Freeroll tonight after Sheridan trounced in challenge

DNP-PR is a close cousin to DNP-CD. The first stands for Did Not Play-Personal Reasons. The second stands for Did Not Play-Coach’s Decision.

I had the unfortunate luck of having Lamar Odom on my roster for last night’s fantasy challenge sponsored by Draft Street, and Odom was not with the Dallas Mavericks for their game against Odom’s former team, the Los Angeles Lakers, after being excused from the game for personal reasons (a DNP-PR) to tend to a family matter.

That left me playing with only seven guys, and I finished an ego-crushing 40th out of 50 entrants  (I also had Kobe Bryant on a night when he missed 15 shots and committed seven turnovers) as we had a full field for the “Beat Sheridan” challenge last night.

Everyone who finished 39th or higher will get a $5 bonus from DraftStreet, and special congratulations go out to two folks:

_ Klyem2241 took down the challenge and the$150 first prize with a team of Dwight Howard, Blake Griffin, Chris Kaman, Tyler Hansbrough, John Wall, J.J. Redick, Channing Frye, and Tayshaun Prince, posting an astounding score of 292.25 to crush the rest of the field by more than 25 points.

_ bgriff32 had a noteworthy night, too, entering three different teams and finishing third, fourth and tied for sixth to win the prize money from all three of those spots, a total of $157.50.

Tonight we are holding another freeroll, which you can enter by clicking here.

For those you haven’t played before, here are the rules:

You start with an imaginary salary cap of $100,000, and you need to pick a roster of eight players: Two centers, two forwards, two guards and two utility players.

You are awarded 2 points for every blocked shot or steal your players produce, 1.5 points for every assist, 1.25 points for every rebound and 1 point for every point scored. You lose 1 point for every turnover and 0.5 points for every missed shot.

The above-referenced Kylem won despite having Kaman (15), Frye (13), Prince and Hansbrough (10 apiece) shooting multiple bricks, which is a testament to the fact that you don’t need perfect nights out of your players, but rather productive nights. Wall’s near triple-double of 21 points, 11 assists and nine assists with three steals helped produce a fantasy-point total of 49.25, and Howard’s eight missed free throws dropped his output to a still-behemothian 47.25 fantasy-points.

There is a $350 prize pool in tonight’s freeroll, with the top 20 finishers getting paid.

It is a freeroll, thus meaning it costs nothing to enter. So give it a shot. It’s fun, trust me. And with only four NBA games on the slate tonight, it should be a pretty competitive night with several entrants having four or five of the same players as their competitors.

The highest priced player tonight is LeBron James ($21,553), and the bargain basement fella out of the 110 available players is Jerry Stackhouse ($1,884). You can change your team after you have made your initial selections, just don’t forget to hit “save team” when you are done (I learned that lesson the hard way a week ago).

My team tonight is Dwight Howard, Kendrick Perkins, Dwyane Wade, Josh Smith, Tony Parker, Jeff Teague, Kirk Hinrich, Tony Parker and Matt Bonner.

This is a game of skill, not a game of chance, and it is open to residents of Canada and the United States with the exception of folks living in Arizona, Iowa, Louisiana, Maryland, Montana, Vermont and Puerto Rico.

Suerte, amigos.