Draft Street Fantasy Spin, April 27, 2014: Going big with Dwight, DeAndre

OK, so I have now learned my lesson about keying all of my fantasy teams to one player. And unless that player goes off like LaMarcus Aldridge, it is a risky proposition.

I put Luis Scola on all of my teams Saturday in DraftStreet’s two-day fantasy contests, believing that Pacers coach Frank Vogel would utilize the Argentinian forward/center in place of the ineffective Roy Hibbert. And while that was indeed the case down the stretch as Scola played the entire fourth quarter, it hurt me that Scola did not take his warmups off until the second quarter.

As a result, I have six teams in play today with little margin for error — not the kind of start you want to have to your day when you are playing in fantasy contests.

I have been the fill-in fantasy writer for a week now, and I’ll continue in the week ahead as the playoffs get even more entertaining as the stakes grow higher. My on-the-job training will include plenty of unbridled optimism on some days; a host of mea culpas on other days. Today is one of the latter … but before I get to that, I’ll key you in on my strategy for the Sunday-Monday contests.

I like big guys today. Specifically, I like DeAndre Jordan and Dwight Howard. They are the key players on one of my four entries — three $2 entry fee leagues; plus one $11 entry fee league. In the other three entries, I go with two studs and duds teams and one middle-of-the-pack lineup.

For those unfamiliar with how DraftStreet contests work, here are the rules. 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.

Here is a look at some of today’s prices:

DraftStreet	Price
Stars	Over $19,000
LaMarcus Aldridge	$22,715
LeBron James	$21,625
Dwight Howard	$19,570
Stephen Curry	$19,423
Blake Griffin	$19,349
Value Plays	Under $9,000
Kyle Korver	$8,855
George Hill	$8,665
Trevor Booker	$8,319
Wes Mathews	$7,546
Samuel Dalembert	$6,482

It is impossible to determine who will come out of the blue and have a huge night, the way Mike Dunleavy did in Game 3 of the Chicago-Washington series.

There are certain guys who can be counted on to play major minutes, and the Jimmy Butlers and James Hardens of the world are more likely to give you a big boost if you play them when they are hot. If you play them when they are cold (Harden has had three of those games, arguably, though his 22 missed shots in Game 3 did not stop him from producing 48.75 DS points), they can be a waste of money and salary cap space.

So you have to be a little bit lucky and a little bit prescient.

For my $11 team, I did not draft any of the highest priced players. My three anchors are Damian Lillard, Paul Millsap and Dirk Nowitzki, and I saved enough money by going that route to also include Deron Williams, David West and Joe Johnson (plus two other who will remain secret).

For my $2 teams, I mixed things up. On one roster I selected both Dwight Howard and DeAndre Jordan, on a second roster I built around Aldridge and Harden, and on a third I built around LeBron James.

I am staying away from Trevor Booker, who figures to get the start for Washington in place of the suspended Nene. Why? Because Drew Gooden is just as capable as Booker of having a big game, and I don’t need that coin flip factor impacting my day(s).

As for my Friday-Saturday entries, my best finish was 208th out of 387. Blah.

Here is what the winner’s team looked like:

Splitter was obviously the key.

In my Saturday-Sunday leagues, this is the squad that has the best chance of putting me in the money:

An update will be available tomorrow morning. In the meantime, good luck to y’all.