Hoop Dreams

With the start of the NBA regular season less than two weeks away, it's time to reveal my award winning fantasy hoops advice for 2009-10.

I've had mixed success in hoops leagues in the past, winning a few and tanking in a couple others. Last year, I took a step up in class, race horse style, played against tougher competition, and flopped. This year, I'm back to defend my 10th place finish and right my wrongs of a year ago.

The main problem with my team last year was that I botched my draft in embarrassing fashion. I picked Dwight Howard, decided to dominate blocks, field goal percentage and boards and punt free throw percentage. However, I made the all too common mistake of not building a strength. I thought Howard alone would carry me in those three categories and he didn’t. When you build strength in a category in hoops, you need to back it up. Howard is a beast, but you need to pair him with a couple other block/board guys to really do it right. To my defense, it was the first time I had played in a head-to-head category based league. I usually play rotisserie basketball, where balance across the categories trumps building a strength in a few.

Anyway, Howard is one of those divisive players (a la Shaq a few years ago) who changes your entire vibe if you get him. If I end up with him again, I’m punting FT % and building a real strength. However, I’m hoping I get a top five pick this year where I don’t have to make that call. I’m zeroed in on Paul, Lebron, Durant and Wade, in that order. Gun to my head I take Kobe at 5, but I’m, hoping someone takes him before that. If I’m in the bottom half of the draft, I may have to suck it up and take Howard, or maybe Deron Williams.

So, to keep this short and simple, I’m going to list a bunch of players I like this year. That’s it. If you have strategy questions, make sure and hit me up.

Players I like for 2009-10:

Kevin Durant
Deron Williams
Amare Stoudemire
Carmelo Anthony
Caron Butler
Brook Lopez
Mehmet Okur
Andris Biedrins
Luis Scola
Kevin Love
Carl Landry
Anthony Parker

Stoudemire should bounce back with Terry Porter and Shaq out of town…Anthony could average 30 this year if he wants to…Lopez could go 20 and 10…I have a soft spot for Okur’s boards and threes…Landry and Scola will benefit from no Yao…Parker could be a multi-cat stat stuffer in Cleveland, particularly with Delonte West doing his best OJ Simpson impersonation.

Before I go, let’s go over some lists.

Dead to me

Rudy Gay
Greg Oden
Randy Foye
Jason Richardson
Al Thornton

Avoiding due to injury

Kevin Garnett
Baron Davis
Marcus Camby
Gilbert Arenas
Tracy McGrady

Overrated

OJ Mayo
Elton Brand
Trevor Ariza
Vince Carter
Allen Iverson

Underrated

TJ Ford
Michael Beasley (strong possibility I take him and he ends up on the dead to me list next year)
Ronnie Brewer
Andrea Bargnani
Marvin Williams

Best rookies

None—rookies are overrated in fantasy. Only Blake Griffin can really be counted on to produce starter caliber numbers. Others will, but you don’t know who they are, and most will likely kill your FG %.

Cheers,
TFAM