DraftStreet Fantasy Spin, May 22, 2014: How I won $250 without finishing first

No, I do not have another first-place triumph story to tell you. I have a third-place triumph story to tell you.

My ship came in again last night, and it was piloted by Danny Green.

The Spurs guard hit seven 3-pointers in San Antonio’s 35-point rout of Oklahoma City, and I now have enough cash to take Mallory Edens out for a nice dinner.

This fantasy gig ain’t so bad on nights when you hit it big. Of course, there are also nights when you get an e-mail from DraftStreet saying “You have invalid lineups.” I got one of those this week, and it cost me $5. But hey, it’s only $5. Mallory doesn’t even bother to carry $5 bills in her purse. She is worth millions, and I am not going to sign a pre-nup when she asks me to.

Green was a part of my studs-and-duds theory for picking teams on DraftStreet, and it has worked fairly well as he knocked down seven 3s. I have now cashed 9 times this month, including a $480 first-place prize in a $5 contest and the $250 3rd-place prize I reference above.

For the Saturday-Sunday games, I am again going into the $22 entry-fee contest. But this version has room for 750 players, and the first prize is $1,200. DraftStreet also has $2 and $5 and $55 entry fee contests for those playing the salary cap games, but the biggest money is in the $22 league.

If you enter it, you get to compete against me.

And if you are a first-time player who makes a deposit, I will personally mail you one of those Phil Jackson/HOPE t-shirts pictured to your right. The shirts come from TarNation.com, which will send one to you if you send them $20. But for what it’s worth, you might as well spent the extra two bucks and have some additional excitement during this weekend’s games.

Making picks is a little extra difficult today because of the Thunder factor.

There is no way Scotty Brooks can continue to play three guys in the starting lineup, Kendrick Perkins, Nick Collison and Thabo Sefolosha, who cannot score. That is what I was saying two days ago when I drafted Caron Butler, but he only contributed what he did because of garbage time points (but hey, I’ll take it.)

Here is how Butler helped me creep up to third place:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The winning team had Udonis Haslem, who cost only $3,655 prior to his move into the starting lineup. But a warning about Haslem: Even though he starts, it is rare that he does anything more than grab a couple of rebounds and commit a few hard fouls. And since hard fouls count for nothing in fantasy sports, use caution.

But with that being said, it is necessary that we include Haslem in our list of value plays, because if he can post a double figure DS point total, he might be worth it at today’s price — which is the same as it was two days ago.

Some of you may be reading this and not know what DS points are. So here you go:

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.

They score a point, you get a points. They hit a 3-pointer, you get 3 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.

Sign up by clicking on the Draft Street banner at the top of the page.

Here are today’s studs-and-duds prices:

DraftStreet	Price
Stars	$$$
Kevin Durant	$24,659
LeBron James	$23,666
Russell Westbrook	$23,074
Paul George	$17,868
Tim Duncan	$15,532
Value Plays?	Under $9,000
Reggie Jackson	$8,927
Ray Allen	$8,008
Danny Green	$7,777
Boris Diaw	$7,358
Chris Andersen	$6,282
Caron Butler	$5,719
Udonis Haslem	$3,645

My advice: Run, do not walk, to the Chris Andersen line and click on it. He is a tremendous value play. The Pacers are just too big.

I assembled a team that included the top 3 players by selecting Andersen, Danny Green and a couple other guys with extremely low prices.

It is a major crapshoot, because you never know when a Jeremy Lamb (14 pts, 2 steals 17.75 DS points) is going to show up.

But there’s no way Durant and Westbrook are going back to OKC and doing anything less than 60 combined points, and either of those guys could go for 40. Or both of them.

Hey, Butler worked for me last night. Haslem worked for the guy who won the $500 first prize.

But the prize pool is much larger for Saturday’s two-day contest, and some bum will win it for someone. I hope that bum is mine.

Good luck! And here is a list of the specific prizes in the $22 entry-fee contest: