Another Friday means another Sheridan Hoops Freeroll.
And this week, you are getting advice from an expert.
OK, I am not an expert.
But I am playing in cash games on DraftStreet every night after starting two weeks ago, and I am well in the black.
Due to this success, Sheridan asked me to write this week’s freeroll post (I assume a contributing factor was his own failure to cash in any of his contests this season).
First things first:
It’s absolutely free to enter, and there’s $350 in cash prizes. Just click here to register, and you will be given an imaginary $100,000 salary cap with which to build a team of eight players: two guards, two forwards, two centers, and two utility players.
You can change your team right up until 7 p.m. EST if you have a change of heart, or you become privy to any news of late scratches. For example, Monta Ellis costs $14,800 and really wants to play for the Bucks tonight as they visit his former team. At press time, he might be a good investment, but if he doesn’t start, that money is better spent elsewhere.
LeBron James is the highest-priced player tonight at $23,741 with Dwight Howard at $21,495. You can get players for as little as $1,646 (Brian Scalabrine) but he’s highly unlikely to contribute. Actually useful bargains start at around $5,000, and there are often decent players in the $8,000 range.
Once you choose your eight players, you hope they have productive evenings.
For every blocked shot and every steal, you are awarded 2 points. For every assist, you get 1.5 points; for every rebound, it is 1.25 points. For every point scored, you get 1 point.
You lose 0.5 points for every missed field goal or free throw, and you lose 1 point for every turnover. Many top players, especially point guards, have a lot of turnovers, so don;t say you weren’t forewarned.
You can follow the progress of your team on DraftStreet’s live scoreboard, and the winner will receive $125 from the $350 prize pool (top seven places get paid). Tomorrow, you will get an e-mail offering a $25 bonus if you make a deposit via PayPal and play in their nightly cash games. (Prices range from $2 to $110, and the minimum deposit is only $10.)
If you play fantasy basketball regularly, you’ll love the format and the challenge. Sheridan will be in the league tonight (he already drafted), and so will I.
Even if you don’t win any money, there’s satisfaction in bragging rights if you beat us. Considering I finished 442nd last week out of 542 entries, that might not be hard. However, the week before, my team was 26th out of 589, just a few points out of the money.
I’ve only been playing on DraftStreet for a couple of weeks, writing a segment at the end of my daily Fantasy Spin to share my progress with readers as I try to get better. With a $100 weekly bankroll, I have already won a $5 Salary Cap league with 220 teams, collecting $250, and have a profit of about $150 in the first ten days.
This is a definitely a game of skill, not a game of chance, legal for residents of Canada and all of the United States except for Arizona, Iowa, Louisiana, Maryland, Montana, Vermont and Puerto Rico.
Good luck. My team tonight will include either Gerald Green, whose $4,740 price tag is great if he can keep up his recent play, or Kirk Hinrich ($5,285) who has been the Hawks’ starting SG lately, with Marvin Williams now coming off the bench. Using one guy who costs very little allows you to spend more at the other positions.
Sheridan will post his team here at 7 p.m.
Won’t work… Getting this message every time:
Sorry, this freeroll is exclusive to a DraftStreet partner site. You can enter a non-exclusive freeroll for March 16, 2012 by clicking here.