@dballbball this is me again! I do not know if you are following the situation, but now Bagley is out (I was going to drop either way based on your recommendation), but my plan A is hurt too (Boucher). Do you recommend still going with Boucher if it’s not bad, or move to one to these options that are available: Barton, Finney-Smith, Kuminga, Olynik, Hachimura, Poku or Plumlee?

Bonus: both Patrick Williams and Ayo Dosunmo are still available. 

Thanks for your previous support and appreciate your response. 

Update: I have been offered Mikal Bridges and Keldon for CP3 and Vassell. I lean no but what do you think considering my roster?

@yoda  I really like this squad for a 12-team league. Bonus points for having this roster despite two extra managers. You don’t need Olynyk but he’s a solid replacement option.

Strengths: AST, FT% (*), PTS (*), STL, 3PT (*)

Weaknesses: BLK, FG%, TO

Mid: REB

Players that are good at your strengths: Everyone but Nurkic

Players that are bad at your strengths: Nurkic

Players that are good at your weaknesses: Covington and Porzingis

My feelings on your roster are fairly transparent here. I don’t hate Nurkic for your team because he boosts your potential in REB considerably, but he is your third-string center and weakest in your best categories. Believe it or not, every team in the league (fantasy or real world) would love a backup to their backup as good as Nurkic. Plus he’s a solid AST and STL option for a big. He’s tradeable but not at a loss.

This team isn’t going to struggle in several categories. If your roster is healthy, I see no reason why you shouldn’t be a regular winner in FT%, PTS and 3PT with your first six picks being so strong there. Normally, I’d be more concerned about Randle’s FT%, but he’s still above what I expect from a big and his volume will likely be a quarter or more of what the Beal-Harden-Irving-LaVine-Porzingis group produces. You should be pretty comfortable once Dort is healthy.

You’re not winning BLK or FG% with any consistency, as far as I can tell. That’s fine: nobody’s perfect. Olynyk isn’t going to help you there, but future waiver wire replacements could be targeted for their strength in REB. I don’t love the idea of a fourth center on this team if you don’t have two starting spots for them, so consider out-of-position REB producers where possible. Think of guys like Alec Burks, Cole Anthony, Darius Bazley, Josh Hart and Otto Porter.

I don’t think you’re going to need much advice this season. Keep to your strengths and don’t entertain any illusions about addressing your weaknesses. Convert REB if you can, but don’t make a deal with the devil (AKA sacrifice a strength) in order to accomplish that goal.

@mildspice I have no real concerns about synergy on this roster, to be honest.

Strengths: PTS, REB, STL, TO

Weaknesses: FT%

Mid: AST, BLK, FG%, 3PT

Players that are good at your strengths: Antetokounmpo, Barnes, Collins, Leonard, Murray and Porter Jr.

Players that are bad at your strengths: Aldama and Hartenstein

Players that are good at your weaknesses: Brogdon, Middleton, Leonard and Love

I always consider it a successful draft if I’ve only hurt my chances in one category. You’re not going to blow any teams away with this roster, but it is certainly competitive. Depending on how much progression we see from Barnes and Smith in particular, this team could be better than it currently seems. They’ll both join Antetokounmpo in damaging your FT%.

Several categories could swing for you this season, which is a blessing and a curse. Players like Aldama, Porter and Smith are hard to nail down stat-wise, so they could push you in either direction. Porter’s atrocious shooting percentages from last season, for example, will be an absolute deathblow in those areas plus PTS and 3PT. The other two athletes are mostly unproven in the pros (Aldama more than Smith), so they could ideally help to convert your BLK, FG% and 3PT, but it’s not a guarantee. We’re optimists here, so let’s assume that they can do so. Let's also save some optimism for your injury and rest-prone players like Brogdon, Hayward, Leonard, Love and Porter. That IL spot might be busy this season.

Since you’re close to good in four categories, I’ll let you judge which two or three to focus on building based on who’s available. You’re looking for the best player available on the wire, with the assumption being that they’ll probably offer AST with 3PT or BLK with FG%. It’s doubly beneficial that an AST-3PT player could help your PTS-STL strength, while a BLK-FG% player could probably do the same for the REB-TO categories. With a low ceiling in FT%, you’ve got a lot of flexibility with positional options. 

If Aldama doesn’t work out, you could consider streaming that spot with players like Andre Drummond, Caleb Martin, Cody Martin, Daniel Gafford, Darius Bazley, Gary Payton II, Jae’Sean Tate, Kelly Oubre, Mason Plumlee, Patrick Beverley and Steven Adams.

@kjay84gmail-com Ball and Jokic in a 10-team league? That’s a lucky combo. 

Strengths: FG% (*), PTS, REB (*), STL, TO, 3PT

Weaknesses: BLK

Mid: AST, FT%

Players that are good at your strengths: Everyone

Players that are bad at your strengths: Nobody

Players that are good at your weaknesses: Ayton, Hartenstein, Jokic, Smith and Zubac

You’ve done exceptionally well in this draft to have so many high-potential players. While some would say their odds are worse this year, players like Harris and Trent could still end up in the top-50 along with expected players like Anunoby, Ayton, Ball, Barnes and Jokic. There aren’t any real threats in BLK on this team, but that’s an acceptable sacrifice for your strength in other areas.

Aside from the obvious strengths of your team, I don’t see any players that have any medical red flags (that I’m aware of) on this roster. Whether a similar future will unfold is to be determined, but you’ll benefit in the short-term from having your best players on the floor in a totals-based format. You need to be filling up the stat sheet at all times, so the per-game values of players that are more at risk of sitting out may have fooled other managers in your league. If the time comes that you’re looking for replacement players, I hope that you will focus on counting stats like AST, PTS and REB. Your already-strong FG% can sustain a temporary hit, if needed, to ensure you don’t lose ground in those areas.

In such a small league, I can only see one or two managers possibly having enough firepower to beat you in PTS, STL or TO, but it’s still possible, if not by much. You’re secure enough in five categories to feel comfortable from week-to-week, but you may choose to interchangeably address AST or FT% in order to get an extra edge over certain opponents that may have you beat in another category. Despite his strong reputation, I don’t think that Hartenstein’s spot on this team should be so secure that you don’t consider rotating him out for other productive players. His value in BLK won’t really help you, and Hartenstein probably won’t blow up the box scores for the Knicks this year.

If you’re looking to the waiver wire, consider players like Alec Burks, Bogdan Bogdanovic, Bojan Bogdanovic, Cole Anthony, Immanuel Quickley, Lu Dort, Reggie Jackson, Ricky Rubio and Tim Hardaway Jr. It will be harder to find suitable bigs without making a trade, so you’ll probably have to wait and see if anyone breaks out before seeing suitable candidates at the pivot. 

I fully expect you to be one of the more competitive teams in your league this year, but I’ll wish you luck all the same.

@true_north_hooper No need for me to look at your roster. I don't like that deal either way! Even if those two don't fit, there will still be better offers. That said, I'm not sure I've actually reviewed your roster. Stay tuned!

@kennycruz6-kc Finney-Smith seems like the most likely player to finish in the top-100 this year, although probably not by much. Barton, Dosunmu and Olynyk are decent consolation prizes. I'm less sure about the others. If it's for positional need, I understand if you want Olynyk.

@unclemao I can tell you used the B150! Several of the player-round combinations look familiar.

Strengths: FT%, 3PT (*), TO

Weaknesses: BLK, REB (*)

Mid: AST, FG%, PTS, STL

Players that are good at your strengths: Anunoby, Beal, Curry, Finney-Smith, Johnson, Lillard, Melton, Morris and Washington

Players that are bad at your strengths: Ayton and Clarke

Players that are good at your weaknesses: Ayton and Clarke

It probably won’t surprise you to hear that you’re good in FT% and 3PT after assembling your Big Three. Generally speaking, I’m not surprised to see that a B150 reader drafted a very efficient team after the opening rounds. Consider it your team’s calling card moving forward, since you can rest assured that those guards will keep you in contention for PTS as long as they’re healthy.

This is definitely a “guard stats” team, as the failing grades in BLK and REB imply. Your FG% is above average if every player is weighted equally, but as discussed above, your high-volume guards will be doing the heavy lifting on this team. Unfortunately, they’re not doing much lifting in FG%. All offensive stars get hot for stretches, so there will be weeks where you compete and weeks where you don’t. While I won’t argue with the idea of retaining high FG% players on this team, the reality is that you probably won’t have sufficient volume to undo any harm that guard core does in their bad weeks. In order to address other categories, you will probably have to consider loosening your grip in that area. 

I’m surprised that you’re not more competitive in AST and STL, given your “guard stats” profile, but you don’t have any real heavyweights in those areas. This team is solid but not spectacular in both categories. They’re ideal categories to target, since they pair so harmoniously with your primary strengths. While I understand the temptation to also pursue PTS, I think you could set that category to the side when making end-of-bench decisions in order to reduce impacts on TO. At present, I can’t say which of your players might fit that description, but one of them may need to go if you want to build another strong category. Given your general uncompetitiveness in all his best categories and Santi Aldama taking his starting spot, I think you should keep Clarke under a very close microscope.

My next trip to the wire would be shopping for other perimeter players you see on the B150 that might still be overlooked in your league. Alex Caruso, Ayo Dosunmu, Bones Hyland, Caris LeVert, Jose Alvarado, Seth Curry, TJ McConnell and Will Barton come to mind as some helpful targets that you can find on the list. There are receipts for my own personal belief in Davion Mitchell, if you’re feeling particularly risky. If you are nervous about Clarke, consider trying to trade him while his value is still high. There are higher-rated players like Malcolm Brogdon, Marcus Smart, Mike Conley and Tyler Herro that I think would look good on your team, so perhaps you could try to work on that angle with Clarke based on his mid-round ADP. If you trust in Clarke and the B150, then you can still take advantage of his solid FG% and TO contributions along with passable PTS. 

This team is going to surprise some teams, but you’ll only be able to go as far as your guards can take you. Good luck this season!

Hi Derek,

I'm in a 16 team points league H2H with standard scoring except there is a 4 pt bonus for double doubles and a 8pt bonus for triple doubles.

12 team roster with a games cap of 31 games per week.  I had the number 2 pick and am pretty happy with my team as most players are starters and will play some meaningful minutes and a good mix of experience and youth with some upside.  I have currently got Kawhi on I/R so I have 13 players on my roster so I will have to drop one player before the start of the season and would like your advice on who to drop.  My team is as follows

PG - Lowry

SG - Maxey

SF - Kawhi

PF - Giannis

C - Ayton

G - Anthony

F - Banchero

UTL - Horford

UTL - Caruso

UTL - Beverley

Bench - Vanderbilt

Bench - Aldama

Bench - Kessler

Probably looking at dropping one of Caruso, Beverley, Vanderbilt, Aldama & Kessler

The easy choice would be Kessler but given he is on the Jazz his role should expand throughout the year.

Caruso looks like he will be coming off the bench and is steady but doesn't have much upside.

Beverley is probably similar to Caruso

Aldama looks to have secured a starting role for the Grizzlies and looks to have good upside until JJJr is back.

Vanderbilt looks to have the starting role with the Jazz and probably will for the forseeable future but can't quite get a grasp on his ceiling.

You input would be appreciated.

Thanks

Another roster from my other league. 

One of the Ethos 12T H2H 9CAT leagues. Thanks in advance for the analysis!

Rudy Gobert

hey team !!

was hoping to get your opinion on my team I drafted.

12 team, standard FanDuel points league.

Anyone I should replace that’s not starting? Anyone I should be cautioned to hold before dropping too early before they breakout? Anyone I should be worried about that may be prone to the wembanyana tanking ? 

thank you everyone. Truly appreciate your work and grind. 

Pic 1/3 of top waiver availability 

Pic 2/3 of top waiver popularity 

Pic 3/3 of top waiver popularity