Yeah Towns is currently being driven out of Minnesota at the moment, despite signing a 5 year contract less than a month ago, by a coach stuck 10 years in the past who's trying to keep hold of his star pupil who's wanting to leave and no matter what will leave and is throwing the pram out with the toys trying to leave. To do that the coach is freezing out a generational talented big on on offense. The pro-Butler media narrative is bs, but the dysfunction at Minnesota is top-down from the owner (who refuses to get rid of Thibs) and it looks far worse than it appears to be reported since we're not getting public information from Towns' camp (and other disgruntled players). Things are only going to get worse every day Butler (and Thibs) is still a Timberwolf. So to bring it back to fantasy, I wouldn't expect things to improve for Towns owners any time soon, sorry.
I feel for K Love owners! He looked to be a good choice pre-season. Now Ty Lue has been fired, and Cavs will likely tank for rest of season. Love looks like being shut down.
Even though my team sucks and this has no impact on my winning this week, I am aggrieved by NBA refs, Joel Embiid, ESPN Fantasy statisticians, and our scoring system for what happened to Andre Drummond earlier this week. Drummond scored 7 fantasy points for this line: 14 points (6-20 FG, 2-4 FT), 16 rebounds, 2 assists, 3 steals, 2 blocks and 5 turnovers. The reason it was so low was despite the Team Win, he got two Techs and was Ejected. Even though I hate the -5 associated with an ejection (as they've already got the techs, or flagrant foul, and can't accrue more stats whilst in the locker room), I thought that it was fair enough as this is what everyone plays under. However, Drummond's second disqualifying tech came after he questioned the ref who whistled him for a foul on Embiid. It was a clear flop that the ref fell for. The NBA subsequently has retracted this technical foul and hit Embiid with a flopping warning. But ESPN Fantasy still lists Drummond with two techs and an ejection. The NBA regularly retracts technical fouls (as it carries a fine with it and they need to have justifications and a process for fines as part of the agreement with the player's union) after reviewing them, but I don't think they go back and adjust the scores. Given the regularity that the NBA gives techs, particularly the "two players have words or get tangled" double tech, at least compared to the degree you can do some push and shove in the NBL for instance, I think we have to think about whether we remove the value from it, especially if they're not going to be fixed up in fantasy scoring comps.
Not sure what the owner of the Cavs was expecting with Lebron gone. They are a very bad team who can't play any defence. Pretty good chance that Love will be traded at some stage during the season as the Cavs will go into full tank mode.
Do missed shots where the oppo get the rebound also count as turnovers? 34 minutes for 1 point is killing my enjoyment a bit, sometimes I find myself hoping players don't come back on court and I don't think that should be the default position..
No, it’s not a turnover, just a miss. Sounds like you need better players if you’re worried about them that much lol I’m not sure players should be expected to score well just for being on the court. Shouldn’t it be about how they use their time on court. If they’re a detriment to their team then scoring low should be fine.? Otherwise, we could just award a point for every minute they play. Actually, in saying that, I’ve actually been toying with this idea, as a way to boost the scores, but I’m in no way sold on it, it’s just a thought. I’ve got Simmons and I don’t have any issue with him scoring low from a game like that today with double-figure turnovers. He’s still averaging 30+ fpts to be a top 25 player despite scoring single figures in 2 of his last 3 games. He’s gonna have good games and bad games. Personally, I’m enjoying this scoring system a lot more. I was a bit worried after the first few games, but I think it’s going well now. I didn’t like it when players would still score well from a bad game, and that’s been sorted now. I do think it will need some tinkering, because it seems we’re a bit too harsh on missed 2 pt FGs. And there’s been some other good suggestions made too. I’m looking forward to working through it all during the off season with a season full of data. At this stage, I’m just trying to keep an open mind to see how it sits with me as we go through the season... Regardless of whatever scoring system, it’s been an interesting season so far, with some players playing well above projections (how’s Vucevic and DAJ going!), and some playing well below (not sure we can include Klay in that list anymore tho lol). The game seems to be changing too with so many high scores so far.
Shit players like Simmons you mean? I'm not knocking it straight out, simply stating watching a player negatively impact my score isn't conducive to immersion.. Unless I missed something the reason to change was to make it more like SC where impact matters. In Sc if a shot at goal is missed it's just not scored, it doesn't deduct points from other areas of impact. Next year maybe we move to a middle ground.
I've just listened to a great episode of the Box Score Geeks podcast. They touch on a lot of stuff we've been discussing so far this year, including value of missed shots, Klay, Giannis, and other things. It's really interesting. https://overcast.fm/+BXw-NKUpg Worth a listen. They go on a bit too much sometimes, especially Dre, but this episode they're not as bad as others...
Anyone in Premier want to trade JaVale McGee from me whilst he’s a top 30 player? I drafted him at 88 and he went undrafted in all other leagues. I thought he’d play about 20-25mpg and still be worthy of pick 88, but he’s done even better than that! This from roto: “McGee is having himself a career-year as the starting five-man in Los Angeles, and he currently leads the league in blocks per game at 3.3. This is the McGee we’ve always dreamed he could be, and it looks like the back-to-back championships partnered with sharing the floor with LeBron James has truly allowed him to reach his potential. It’s possible he could see a slight reduction in minutes upon the arrival of Tyson Chandler, but it shouldn’t be anything that will dramatically affects his value.”
Those of you playing fantasy NBL, this could be helpful: https://stocklight.com/news/nbl-fan...medium=twitter&utm_campaign=fantasy_nbl_tweet
@karlos @Rad_E_Cool I had an alarm set for 11am to pick up either Terrence Ross or Cody Zeller, but my alarm didn’t go off! I think I’ve set it for pm by accident... by the time I remembered, I saw both of you had picked up the two players I was looking at!
Not a fan at all of this scoring system. Fair to say its the least fun I can remember having playing fantasy basketball and I'm not alone as I know a few other guys playing across our leagues and the general consensus is its just not that much fun this season. The fact that of the top 50 players so far 40% are Centers some of whom play well less than 30 minutes per game is staggering to me and highlights how wrong we have got the scoring system. If you don't have many big fellas then you can pack the season in. Heaver got it right in the first week with his commentary on the system and nothing has changed as we have gotten into the guts of the season.
Can you elaborate a bit Karlos, as I've heard this thing about it not being fun or enjoyable this season by you and others, and I'm not exactly what is meant. For me, I check my player's progress in the games and cheer for them to put up a big score, and I check how other players are going by looking at their fantasy scores, and I look at the schedule and players' form and try to think about who I should pick up on waivers, then watch them play and wish them well etc., then rinse and repeat - I find this fun and engaging watching games or highlights, and looking at boxscores, especially when a player I drafted takes the steps to improve as I predicted they would. This is the same thing I did last season (and in previous seasons) when it was also fun for me. Is this not the same for you, or is there now some disconnect between how you enjoy the NBA and how you enjoy fantasy? Or is it that you are not having fun because the players you drafted aren't doing as hoped, or you missed out on the guys you wanted? I can certainly attest to not doing very well this year (bad drafting, injuries to Westbrook, Teague, LaVert, Pau) which makes it less fun than having your team do well, but this wouldn't be limited to this scoring system. Or is it some other explanation that I'm missing? With the current system having the Centre position doing well, I will leave it to others to do the hard work of comparing it to the previous system, but my initial thoughts are that teams are changing their structure to get rid of two traditional bigs and just play with one. There's a survivorship bias then, with the best C or PF now being the C and facing less competition for rebounds etc.. There's no starting lineups with Zaza-Green, Pau-Aldridge, Cousins-Davis, Valanciunas-Ibaka etc. anymore, they've just moved the good PF to C, or kept the C and started a smaller guy or shooter instead. Looking at ESPN's points league rankings in this article, they've got Aldridge and Davis as PFs when they start at C and Sabonis as a PF too, but despite that there's 22 centres in the top 50, including 3 in the top 10 and 9 in the top 25. I'd argue that the C has merged with the PF spot, so you're going to have a higher proportion of Cs. Sure, the argument could be that ESPN's points system also favours bigs so this list doesn't matter in regards to your point, but I don't think you can get a equitable split amongst all positions in any scoring system, simply due to the blurring of the positional lines. Bigs are killing it now and getting stats that they used to not get, like assists (Jokic and recently Sabonis and Randle) and 3s at a good percentage. Helping out the SG and SF positions by tweaking some points values may not be attainable, because it'll just increase the bigs who are shooting 3s better and as frequently, and who are getting just as many assists. Having said all that, we should definitely look to have involvement and ideas from everyone about tweaking the points system for next season (as seems to be considered every season). We obviously can't change anything now, but if people put suggestions and proposals forward, as well as the rationale for the changes, I think we can end up with something most are happy with.
Hi Karlos, and others who are intersted. Ive just had a look at the player rankings under our old system compared to the new one. In regards to what you have raised about the number of centres in the top50, I think looking at the data shows that there actually isn't much difference and perhaps the old system favoured centres more than the new does, the opposite to what you're suggesting. Under the old system, there are currently: 22 centres in the top 50 players; their ranks are: 1, 2, 5, 9, 11, 13, 15, 17, 20, 25, 26, 28, 31, 35, 37, 38, 39, 42, 46, 47, 48, 49. Under the new system, there are currently: 21 centres in the top 50 players; their ranks are: 1, 3, 7, 8, 11, 17, 21, 22, 25, 26, 29, 30, 32, 33, 34, 39, 41, 42, 45, 46, 47. For comparisons sake, the 22nd C is ranked 52. I listen to lots of NBA podcasts and theres heaps of talk at the moment about how well centres are doing this season, how they're a lot more productive. A lot of the talk has been about their increased assists, kicking out to shooters for 3 pointers instead of taking a contested shot in the paint. There are heaps of centres posting career high assist numbers this season. Another thing people have been talking about are the increased three pointers being shot by big guys which has been going up and up each season the last few years. Tall players are often going to be most valuable on the court due to the simple fact of the height of the rim, but only as long as they can fit into the team structures. Teams are playing 5-out offence more and more and there are now heaps of bigs who can play it effectively too, meaning there are more fantasy relevant centres around than other recent seasons. Regardless of the dimes and treys, some of the numbers the centres are putting up this season are just ridiculous, players like Embiid, Gobert, Vucevic, Marc Gasol, Harrell, Sabonis, Nurkic and McGee are all playing better than expected, some by a lot. I heard today that Montrez Harrell is putting up per-36 numbers (2.2 steals and 2.7 blocks) that only 6 players have ever achieved in a season before, 10 total times with Hakeem Olajuwon responsible for 4 of them! He's also top 5 in PER for the league this season. He's one of the guys you've mentioned, Karlos, who is in the top 50 but playing fewer than 30mpg... It's just one example though. FWIW, there are 8 centres in the top 50 under the old system who are playing under 30mpg too (compared to 10 under the new system). There are also a few non-centres who are playing <30mpg and in the top 50 too. One difference that I noticed which I like. Which was one of the aims of changing it. Some players having poor seasons are ranked low in the new system, even though they still woulda done well under the old system. How's Donavan Mitchell for example. It is widely acknowledged that he is having a poor season. Even just today, I heard it mentioned on two seperate podcasts: one said "It's been a rough start for him" and the other said "...has been a massive disappointment so far this season", however under our old system he would be ranked 71st. There is no way he is producing that sort of value so far this season. In the new scoring system, he is ranked a more accurate 103rd. Two other players widely regarded as having poor seasons so far are Klay Thompson and Carmello Anthony, however our old system still has them ranked 79th and 136th respectively! whereas the new system has them at 108th and 189th. I also checked Eric Gordon, but he's way down on both lists so not worth bringing up. Even James Harden is ranked 6th on the old scoring system, despite him being out of shape and playing well below expectations (he is 13th in the new system). But this isnt to say volume shooters cant do well. Players like Kris Middleton, Bradley Beal, Tim Hardaway Jnr, Robert Covington, Justin Holiday and JJ Redick are mostly doing ok (but up-and-down) and are ranked ahead of Mitchell, not to mention the elite players like Steph Curry, Kemba Walker, Dame Lillard, Kyrie Irving and Kyle Lowry who all put up high volume long shots, but also contribute in lots of other areas too so they're a bit different... and Curry is just amazing, putting up 10+ 3PA and still shooting better than 50% from the field!