DraftStreet Fantasy Spin: April 29, 2014: The Sterling Factor

The Los Angeles Clippers weren’t mentally prepared for Game 4 of their first-round series against the Golden State Warriors, and it showed in their inattentiveness to defense in the first quarter. Will we see more of the same tonight in Game 5?

That is my expectation, and I am going to try to use the Donald Sterling controversy to my advantage in the DraftStreet two-night fantasy leagues I am entered in tonight.

First of all, the Clippers are a cursed franchise, right?

This is the best team they’ve ever put together, and they are going to be undone by the racist comments attributed to their owner, correct?

Karma tells us that they may not win another playoff game until next year, although next year is an open book with Doc Rivers, Chris Paul and Blake Griffin on the fence over whether they can continue to play for Donald Sterling. Simply put, the Clippers are a mess — and it is to the Warriors’ advantage that outside forces have conspired to derail the Clippers’ run.

Well, that is the expectation here.

Which is why I loaded my Monday-Tuesday $22 entry with as many Warriors as possible. I will do the same tonight in the Tuesday-Wednesday $5 entry contest (although I will enter a hedge team, too).

For the uninitiated, here are the rules of DraftStreet’s salary cap contests …

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 how my $22 team is doing. Note: I made a last-second change to my lineup when it was announced that Al Jefferson would not play Game 4 for the Bobcats. Like 24 percent of the entrants, I scooped up Cody Zeller. And like 24 percent of the entrants, I should have taken Bismack Biyambo instead.

Anyway, the extra salary cap space allowed me to select LeBron James, who was the fantasy stud of the night. Can his performance offset Zeller’s dud? That we will discover tonight. My team, shown below, currently sits in 77th place out of 200 entries.

For the Tuesday-Wednesday contest, I am entering three teams in the $5 entry fee contest, which has a $480 first prize.

Team 1 will include three Warriors: Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson and the hot-and-cold Andre Iguodala, whose low price allowed me to select Dwight Hoard as my center. My value pick was Houston rookie Troy Daniels, who seems poised to knock Jeremy Lin out of the rotation if he keeps dropping bombs like a seasoned vet.

Team 2 includes three studs: Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook and LaMarcus Aldridge, along with mid-range priced Tony Allen and four very, very low-priced picks who will all need to come through at the same time.

Team 3 is built on the assumption that my Clippers assumption is wrong. This is my hedge team, and it includes Chris Paul, DeAndre Jordan and Blake Griffin, along with a slew of moderately priced players including Memphis forward Tayshaun Price, whose $3,329 salary is the lowest I have ever seen for a starter.

Here is a look at the team that won the $11 Sunday-Monday tournament, which had a first prize of $600.

This player obviously struck gold with Paul George, who was the only member of the Pacers who came to play Monday night as they fell behind 3-2 to the 8th seeded Atlanta Hawks. Another astute pick was Mathews, who hadn’t produced big numbers until Game 4.

Another update will come tomorrow. And again, good luck.