DraftStreet Fantasy Spin, May 19, 2014; Autopsy of Pacers win

It was a good day Sunday to have several members of the Indiana Pacers in your fantasy lineup. They performed like they were Spurs.

If you play fantasy hoops a lot, you know what I am talking about. San Antonio is the type of team that spreads the wealth, making for efficient and successful playoff drives, but not necessarily making for strong fantasy plays. The Pacers pulled off a reasonable facsimile by defeating the Heat in Game 1, and now the trick is trying to decide which of those performances will be repeated in Game 2.

I expect the same out of David West, but nobody else. And as for the Heat, we all saw how valuable Chris Andersen was to their defensive effort, and the question for Tuesday is whether the BeardMan BirdMan is going to be on the floor more than 19 minutes (He went 6-for-7 with 14 points, four rebounds, two steals and a block in Game 1 for a DS score of 24.5.)

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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.

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Steals and blocks are worth 2 points. Rebounds are worth 1.25 points. Assists are worth 1.5 points.

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I am entered in the Sunday-Monday contest, with one team in the $22 entry-fee league (First prize is $450) and two teams in the $5 entry-fee league (First prize is $200).

I pulled a switcheroo just before tipoff yesterday and decided I would take Luis Scola instead of Nick Collison in the $22 league (although I went with Collison over Scola in the $5 league so as to keep my word after yesterday’s post.)

The team in the $22 league stands in 29th place out of 75 entrants.

Here is what it looks like:

The jury is still out on whether Scola was a better play than Collison, and we won’t know the answer until tonight’s game is over. If Collison puts up a bigger number than Scola did, karma will have struck me — the bad kind — for making the switch to Scola after touting Collison as the guy who should step up in the absence of Serge Ibaka.

In the $5 league, 38 percent of the 220 entrants took Collison, and in the $22 league, 52 percent of the 75 entrants took Steven Adams.

And if you look at this team to your left, you can see that I also have a lot of company with Westbrook and Duncan. The key for me will be getting a monster game out of Leonard.

I usually take Tony Parker in nearly every contest I enter, because he has been priced very, very low throughout the playoffs. But the salary setters at DS have caught on, and with his injury possibly impacting his performance, I stayed away (I did add Patty Mills to one of my teams in the $5 contest).

As we move into the Monday-Tuesday contests, the trick will again be getting the correct low-priced guys to bolster the high-priced guys. Anybody can take LeBron James, but how many are astute enough to take a guy like Ray Allen, who once again produced like a pro in Game 1, tallying 12 points, five rebounds and four assists for a DS score of 23.25 — just four points shy of Wade’s total, for about half the price.

Here are the studs and duds prices for Monday:

DraftStreet	Price
Stars	$$$
Kevin Durant	$24,321
Russell Westbrook	$23,748
LeBron James	$22,955
Paul George	$17,412
Tim Duncan	$14,876
Value Plays?	Under $9,000
Boris Diaw	$8,286
Ray Allen	$8,250
Reggie Jackson	$7,590
Danny Green	$6,698
Steven Adams	$5,958
Udonis Haslem	$3,825
Nick Collison	$3,375

The prices on Durant and Westbrook have risen since Sunday, and now sit at astronomical levels.

The price on James is up about $500, and then it is a $5,500 dropoff (!) to Paul George; then another $2,500 to Duncan.

Parker has dropped out of the top 5, going for $14,454. That is an indication that a lot of folks stayed away yesterday, as I did.

But what will win it or lose it for you are the Value Picks, especially if you have the temerity to stock a team with $71,000 worth of studs by taking Westbrook, Durant and James. (I did that in a $22 league. My stiffs are Thabo Selolosha and James Jones.)

Adams and Green are interesting value picks for tonight’s game, and the time to get them while they are cheap is now. With Ray Allen, can he put together two good games in a row? Or will coach Erik Spoelstra try to put some more 3-point shooting out there around LeBron, who can be expected to get to the foul line a ton in Game 2 after attempting only two FTs on Sunday.

At a certain point, you have to figure Spoelstra is going to replace Shane Battier in the starting lineup. He could go with Udonis Haslem (who started the second half Sunday) or Jones or Rashard Lewis, or even Chris Andersen. All are available at low prices, with Andersen the safest pick.

Back tomorrow with an autopsy on Game 1 of Spurs-Thunder, along with a fresher lookahead to Game 2 of Pacers-Heat.

Good luck!

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