The days leading up to the NBA playoffs always sneak up on us, and the best surprise for me are the 2-4 fantasy playoff drafts I participate in. The leagues are setup to be simple (we use www.fantasypostseason.com) and in most cases you draft and that’s it.
Aside from the simplicity, I’m a huge fan of playoff leagues because they introduce an important element that is often forgotten about in fantasy sports – who wins and who loses.
Because opinions are going to vary when projecting winners and losers in reality basketball, there are usually drastic swings in fantasy valuations between owners heading into drafts. Add a short ramp created by the 2-3 day window between the regular season and the playoffs, and seeds that are decided on the final day, what you end up with is a lot of freewheeling confusion.
That’s not to say that owners aren’t prepared and honing in on a well-thought through strategy. Everybody’s just approaching the maze from a different entrance and nobody knows where anybody else is until it’s too late.
I’ve come across a few strategies that I’ve found to be successful, and every year I seem to add another layer to them. I lay out the rosters for every matchup on a few different pieces of paper, and I try to gather as much information as possible. The single-most important piece of info is Vegas line information, because those guys are just amazing at getting it right. And per usual, there’s an increasing ability to get multiple viewpoints, game tape, etc. to evaluate with, and I try to work up a chicken-scratch game synopsis once I’ve gone through it all. Once I feel comfortable, I try to weight each series with a number of games I feel represents the risk/reward of each team, and then that final number is used to multiply against projections. The math, while eventually important, isn’t as important as finding a relationship between the values of the players you’ll be ranking.
The draft itself is where the money gets made, literally. And there are two opposing schools of thought. One is to add up the projections and stick to them like they’re a road-map. The other one is more interesting, and it was told to me by Gregg Rosenthal just minutes before I entered a BIG money playoff football draft a few years back. If you're not familiar, the two sports are very similar in a playoff format.
So I message Gregg and ask him, “any last advice?” I can’t recall his exact words, but it was something along the lines of ‘don’t worry about who you think is going to win or lose and draft studs.’
The long story short is that I took Larry Fitzgerald in Round 3 of that eight-team draft, and when he split the Pittsburgh safeties in the Super Bowl I won the whole thing. I don’t know that I took him early or late, but my 1.25 games played prediction and his associated stats put his numbers a little bit lower than some other guys that were available. I thought of the advice, and the fact that every year there are surprises that nobody sees, and I took talent over pure projections.
So in this draft you’ll see some folks that did the same thing that I did back then, and you’ll see some guys stick to players from the top 3-4 favored teams. Some guys will ride a certain team hard and others will spread out the risk. That’s the beauty of this format, as owners are going to get more or less who they wanted before the draft. And while taking talent over ‘games played’ worked for me once, owners need to stay flexible and evaluate each round of the draft on a case-by-case basis.
And without further ado, the Second Annual Rotoworld Playoff Draft.....
*Points, rebounds, assists, steals, and blocks are all worth 1 point. Turnovers are worth a negative point. There are bonuses for 3-pointers (one point), double-doubles (three points), triple-doubles (eight points), and 30-point games (five points). It sounds like we’ll be tweaking next year’s draft to include higher scoring for steals and blocks, but for this year it’s a popcorn stat format.
**Ryan ran into computer trouble and had to autodraft.
- Matthew Braine: LeBron James
- Ryan Knaus: Blake Griffin
- Adam Levitan: Dwyane Wade
- Matt Stroup: Kevin Durant
- Guster drummer Brian Rosenworcel AKA Thundergod: Derrick Rose
- Doc: Serge Ibaka
- Scott Shniderman: Russell Westbrook
- Aaron Gleeman: Tony Parker
- Aaron Bruski: Andrew Bynum
- Ethan Norof: Kobe Bryant
Round 1 Notes: Griffin at No. 2 is obviously an autodraft pick, and I’ll ignore those going forward. Otherwise we have the Heat, Thunder, Bulls, Spurs, and Lakers all going off the board first. Doc both set up our draft and got it mixed up with our draft later in the night, so he thought steals and blocks were worth more and took Ibaka. Let’s just say we’re all limping to the finish here. I think you have to take a consensus top pick here even if you’re not totally sold on them, because enough of your other highly projected players will be available in Rounds 2-3 due to differences in opinions on who will advance.
- Norof: Pau Gasol
- Bruski: Tim Duncan
- Gleeman: Chris Bosh
- Shniderman: James Harden
- Doc: Josh Smith
- Thundergod: Manu Ginobili
- Stroup: Luol Deng
- Levitan: Chris Paul
- Knaus: Joakim Noah
- Braine: Rajon Rondo
Round 2 Notes: After taking Bynum in the first round based on scarcity at the center position, I went with the highest projected player remaining on my board in Duncan. I’ll try to tweet out my final predictions in a little bit, but here's my ordering of teams in terms of games played: SA, MIA, CHI, LAL/DAL, MEM, BOS, IND/OKC, DEN/LAC/ATL, PHI, NYK/UTA, ORL. Entering the draft, I was leaning ever-so-slightly toward the Mavs, which is why OKC is so low on that list. I bumped them up a smidge because of my ambivalence. As you can see, players were taken from the Lakers, Spurs, Heat, Thunder, and Bulls for the most part, but members of the Hawks, Clippers, and Celtics made it into Round 2. Levitan used the Larry Fitzgerald theory and went with CP3, while Doc went with Smoove and Braine went with Rondo. If either of your Round 1-2 picks doesn’t make it out of the opening series, you’ll need a late-round flier or two to hit.
- Braine: Carlos Boozer
- Knaus: Marc Gasol
- Levitan: Danny Granger
- Stroup: Joe Johnson
- Thundergod: Roy Hibbert
- Doc: Ramon Sessions
- Shniderman: Rudy Gay
- Gleeman: Paul Pierce
- Bruski: Mike Conley
- Norof: Zach Randolph
Round 3 Notes: I’ve seen drafts go haywire by this stage, but this one remained relatively tight. Each of these selections are key guys from the Bulls, Grizzlies, Pacers, Hawks, and Celtics. The only team I don’t have making it out of the first round is the Hawks, and their series with the Celtics is going to be a tight one. Rosenworcel and Knaus did well to tap into the top tier of the shallow center position, and I like Gleeman’s combo pick of Pierce this round and Garnett the next round. They’ll get their numbers, and if they make it past the Hawks they’ll provide a solid baseline value for him.
The days leading up to the NBA playoffs always sneak up on us, and the best surprise for me are the 2-4 fantasy playoff drafts I participate in. The leagues are setup to be simple (we use www.fantasypostseason.com) and in most cases you draft and that’s it.
Aside from the simplicity, I’m a huge fan of playoff leagues because they introduce an important element that is often forgotten about in fantasy sports – who wins and who loses.
Because opinions are going to vary when projecting winners and losers in reality basketball, there are usually drastic swings in fantasy valuations between owners heading into drafts. Add a short ramp created by the 2-3 day window between the regular season and the playoffs, and seeds that are decided on the final day, what you end up with is a lot of freewheeling confusion.
That’s not to say that owners aren’t prepared and honing in on a well-thought through strategy. Everybody’s just approaching the maze from a different entrance and nobody knows where anybody else is until it’s too late.
I’ve come across a few strategies that I’ve found to be successful, and every year I seem to add another layer to them. I lay out the rosters for every matchup on a few different pieces of paper, and I try to gather as much information as possible. The single-most important piece of info is Vegas line information, because those guys are just amazing at getting it right. And per usual, there’s an increasing ability to get multiple viewpoints, game tape, etc. to evaluate with, and I try to work up a chicken-scratch game synopsis once I’ve gone through it all. Once I feel comfortable, I try to weight each series with a number of games I feel represents the risk/reward of each team, and then that final number is used to multiply against projections. The math, while eventually important, isn’t as important as finding a relationship between the values of the players you’ll be ranking.
The draft itself is where the money gets made, literally. And there are two opposing schools of thought. One is to add up the projections and stick to them like they’re a road-map. The other one is more interesting, and it was told to me by Gregg Rosenthal just minutes before I entered a BIG money playoff football draft a few years back. If you're not familiar, the two sports are very similar in a playoff format.
So I message Gregg and ask him, “any last advice?” I can’t recall his exact words, but it was something along the lines of ‘don’t worry about who you think is going to win or lose and draft studs.’
The long story short is that I took Larry Fitzgerald in Round 3 of that eight-team draft, and when he split the Pittsburgh safeties in the Super Bowl I won the whole thing. I don’t know that I took him early or late, but my 1.25 games played prediction and his associated stats put his numbers a little bit lower than some other guys that were available. I thought of the advice, and the fact that every year there are surprises that nobody sees, and I took talent over pure projections.
So in this draft you’ll see some folks that did the same thing that I did back then, and you’ll see some guys stick to players from the top 3-4 favored teams. Some guys will ride a certain team hard and others will spread out the risk. That’s the beauty of this format, as owners are going to get more or less who they wanted before the draft. And while taking talent over ‘games played’ worked for me once, owners need to stay flexible and evaluate each round of the draft on a case-by-case basis.
And without further ado, the Second Annual Rotoworld Playoff Draft.....
*Points, rebounds, assists, steals, and blocks are all worth 1 point. Turnovers are worth a negative point. There are bonuses for 3-pointers (one point), double-doubles (three points), triple-doubles (eight points), and 30-point games (five points). It sounds like we’ll be tweaking next year’s draft to include higher scoring for steals and blocks, but for this year it’s a popcorn stat format.
**Ryan ran into computer trouble and had to autodraft.
- Matthew Braine: LeBron James
- Ryan Knaus: Blake Griffin
- Adam Levitan: Dwyane Wade
- Matt Stroup: Kevin Durant
- Guster drummer Brian Rosenworcel AKA Thundergod: Derrick Rose
- Doc: Serge Ibaka
- Scott Shniderman: Russell Westbrook
- Aaron Gleeman: Tony Parker
- Aaron Bruski: Andrew Bynum
- Ethan Norof: Kobe Bryant
Round 1 Notes: Griffin at No. 2 is obviously an autodraft pick, and I’ll ignore those going forward. Otherwise we have the Heat, Thunder, Bulls, Spurs, and Lakers all going off the board first. Doc both set up our draft and got it mixed up with our draft later in the night, so he thought steals and blocks were worth more and took Ibaka. Let’s just say we’re all limping to the finish here. I think you have to take a consensus top pick here even if you’re not totally sold on them, because enough of your other highly projected players will be available in Rounds 2-3 due to differences in opinions on who will advance.
- Norof: Pau Gasol
- Bruski: Tim Duncan
- Gleeman: Chris Bosh
- Shniderman: James Harden
- Doc: Josh Smith
- Thundergod: Manu Ginobili
- Stroup: Luol Deng
- Levitan: Chris Paul
- Knaus: Joakim Noah
- Braine: Rajon Rondo
Round 2 Notes: After taking Bynum in the first round based on scarcity at the center position, I went with the highest projected player remaining on my board in Duncan. I’ll try to tweet out my final predictions in a little bit, but here's my ordering of teams in terms of games played: SA, MIA, CHI, LAL/DAL, MEM, BOS, IND/OKC, DEN/LAC/ATL, PHI, NYK/UTA, ORL. Entering the draft, I was leaning ever-so-slightly toward the Mavs, which is why OKC is so low on that list. I bumped them up a smidge because of my ambivalence. As you can see, players were taken from the Lakers, Spurs, Heat, Thunder, and Bulls for the most part, but members of the Hawks, Clippers, and Celtics made it into Round 2. Levitan used the Larry Fitzgerald theory and went with CP3, while Doc went with Smoove and Braine went with Rondo. If either of your Round 1-2 picks doesn’t make it out of the opening series, you’ll need a late-round flier or two to hit.
- Braine: Carlos Boozer
- Knaus: Marc Gasol
- Levitan: Danny Granger
- Stroup: Joe Johnson
- Thundergod: Roy Hibbert
- Doc: Ramon Sessions
- Shniderman: Rudy Gay
- Gleeman: Paul Pierce
- Bruski: Mike Conley
- Norof: Zach Randolph
Round 3 Notes: I’ve seen drafts go haywire by this stage, but this one remained relatively tight. Each of these selections are key guys from the Bulls, Grizzlies, Pacers, Hawks, and Celtics. The only team I don’t have making it out of the first round is the Hawks, and their series with the Celtics is going to be a tight one. Rosenworcel and Knaus did well to tap into the top tier of the shallow center position, and I like Gleeman’s combo pick of Pierce this round and Garnett the next round. They’ll get their numbers, and if they make it past the Hawks they’ll provide a solid baseline value for him.
- Norof: Carmelo Anthony
- Bruski: Dirk Nowitzki
- Gleeman: Kevin Garnett
- Shniderman: Kendrick Perkins
- Doc: DeJuan Blair
- Thundergod: David West
- Stroup: Mario Chalmers
- Levitan: Paul George
- Knaus: Ty Lawson
- Braine: DeAndre Jordan
Round 4 Notes: Here’s where things start to jump around. Norof made a Fitzgerald pick with Melo, but I’m not sold on the Knicks’ ability to win four games even if I like the matchup a little bit. Looking back on my pick, I wish I had gone with Garnett but obviously this was where the whole ‘leaning toward the Mavs’ thing infected me. Just to be clear, literally all of America has the Thunder to advance. In the middle of the round we start to see the dirty work guys from favored teams start to go, with of course is Perkins, Blair, and Chalmers. You’ll also notice that Shniderman has made a run on the Thunder, and when you consider that there are 5-6 contending teams that are out there – you’re giving yourself about a randomly estimated 20-40 percent chance of winning (at least) if your team hits out of that group. I’m neither for nor against that strategy, but as with most draft strategies I wouldn’t advise passing on a higher value guy if the difference is substantial. Braine obviously has the Clippers advancing and saw the center position get scarce quick (check your position eligibility, folks).
- Braine: Jeff Teague
- Knaus: Paul Millsap
- Levitan: Danny Green
- Stroup: JaVale McGee
- Thundergod: Taj Gibson
- Doc: Kawhi Leonard
- Shniderman: Richard Hamilton
- Gleeman: Ray Allen
- Bruski: Jason Terry
- Norof: Al Jefferson
Round 5 Notes: Rounds 5-7 will give a quarter of the owners a huge boost that they didn’t expect, a quarter of the owners will see a huge donut hole in their production in this group, and the rest will be somewhere in between. It’s too early to start eyeballing Hail Mary prospects, but this is where you can uncover some huge values. This is also where owners begin to diverge in their opinions, leaving some big-time opportunities to pass on a guy with the hopes that he will fall to you in a later round. Here we saw a mixture of still solid grabs (Teague with a decent shot at two playoff series), and then role players on the favored teams like Green, Gibson, Kawhi, and Rip. Stroup admittedly reached for McGee, as center eligibility issues kind of shocked us all on such short notice. My immediate concern is that I went too heavy on Mavs in the draft. Norof has now taken two big-time producers that aren’t favored to make it out of the first round of the playoffs, but if one of them hits he’ll be looking good. Gleeman is all over the Celtics, and again, if he gets out of the first round with them he’ll have a solid foundation.
- Norof: Avery Bradley
- Bruski: Tiago Splitter
- Gleeman: Udonis Haslem
- Shniderman: Amare Stoudemire
- Doc: George Hill
- Thundergod: Matt Barnes
- Stroup: C.J. Watson
- Levitan: Ryan Anderson
- Knaus: Danilo Gallinari
- Braine: Kyle Korver
Round 6 Notes: Doc might have gotten the pick of the draft with Hill, who is all-but guaranteed to go to advance past the Magic. I don’t know how much it factored here, but Hill’s numbers were artificially low in the draft software because it used season averages. He obviously flew under everybody’s radars. Go through your draft software’s player lists and projections and look for anomalies like those. Here’s a good example of the two different schools of thought at work. I chose to go for ‘games played’ here and grabbed Splitter, in part because I see some bigger teams in his future (starting with Utah). Stroup, Gleeman, and Braine joined me in that approach with Watson, Haslem, and Korver, respectively. Levitan and Shniderman took lottery tickets in Anderson and Stoudemire.
- Braine: O.J. Mayo
- Knaus: Darren Collison
- Levitan: Brandon Bass
- Stroup: Gary Neal
- Thundergod: Joel Anthony
- Doc: Marvin Williams
- Shniderman: Stephen Jackson
- Gleeman: Boris Diaw
- Bruski: Shawn Marion
- Norof: Mike Miller
Round 7 Notes: Now the pickings start to get slim, so seeing good players on teams with a chance to win a series or two is a sign of a good pick. Braine and Levitan opened with solid pickups in Mayo and Bass, while the majority of owners grabbed guys from the Spurs and Heat. Doc and I bucked the trend with picks from the Hawks and Mavs, and it was about this time that I had mentally given in to riding the Mavs in this particular draft.
- Norof: Jordan Hill
- Bruski: Andre Iguodala
- Gleeman: Shane Battier
- Shniderman: Kenneth Faried
- Doc: Al Horford
- Thundergod: Metta World Peace
- Stroup: Zaza Pachulia
- Levitan: Omer Asik
- Knaus: Mo Williams
- Braine: Patrick Mills
Round 8 Notes: Jordan Hill is another guy that might have fallen down the draft software’s default list, but regardless he’s an excellent pickup this late in the draft. He’s the new first big off the bench and will get plenty of run, especially early on with Metta World Peace out. I actually like the Sixers matchup-wise against the Bulls, but it’s anybody’s guess if they can execute. I grabbed Iguodala and will be hoping for one solid series, but if it’s not a big-time effort then I’ll have been better off grinding with role players from favored teams.
- Braine: Matt Bonner
- Knaus: Arron Afflalo
- Levitan: Tyson Chandler
- Stroup: Randy Foye
- Thundergod: Greg Stiemsma
- Doc: Kirk Hinrich
- Shniderman: Ronnie Brewer
- Gleeman: Kosta Koufos
- Bruski: Tony Allen
- Norof: Daequan Cook
Round 9 Notes: I heard multiple guys in our various experts leagues agree that taking a guy that produces in their opening playoff series is preferable over taking a role player from of a favored team in the last round. Levitan did that with Chandler, and everybody else went with grinders. Ironically, if you go back and look at Knaus’ autodraft team things could have gone worse for him.