How in the world did this happen?

Final Day of NBA 2006-207

And I'm trying not to jinx my chances of a second championship by revealing some good fortune that's come my way this past week. Needless to say, I do have a lead going into the final games tonight, and I hope to have a celebratory post with the craziest roster moves you have ever seen tomorrow.

Then, on to fixing my woeful baseball team.

By the skin of my teeth

Well, my instincts were right about all my pickups, but Yao and T-Mac actually playing nearly threw off my whole strategy. Down by 1 DREB, 12 3s and 2 BLKs, I was sitting in front of the computer at 8:58 mulling over my options: 1) Gamble that Yao and T-Mac play and if they do I will win boards and probably blocks without any other players 2) Bench them and play Bibby, Luther Head, and Justin Williams and roll the dice against Rafer Alston's numbers for my opponent 3) play all of them as insurance.

Which what I did. Except that I nearly had a heart attack when I was suddenly only 7 TOs and 9 PFs ahead in the first half. I basically was on the verge of taking REBs and BLKs and giving up TOs and PFs and losing. Rafer Alston didn't help out my cause with a very modest 1 TO and 1 PF performance. So my insurance was to somehow shoot 12 3s between these guys to knock a point off the tally with a tie, which I did. Until Alston hit his single 3 late in the game. Needless to say, it was a stressful heartbreaking evening, but my boys tightened up on the TOs, gave up PFs and gave me a 6-5 win. Now, the waiver wire hunting really begins...

Final stand

Without AK-47 or Chandler, I finally gave up the lead in blocks and D boards. Now, going into the final day, I need to win back D Boards, Blocks or 3s to make the finals. And if I do, I'm dead in the water.I managed a net -13 in D boards, -9 in 3s and -12 in blocks yesterday. Not good. So I dropped Gadzuric, Chandler, AK-47, and Jason Hart for Shelden Williams, Justin Williams, Luther Head, and Tyrus Thomas (who's iffy with the flu). If you're playing any of these guys, your team is trouble, too. The opponent has LBJ, Rafer Alston, Ben Gordon and Tayshaun Prince going today, so I'm loading up on cheap boards and blocks, then if by a miracle T-Mac and/or Yao play (I'll give that a .5% chance), I can take boards and/or blocks hopefully without surrendering TOs, or take both and give up TOs.

Any way you slice it, this has been a miserable finish to a fairly impressive managerial effort on my part. Considering injuries on a similarly massive scale completely derailed my baseball team last season, I'm getting pretty sick of this. Now, as a poker player, I understand that no one wants to hear a bad beat story. Tough.

Mother, I can feel the soil falling over my head

Sorry for getting all Morrissey, but there's bad luck and then there's Biblical luck. Having developed serious injuries to five starters this week, Friday followed up with another kick in the belly as Yao sat due to back spasms (DNP), AK-47 left the game after 14 minutes with a sprained thumb and Mike Bibby spent 28 minutes on the bench going 0-4 from the field. Here's the tally.

While I had a great day from behind the arc, tieing in treys, due to six games lost this week from Yao, Chandler and Jefferson, my 30 D rebound advantage has shrunk to 10 in two days. Right now, I'm going to have to win TOs or 3s—or both—to have any chance of making the finals.

Realistically, I'm going to count T-Mac and Yao out for the season as the Rockets currently can't improve or worsen their playoff position. New Orleans needs Chandler, and they need him in the next two games against the Nuggets and the Clippers, who are both ahead of them in the playoff race. If Chandler doesn't play tonight, they might as well shut him down and give up.

So late night it comes down to possibly dropping AK, Chandler, Granger and Okur for Sunday substitutions. At best, if I make the finals, at least I'm in the money, but if I don't, then I'm going to have a hard time competing to break even by winning third place.

In slightly better news, Cub Rich Hill pitched 1-hit ball over 7 innings yesterday to earn my squad it's first pitching W of the season. Unfortunately, my team batting average has dipped below .22o, which is pretty amazing considering I have Chipper and Andruw Jones, Travis Hafner, and Ryan Howard.

Thank God there's no crying in fantasy sports because I'd be needing a hanky right now.

Hanging in there

Day 4 of the playoffs, and I've already had to start mortgaging the future.

I thought long and hard about next season before coming to the realization that I'm stuck with T-Mac for another year. Since he's on the Can't-Cut list, Al Jefferson had to go to make room for...gulp...Dan Gadzuric. Oh, the indignity. So much for starting next year with two premier big men.

I'm going to hold Chandler through the weekend and hopefully into the finals, then it's rotating waiver wire the rest of the way.

Nice to see Andy Pettitte get rocked yesterday, which means my pitching officially stinks, as Tony Kornheiser would say.

NBA playoffs, this game is killing me

I managed to recover a bit to take a 6-5 edge last night.


Of course, that was before I opened the box scores to see this:

Tyson Chandler – left game with toe injury
Tracy McGrady – left game with back spasms
Delonte West – left game with sprained ankle
Al Jefferson – DNP (benched him due to early reports about his knee)

I just managed to catch the news about Josh Childress being shut down on Tuesday in time to scoop up Jason Hart, who was to be my Bibby fill-in in case he quits once the Kings are out of it.

Nothing goes down sweeter than possibly losing a fifth of your squad two days into the semifinals.

Well, with the Celtics needing to tank anyway, I cut West and grabbed Charlotte F Walter Hermann, who came out of the bowels of the Bobcats to take Rookie honors last week.

My only saving grace is that my opponent managed to leave three guys on the bench for whatever reason. And he's got two hurt Bucks: Mo Williams and Redd

There is a good chance that West and Jefferson may be done. And Chandler may not be far behind especially if the Hornets drop to three games back in the standings.

Good thing I have 24 moves left under the cap, because I may be going day-to-day on the waiver wire pretty soon.

Gulp.

What a difference a day makes

Marcus Camby's lines for Tuesday and Sunday:

Game By Game Stats

Date	Opponent	MIN	FGM-A	FTM-A	REB	AST	STL	BLK	TO	PF	PTS
Apr 3	@ LAL	43	8-14	5-6	20	2	1	6	2	3	21
Apr 1	@ SEA	36	3-5	5-6	12	3	2	0	2	2	11

Thank goodness my friend O is on his honeymoon right now, because I would be rather upset to see the one block I needed on Sunday coming in droves two days later. Especially when my guy was playing the lowly Sonics.

But isn't this why we play fantasy? For the soul-crushing heartache of getting bounced from the playoffs because your second-round pick couldn't stick his mitt in front of the likes of Earl Watson, Chris Wilcox and Nick Collison? Once?

After Round 2, Day 1, your hero holds a 5-6 deficit in the quest for glory. I did, however, have four guys going to my opponent's eight, and I still managed to keep even in boards and blocks and hold the percentages. Need lots of 3s, Assists and Steals from my guards tonight.

Stupid Marcus Camby and the 4-H Club

Since Marcus Camby couldn't record a single block on Sunday to break a 5-5 first-round tie, I now have to face a team with LeBron, Duncan, Michael Redd, and Carmelo in the second round. I'm feeling a bit like Isiah before the Dallas game two weeks ago, but I'd already punted scoring anyway, so let's go percentages and defense. It's what got me here. Believe it or not, I still haven't dropped AK-47. I've had the window up a dozen times, but for some reason I just can't quit 'im, especially after one of his patented 8-point, 2-steal, 4-block nights.

I've read from Bill Simmons that his auction takes upwards of 10 hours. They must take a lot of breaks. The Handsome Gents' third auction with 14 managers filling an average of 19 roster spots took a tidy seven hours to complete even with Skype voice/chat participants in LA, Maine, South Beach, Atlanta, and London. Let me say that being the chattist/auctioneer/secretary makes it pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty dang doodle difficult to focus on building your own team. With essentially zero opportunity to read my sheets and flip the Baseball Prospectus during bidding, I'm surprised my team is as solid as I'm deluded to believe that it is. Especially if you like mediocre base stealing, tons of AL starters, and a pen built on one 37-year-old Japanese closer along with a Pujols victim who had one of the most disastrous springs on record.

Here's my money well spent. I kept Hafner, Howard, Hermida, and Rich Hill (below). The NY Post's Mr. Aitch would be proud.



1B Ryan Howard PHI 34
2B Brandon Philips CIN 9
SS Julio Lugo BOS 20
3B Chipper Jones ATL 13
C Mike Napoli ANA 3
OF Jeremy Hermida FLA 4
OF Andruw Jones ATL 36
OF Brad Hawpe COL 12
UH Travis Hafner CLE 30
Bench Corey Hart MIL 1
SP Rich Hill CHC 12
SP Andy Pettite NYY 10
RP Ted Saito LAD 18
RP Brad Lidge HOU 19
P Scott Linebrink SD 8
P AJ Burnett TOR 8
P Juan Rincon MIN 6
Bench Mike Gonzalez ATL 6
Bench Carl Pavano NYY 2
Bench Daniel Cabrera BAL 1
Bench Mark Prior CHC 1

With Hermida on the DL, I added Morgan Ensberg, who had a ridiculous .398 OBP or something close to it, despite batting .230. He should make for nice Chipper insurance. Prior's probably next to go, but I'll scout the waiver wire in a week or so.