a good play.  I have a good backup with Greg Olsen, who will be getting a lot of passes from rookie Cam Newton in Carolina, so I felt it was worth it so I could get Forte, and really fill out my starting lineup.  I also got the best player in the trade, so that's always a good feeling.

Life goes on

Things are moving quickly here in my world. My wife just started her first semester at a new college which is the reason we originally left Boston. I am extremely proud of her and know that she will be successful. Her school is great and I know she will be able to take advantage of all the opportunities she has available. My new job is also progressing and I have made great strides, but there are still many things I am not confident with. This month-end reporting period has been extremely painful, but I do not want to get into all the details on this blog. Suffice it to say, the person who was servicing the account before me did not run a tight ship.

My other pursuits are coming along quite well. I have been following the primal/paleo plan closely and am going on my 5th day without beer which as readers of my blog know, is quite hard for me!. I have included some pictures of my meals

breakfast = TJ's Bacon Ends n Pieces + Cage Free Eggs + Guacamole + Black Coffee

pastured pork chop fried in bacon fat with onions garlic + WFM organic frozen california mix

cage-free chicken drumsticks + tiny bit of rice and veggies + big helping of guacamole + archeo nero d'avola (yes i drink table wine in a glass like this)

I have re-started my strength training program as well, which is Stronglifts 5x5 (link for those interested) which is simple and effective, with limited B/S. I am not a fan of any kind of machines and prefer free weights, so this plan is right up my alley. I am starting low, but am already feeling stronger, and the 5x5 program encourages constant progress. I totally relish the feeling of leaving the gym after completing a taxing session in which I made some kind of gain. The gym I am going to is part of a Gold's franchise, which are quite posh. Luckily I was able to take over the subscription of a guy at my job who is moving away from the area at the bargain price of $100 and there is still a year left! One of the gyms is located .7 miles and another is 2.5 miles from my office, very convenient.


Fantasy football draft hosted by commissioner ComedyDogg is tonight at 8:30. I will post a review of the draft and my outlook on the league in the next few days.