basketball..again?

As the lone interaction with most people on a yearly basis, I somehow get enthralled with basketball. But it usually sort of sneaks up on me that it's basketball season. Considering all the overly complicated statistical resources I've been reading all summer, it didn't this time. Plus I was watching the Olympic team to boot (that final game should never again be aired, if you didn't stay up/get up for a 2am tip off that's your problem).

So aside from trying to find a place to play and compatriots in reasonable shape to play with, I yearly dedicate a small portion of the day to running a fantasy team. I tried this with football and as noted before, discovered I don't follow football enough to manage one. And baseball is much more fun to run teams with say Ruth, Mays, Walter, Wagner on them. Pujols is pretty good though. Basketball is generally fairly easy to do by contrast. The players tend to be statistically predictable. The question marks are rookies, old guys, and injuries. Otherwise, it's reasonably consistent from year to year what you get from a player.

I joined what is supposed to be a more competitive league. Though there were a few eyebrow raising events during the draft. And the fact that people have been waiving and signing people all week before a game was even tipped basically told me that either I was paying better attention all summer or these were some very skittish people. I basically surrendered 3 pointers in exchange for trying to win the %s (FG/FT). Dwight Howard was a rebounding machine but damn if my FT% sucked last year. Otherwise I felt pretty solid with my picks this year. I went 7th, I like being in the middle of the draft better than the ends.

Garnett
Deron W (hurt to start, ouch, incidentally Utah or New Orleans may beat LA)
Gay
Roy
Horford
Maggette (I don't know how he slips every year)
Ilgauskas
Love (should be one of the top 3 or 4 rookies)
Brewer (I better win steals)
Collison (I decided I won't be cutting him too early this year)
Conley (Sleepy pick, I'm betting on a Deron like emergence)
Warrick
Louis W (not sure what I was thinking here, I could have used a 3 pt guy)

The team with Joe Johnson 1st round (?) and with Yi and Eric Gordon is probably the bottom feeder. He did sneak in Pierce and Rondo (and Ray Allen, which won't play as well). The team with Dirk and the one with Kobe are vaguely frightening. The Amare team is really scary as the middle picks were smarter than these other two, though they all got some heavy lifters for their starting 5.