2010-11 UPL Basketball Fantasy Outlook

As we head off into the latest iteration of UPL Fantasy Hoops, the keeper era is well under way, and we definitely see how the sins and successes of the past have laid a path for the performance of today. The keeper era allows teams to keep 8 out of their 10 starters, which means that only 2 starters and the 4 bench players from a given season need to be replaced. So teams that are good one one year probably won't become awful the next year, barring major injuries. However, there's no guarantee that a championship team one year will automatically do it again the following year.

In fact, in our first two seasons, we've seen some heavy variance from our 1st year podium to our 2nd year podium. Back in 08-09, it was the O.N. Thugs and European Sellouts (aka WakeupWithTheKing) tied for 1st, and Sparty in 3rd (with IamJabrone, Chowtime, and Westy close behind in 4th, and tied for 5th, respectively). However, there was a bit of a shakeup in 09-10. The 4th Jabrones took the title, the O.N. Thugs slipped to 2nd, and SuckmyDribblingBalls rose from 7th place into 3rd. Sparty and Westy stayed in that 2nd tier. But the co-champion WakeupWithTheKing dropped all the way into 8th place. So what we've seen is that there's generally not a ton of movement, but it's possible to have massive rises/drops in performance. And when you look at what happened in UPL Baseball from 2009 to 2010, you'll see that there massive improvement could be even more common.

THE KEEPER STORY

Having said all that about team mobility, keepers matter a lot. If you recall, my analysis of last year's keepers was very favorable for the O.N. Thugs and IamJabrone. However, I allowed myself to be fooled when I placed the Jabrones lower in my actual season preview. In fairness, I thought that he botched the #1 draft pick (he did), and that the Hawks were going to tank (they didn't). Though Westy's team had highly ranked keepers, the makeup of that looked off (lots of age, and a hole as the 8th keeper), and didn't seem like it would be quite as strong as he was the previous season. And the keeper list suggested that WakeupWithTheKing was in for a bit of a struggle last year, which indeed was what happened. So what about 2010-11?

As you look through the rosters, in particular the keeper rosters, you see a clear top tier. IamJabrone and the O.N. Thugs finished 1st and 2nd last year, and are loaded again. When Derrick Rose and Carlos Boozer are the lowest rated (by Yahoo! pre-rank) keepers on these two teams, you know that there are 8 solid options to start off. If things play out, like I think they will, we'll probably do a more in-depth breakdown of these two teams in the future.

Right behind these two teams is Love T'Wolves and last year's 3rd place team, SuckMyDribblingBalls. I liked Robby's keeper core from last year, though that hasn't really been added to, they run a legit 6 deep (Durant, Rondo, Bosh, Z-Bo, Gay, Love). Andre Miller and Michael Beasley are somewhat questionable, but could be solid pieces. For SMDB, having the improved D12 and ageless 'Ason Kidd (no J, much like his protegee Ra'on Rondo) leading off, followed by Monta Ellis, David West, and Timmy give a legit top 5. However, the other keepers (Raymond Felton, John Salmons, and Greg Oden) are question marks of varying degree.

I would say that the tier after this looks to be Sparty Rules, WakeupWithTheKing, and Chowtime. These are top-heavy teams with noticeable drops in quality.

Sparty has CP3, Chauncy Billups, and Marcus Camby. So the non-scoring stats should look awfully good. But with Bargnani, Troy Murphy, Jeff Green, Hedo, and Diaw, the rest of the keepers look suspect (at best). But any team with CP3 will have roster flexibility, because that one player will guarantee points in AST and A/TO.

The same story holds for WakeupWithTheKing. Any time you have LBJ, you'll compete because you'll be getting help in so many categories. Add on Steph Curry, Gerald Wallace, and you'll be competitive in rebounding and 3PM. Add on youngsters Tyreke Evans and Brandon Jennings, and you've got a nice core to start, though they may be a couple years away from really flourishing. OJ Mayo is still only a scorer, but is a reasonable keeper (though you'd like to improve there). The only major question mark is Bynum, with his injury history.

Chowtime is a bit more balanced, and has 4 awesome keepers, and 4 question marks. Any time you can lead off with Dirk, Granger, and Pau, and then follow up with Blake Griffin, you're starting off solid. However, when you go with guys like Manu and Yao, you're hoping for some luck. And I'm not sure that Chris Kaman and Tony Parker feel like keepers on a championship team.

Then you get to Westy's Ballers (or Impresarios or whatever the hell they are now). Given Westy's past UPL Basketball success, you'd assume that he'd be a top half team. But then you look at his keepers. AI 2.0, Big Al, The Other Gasol. A couple older guys in Baron Davis and Paul Pierce. Devin Harris. Anthony Randolph. Paul Millsap. I see some nice pieces. But you don't look at this team and think"podium." I look at this group, and I'm thinking 7th or 8th place.

After that, you run into three bottom-tier teams. Floor Burns, Milwaukee Bricks, and Phatsnapper all have rebuilding efforts in front of them, of varying degrees. Of the three, I'd say that Phatsnapper has the most talent, given the Nash/Stoudamire combo, but definitely needs to make some trades. The Bricks have a nice group of Eric Gordon, Joakim Noah, Nene, and Aaron Brooks to build around, but definitely need to get an infusion of young talent in there (and may need to try to pull off a 2 for 1 or a 3 for 1 sort of deal).

So off of the keepers, the UPL preview looks something like this:

Likely Championship Contenders: O.N. Thugs, IamJabrone
Possible Championship Contenders: Love T'Wolves, SuckMyDribblingBalls
Outside Shots at the Championship: Sparty, Chowtime, WakeupWithTheKing
Heading for Limbo: Westy's Impresarios
Rebuilding Now: Phatsnapper, Floor Burns, Milwaukee Bricks

DRAFT AND EARLY SEASON PICKUPS

The next step in the formula is to look at the actual draft, to see how things play out. And I'll be the first person to say it. The draft is huge for rebuilding teams, and for championship contending teams. For rebuilding teams, it's a chance to get at young talent. For championship teams, it's about rounding out your stats. When you brick a draft, you set yourself up for failure. Last year, I put myself behind the 8-ball in the draft when I overslept the draft, and ended up with the best white player available as my auto-pick motif (Spencer Hawes, Peja, etc.). Needless to say, I revamped my bench very early on in the season last year. On the other hand, when you luck out in the lottery like C-Lauff did last year, you get a huge advantage by jumping to the front of the line for superstars-in-waiting like Blake Griffin, who looks to be a double-double machine for the foreseeable future... er. Wait. Check that. You end up with guys like Anthony Randolph who... uh... can't get run on Westy's team.

And an extension of the draft is the early season pickups that you make, as real-life playing time gets sorted out. For rebuilding teams, the goal is to find young potential impact talent, to find potentially underpriced veteran talent, and otherwise tradeable pieces. The goal should be to worry less about rounding out a roster. The contending teams, the goals is to balance that upside with performance in specific stat categories (as the team's stat base should be largely set). So how did teams do?

The winner of the draft was the winner of the lottery, because this year, the lottery winner (Phatsnapper) took the #1 overall NBA draft pick, John Wall. Phatsnapper gets a keeper building block. They also got Evan Turner, who I'm not nearly as high on, but seems to be a reasonable investment. His roster still has a long way to go, but adding on 2 easy keepers makes this draft a win.

IamJabrone's moves have leaned toward stable, veteran players (Crawford, Rashard Lewis, Okur, Ibaka, Augustin). But has found a couple guards with (Augustin and Bledsoe), as he looks for this year's version of Darren Collison. On the other hand, the O.N. Thugs took slightly more balanced route, taking on some youth (Cousins and Favors) and some players for specific stats (Dalembert, Delfino), and buying low on some veterans (Conley, Hickson). Both teams seem to have helped themselves out, though I'm guessing that the benches will be pretty fluid throughout the season. I'd guess that the O.N. Thugs have more attractive trade pieces, and the Thugs seem to be able to pull of a useful move each season. But the draft doesn't really do much for separating the two teams.

I'd argue that Love T'Wolves helped themselves the most out of any non-Phatsnapper team in the draft, picking up 3PM help (Channing Frye and Ben Gordon), as well as some emerging talent in Roy Hibbert and Rodney Stuckey. I think that his draft should create a little separation from that of SMDB, who added a couple solid pieces in Elton Brand (who's been awesome thus far) and Jameer Nelson. However, SMDB seems to have whiffed with this remaining picks (George Hill, Barbosa, Heyward, and Dunleavy).

Chowtime took an interesting route by drafting young with Wesley Johnson, Derrick Favors, Jrue Holliday, Marcus Thornton, and Yi (in addition to the old veteran KG). But has since backtracked, moving Johnson and Favors for guys like Kirk Hinrich and Richard Jefferson. We'll see how that plays out, but the implication is that this is going to be a run for this year, rather than trying to rebuild for 2011-12.

The opposite of what Chowtime did was what Sparty did in the draft. All vets. AK-47, Tyrus Thomas, Brendan Haywood, Jarrett Jack, Mike Miller, Beno Udrih. The implication is that he's trying to win now. However, Sparty's roster is starting to look like the Milwaukee Bricks, plus CP3. I'm not sure if that's enough to win, and that draft doesn't give you as many trade options with rebuilding teams. Westy took a similar approach, hoping for bounce-back seasons from veterans (Caron Butler, Luol Deng, Kleiza), and an improvement due to change in scenery (Dorrell Wright). Unfortunately, Westy's team is looking like it's going to become the Milwaukee Bricks, without CP3. It'll take some savvy moves (and maybe swallowing a bitter pill this year) to keep that from happening.

WakeupWithTheKing has the biggest lottery ticket of the draft in Gilbert Arenas. His roster leans young anyway, so adding some veterans into the mix could help reduce some of that variance. But the rest of the draft doesn't seem to have revealed a difference maker. Similar story for the Bricks and Floor Burns, who may have found some reasonable pieces (Biedrins, Robin Lopez, Drew Gooden for Bricks; Blatche, McGee, Young, and J.R. Smith for Floor Burns). But you don't get the impression that there's going to be a major change from the draft. The major difference is that WakeupWithTheKing started his rebuilding last year (Brandon Jennings, Tyreke Evans, Steph Curry who is not Blake Griffin), and is probably going to be back in the top half of the league this year. The same can not be said for Floor Burns or the Bricks.

So where does this have things shake out?

Likely Championship Battle: O.N. Thugs, IamJabrone, Love T'Wolves
Fighting for a Podium Spot: SuckMyDribblingBalls, Chowtime, WakeupWithTheKing
Stuck in Limbo: Sparty Rules, Westy's Impresarios
Rebuilding: Phatsnapper, Floor Burns, Milwaukee Bricks

Overall, there are a lot of moving parts to consider. You've got 3 teams that should finish in the top half, and 3 teams that will finish in the bottom half. How the 5 teams in the middle compete will really influence how the points are distributed in the league. I have a suspicion that one or two major trades, and perhaps one or two random free agents will influence how everything plays out. Given the relatively tight competition 1 through 8, the makeup of this list could change drastically.

But like I always say, I never bet against the O.N. Thugs.

-Chairman (aka O.N. Thugs)