Dark Days Behind

It's been 5 months now. And I think that I'm finally ready to talk about it. At first, I was in denial. I can't believe that it happened. Then anger. I kept my composure on the surface, but underneath the calm exterior, I was fuming. I blamed others. Mikey. The airlines. God. But that went away. There wasn't much bargaining. There isn't much to bargain with when it's you versus numbers on a computer screen. Instead, I continued straight into depression. For 5 months, I replayed scenarios in my head, wondering how I could have let things fall apart like that. But today, I have reached the final stage of grief. Today, I accept what has happened, and am prepared to move forward.

What am I talking about?

Fantasy hoops. Specifically, 2009-10 UPL Fantasy Basketball. I will tip my cap to C-Lauff for the win - he took advantage (sort of) of his lottery victory, and put together a very solid team, that persevered despite the loss of shooting guard Gilbert Arenas.

However, let me set the record straight.

C-Lauff writes:

"As much as Roland wanted everyone to think that it was his to lose, I've had him teed up for a while in the AST and OREB categories, which is where the season was won and lost. Obviously, it was close and could have went either way, but I don't think it was as a sure thing as Mr. Thug wanted us to believe."

That statement is out and out wrong. In some sense, basketball is the fantasy sport that you have the most control over, because the performance is somewhat predictable, whereas even in baseball, events like HR and SB (and even R and RBI) happen so sporadically that you get a lot of variance. But you have to play the games for the predictability to matter. If you look at the compete standings, you will see a shortage of games played on my end. Specifically, three games short, and they came at big-man positions (which you can't see). This league came down to AST and OREB, which C-Lauff is correct about. However, from the situation that we were in, he could not have won both, had both teams executed properly. But we'll get to that later.

The easy answer is that I made a mistake in my lineup on the last day of the season. I was making final adjustments the night before, as I was flying up to Chicago for Mikey's (I Giocatori from UPL Football) wedding. Basically, I thought that I had Taj Gibson in the lineup, but had not saved the changes properly. Instead, Carlos Boozer took a DNP. I was so sure that I had Gibson in the lineup, that when I was driving from the airport to the north suburbs, I explained to Mikey that I had Gibson in the lineup. And then I got on to the internet and saw that Gibson had a huge game, pulling down 7 OREB. I figured that the title was locked. Of course, when I logged in, I saw that I actually have Boozer in there, and that I needed a miracle from some guy named Reggie Williams. That was the start of the denial. And actually, we went into anger awfully quickly. I started being upset about flying up on Wednesday night to be able to help out with errands on Thursday before a Friday wedding (which C-Lauff blew off, by the way), costing me a 5-peat. But as I look back, I reach some level of acceptance.

But even before the poor execution on the last day, the Jazz had hurt me, with Boozer and D-Will taking a couple other DNP's, which messed up my endgame scenario. Basically, I was staggering my games so that I could get to 163 games each at C and UTIL, and then play 2 players on the same night, so that I could cheat the 2 extra games. This is how you see teams get to 822 games played (and in case anyone didn't know that originally, I've let the cat out of the bag). With the Boozer DNP's going on, I ended up unable to max out my GP. Additionally, D-Will's DNP's in the last week (I actually had to pick up and play Kirk Hinrich in the last week), set things back in AST. But even I had set it up so that I'd come in with a safe landing by the tightest of margins. So what was the endgame that I had setup?

Basically, I knew that if I won either AST or OREB over C-Lauff, that I would win. The calculus was pretty simple, as those were the only categories that were in play. However, about 3 weeks before the end of the season, I saw that AST was likely going C-Lauff's way, as he was pushing that category big time. He lucked out with Darren Collison's play after the CP3 injury, and was fortunate that CP3 was shut down for the season, which extended Collison's contributions. So, he does this by going after guys like Jrue Holliday, and Shaun Livingston. At this point, I make a semi-bluff by acquiring Mike Conley (who actually started playing well in the 2nd half of the season). The idea was that he was going to push hard for AST, then OREB would open up for me (since he was using in his UTIL spots to get AST, while I'd be using my UTIL spots for OREB). So, I quietly started pushing OREB, coming back from about 50-60 OREB back into a dead heat. Plus, I'd have a moderate chance to still hold him off on AST, if D-Will and/or Westbrook went off a couple games. And, I even put out a semi-bluff on the UPL Blog, talking about AST to a great extent. The idea was to go hard after OREB on my end. In reality, going after AST was going to be hard. I moved Brandon Jennings for Tyrus Thomas in an ill-fated attempt to get more BLK and OREB. So, I probably didn't have the horses to hold off a team that was devoting both UTIL spots to AST, which C-Lauff was doing a lot of toward the end of the season.

Instead, we ran into a worst-case scenario. I get a couple DNP's from D-Will so that he can rest for the playoffs. Based on season averages, this probably costs me about 16 AST. If D-Will goes off in one of those games, then we're talking about a potential 25 AST swing. The final standings had me 25 AST behind C-Lauff. So, the analysis that I had was about right. But that wasn't as big of a deal as D-Will's then-teammate, Carlos Boozer.

Boozer took the DNP's that D-Will did, which ended up costing me extra games in UTIL and C. I had benched guys so that I could arrange the lineups to get me up to 163 games for both UTIL and C. Then, you'd play 2 games the same night to get you to 165 games. However, when Boozer took those DNP's, that left me at 162, and the only night that had two players going was early, so that stuck me behind my strategy. And then to cap it off, on the last night of the season, I figured that Boozer would get the night off, so I'd roll with Taj Gibson.

Only it didn't happen. I mean, not getting the lineup right is clearly user error. But this does challenge the notion that I was "teed up" in OREB, both tactically (not getting the lineup right for the last day of the season), as well strategically (my endgame move). C-Lauff had no way of knowing that I was surrendering the point in AST, but I think that he didn't appreciate how fortunate he got with OREB. My estimates, based on Boozer playing out the string, and me maximizing my games with 822 had me with about a 10 OREB buffer. Instead, I end up with an inferior play for 2 games at PF (which cost me about 3-4 OREB), but more importantly, I left 3 games on the table, all of which were intended to be PF/C, for which 9-12 OREB is a reasonable number. Given the margin in OREB was 6, the endgame scenario that I had envisioned was a very reasonable one.

As far as what I was saying about C-Lauff hurting himself with his moves, what I was talking about was his overlooking of OREB in terms of his lineup choices (he went all out for AST, when he needed to win both - in retrospect it ended up good for him, but had I played optimally, it would not have). A major part of this was that he kept Anthony Randolph on his roster for the majority of the season, and kept Gilbert Arenas on there, as well. Evidence that even C-Lauff acknowledges that the Randolph move was a mistake was that he dropped him in the last week. More importantly, I'd assume that he could have gotten a taker at a slight discount for Arenas early on in November, before the gun issues started. And if not, then at a larger discount after the gun issues. Arenas was not a crucial contributor for the Jabrones, particularly once Collison emerged. Arenas should have been expendable for a championship run. Obviously, things worked out great, as C-Lauff holds on to Arenas, and wins the ring. However, I'd argue that not seeing Arenas as a an expendable piece was a strategic error, and that C-Lauff got a little lucky with the outcome. But regardless, he's the 2010 UPL Basketball champ, and he's in a good spot to be strong again for the 2011 championship. Of course, the O.N. Thugs will have something to say about that, as well others like Love T'Wolves, WakeupWithTheKing, and Sparty.

In any case, this was the endgame recap that I had promised. Next up? 2010-11 UPL Basketball previews, and hopefully lottery results.

-Chairman (aka O.N. Thugs)