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You knew Roy Hibbert was going to bust out at some point.
What?
You didn’t know that?
OK, I guess a bust-out game from an All-Star did not seem to not be within the realm of possibility — even though I kept playing Hibbert from time to time in DraftStreet’s two-night fantasy contests. As I wrote yesterday, I couldn’t help myself.
I put Hibbert on one of my $2 entry-fee teams yesterday while writing that “I can’t help myself” line, and lo and behold, that team is the one that performed best for me. If both Kevin Garnett and Tony Parker have big games tonight, I will add to this week’s profit since I already took home $60 by playing the same team — and it was a good team — in the Sunday-Monday contest.
The nice thing about these two-day contests is that you can use last night’s happenings as the basis for your drafting strategy the following day. And with Hibbert still carrying a low price, just like Kendrick Perkins (who finally had a serviceable fantasy line in Game 2), there is a case to be made that it makes sense to draft both of them and use the extra dough to add an extra stud.
So that is what I will do today, entering a $22 entry-fee league with a first prize of $500.
This is a break from my previous strategy of entering multiple teams in low-fee contests, but what the heck. Sometimes you need to try something a little different.
So my team today includes Hibbert, Perkins and Marcus Thornton along with five others who actually play consistently. One of them is LeBron James, and a second is Blake Griffin — although I reserve the right to swap out Thornton for a different player between now and tipoff.
But since I am adding that hedge, I feel duty-bound to give you a heads-up on who else I am relying upon. I won’t tell you everything, but I will tell you that Deron Williams and Tony Parker are two of my guys. Still, with three stiffs in play, I am going to need a lot of luck to make this gamble pay off.
But hey, that’s the fun of these two-night leagues.
To give you an idea of what it takes to win, here is the lineup that took home the dinero in the Monday-Tuesday contest.
Talk about hitting the jackpot with your stiffs!
This guy had Ray Allen, Roy Hibbert, Shaun Livingston and Marco Belinelli on one team, which allowed him to beef up on the studs end of his studs-and-duds team with the three most expensive players on the board.
And he made it look easy.
If only it were that way for the rest of us.
Check out the second-place team, which took home $140:
This guy was not hurt by his selection of Derek Fisher, which goes to show that there is a margin for error when going the studs and duds route. In this case, Ray Allen and Roy Hibbert were clutch, and again Tony Parker proved his worth as a value buy at just under $13,000.
For those who are new to this, 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.
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 are today’s prices:
| DraftStreet | Price |
| Stars | $$$ |
| LeBron James | $22,494 |
| Kevin Durant | $21,513 |
| LaMarcus Aldridge | $19,920 |
| Russell Westbrook | $19,918 |
| Blake Griffin | $19,316 |
| Value Plays? | Under $9,000 |
| Roy Hibbert | $7,836 |
| Danny Green | $7,536 |
| Marco Belinelli | $6,086 |
| Udonis Haslem | $5,825 |
| Ray Allen | $5,712 |
Belinelli was a great pick in Game 1 because of the extended garbage time — along with the fact that the Italian sharpshooter is the rare player who is both a garbage time fixture as well as a key rotation guy. That is the advantage in taking him over Boris Diaw ($8,009), who is a quality low-cost pickup in close games because he defends opposing bigs, does not make mistakes and produces OK numbers within the flow of the game. If San Antonio has another rout tonight, there may be no better players to draft than Belinelli, Patty Mills ($5,260) and Aron Baynes ($5,670).
The Spurs are a 7-point favorite tonight, and I am wagering $2 on the theory that they will mop the floor with the Blazers.
Here is my complete lineup in that $2 Spurs-will-coast entry.
You may feel free to copy it. And if the Spurs romp, I will see you in the winner’s circle.
More tomorrow, folks. Enjoy the games tonight.