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So my first week as the fill-in fantasy writer is getting better. Two of my six teams in the Thursday-Friday contests finished in the money, and a third just missed. Furthermore, I have two teams in the $11 entry league for Friday-Saturday that are performing well.
Unfortunately, or maybe not, one of those teams has Kendrick Perkins on it.
Why do I say maybe not?
Because you never quite know when the next Mike Dunleavy is going to rear his head, and though I do not expect Perkins to begin raining 3s down the way Dunleavy did last night in the Bulls’ victory over the Wizards, I do know that he is capable of blocking a few shots and corralling a few rebounds. If he can do that tonight in Game 4 against Memphis, I may have another tale of success to write about tomorrow.
So before we get into any more discussion of what has gone down in my fantasy world over the past two nights, let’s look forward to the Saturday-Sunday action. This will be the final time all season that there are so many teams and players to choose from, as there are eight games this weekend and about 60 different players who will see significant playing time.
One of them will be Omer Asik, who did an OK job defending LaMarcus Aldridge in Game 3 Friday night. Yes, Aldridge finished with 23 points and 10 rebounds, but after what he did in the first two games (40-plus points in both), that is considered containment.
And since Asik carries a price tag of just $7,532, I will use him on at least one of the four teams I will be fielding in the $5 entry league.
Let’s have a look at who is carrying a monster price tag and who is a relative bargain.
(For the uninitiated, here is how DraftStreet’s salary cap fantasy contests work: You pick three guards, three forwards, one center and one utility player using a salary cap of $100,000, and then you root for them to fill up the box score. You can sign up here, or by clicking the banner at the top of this post.)
Steals and blocks are worth 2 points. Rebounds are worth 1.25 points. Assists are worth 1.5 points. You lose 1 point for every turnover, and you lose 0.5 points for every missed field goal attempt or missed free throw attempt.
| DraftStreet | Price |
| Stars | Over $19,000 |
| LaMarcus Aldridge | $22,980 |
| Kevin Durant | $21,825 |
| LeBron James | $21,725 |
| Stephen Curry | $19,904 |
| Blake Griffin | $19,449 |
| Value Plays | Under $9,100 |
| Michael Kidd-Gilchrist | $9,043 |
| Jeremy Lin | $8,880 |
| Gerald Henderson | $8,843 |
| Luis Scola | $7,968 |
| Vince Carter | $6,890 |
Aldridge’s price for Sunday’s game is even higher than it was yesterday, marking the third straight day his price has gone up. But for my money, the value pick on Portland is Damian Lillard (the guy I pegged as the key to the series in my preview).
Lillard carries a price tag of $15,175, which I am offsetting my going with Lin as one of my two other guards (Prudence dictates that I not reveal the third. Hey, I’m trying to win this thing, OK?)
I have been touting Luis Scola as a tremendous value pick, and I am not abandoning that line of thinking. In fact, I am picking him on all of my teams, which I will partially lay out so you can get an idea of how much value one or two low-priced players can bring.
Team 1: Scola, LeBron James, DeAndre Jordan, Damian Lillard and 4 others.
Team 2: Scola, Dirk Nowitzki, Dwight Howard, DeAndre Jordan and 4 others.
Team 3: Scola, Aldridge, Dwayne Wade, Russell Westbrook and 4 others.
Team 4: Scola, Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, David Lee and 4 others.
I will also tell you this: Among the “4 others” on all four of those teams, one guy is a fantasy stud. So, yeah, I really need Scola to produce.
Now, let’s take a look at the contests I was in over the past couple of nights. As I mentioned above, I entered six teams in the Thursday-Friday $2 entry fee league, and two of them finished in the money — 78th and 84th (out of 1,100).
Here is the winner’s lineup (it figures that somebody who picked Dunleavy would do quite well).
This was some extremely astute (or lucky) drafting. Batum was a superb pick, and Teague, Allen and Ariza were nice value picks. No studs and duds at work here.
The guy who hurt me was Nene. Another 30 points and I would have been in first place, but at least I was not the only one burned by the big Brazilian. This team paid $6. The team below paid $5.
Again, it was Nene who kept me from a bigger cash. OK, maybe Fisher, too. But when you plays studs and duds, you are going to get guys like Fisher who produce virtually nothing. For what I paid for Nene, I deserved better.
Here are the two $11 entry teams I have in the Friday-Saturday contests. I will update you on them tomorrow:
Team 1 is 116th out of 387, and unfortunately needs something resembling a productive game from Perkins:
Team 2 is in 139th place and probably has a better shot at being high in the money (although I need a big game from Scola, who is quite the hit-or-miss key for me, eh?):
I’ll be back with another post tomorrow as we play in the Sunday-Monday contests.
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