RealGM

This is the thread for the playoffs for the All-time Fantasy League proposed in this thread: viewtopic.php?f=64&t=1293300

The draft results and the final team rosters are in this thread: viewtopic.php?f=64&t=1294562

Quarterfinals Judges:
bastillon
TMACFORMVP
penbeast0
ronnymac2
Doctor MJ
SideshowBob
Texas Chuck
therealbig3

Semifinals Judges:
bastillon
TMACFORMVP
penbeast0
ronnymac2
Doctor MJ
SideshowBob
Texas Chuck
therealbig3
whitehops
Quotatious
john248
MisterHibachi

GMs have the option of becoming judges after elimination.

In each match up, GMs will offer their preliminary strategy for beating the other team and reasons for why their team is stronger. GMs will also have the opportunity to respond to the opponent's strategy. Judges will offer any comments and questions they have of the GMs and finally will cast their vote for whichever team they think is stronger simply by saying 'Team A wins this matchup' or 'Team B wins this matchup'. Whoever gets more votes moves on.

The 16 teams have been sorted into conferences, East and West. The match ups will be decided by the seeds in each conference, which have been randomized. The conferences and seeds are:

Eastern Conference:
1. RSCD3_
2. Narigo
3. Quotatious
4. CaliBullsFan
5. whitehops
6. Notanoob
7. MisterHibachi
8. Bruh Man

Western Conference:
1. DHodgkins
2. batmana
3. ardee
4. john248
5. ThunderDan9
6. Sagittaron
7. O_6
8. HeartBreakKid

There will be separate threads for each matchup and the results and links will be posted in this thread. Good luck, GMs; may the best team win!

Eastern Conference match ups:

Quarterfinals:


Semifinals:


Conference Finals:


Western Conference match ups:

Quarterfinals:


Semifinals:


Conference Finals:


Finals:

(8) Bruh Man vs. (5) ThunderDan9: viewtopic.php?f=64&t=1311472
Winner: (5) ThunderDan9

Awesome Looking for some well detailed notes here!!

MacGill wrote:Awesome Looking for some well detailed notes here!!

Well, not many posts in this particular thread, they would be in each individual matchup thread and in the general discussion thread.

I'm curious how I should interpret the "3-year peak" when evaluating a team...?

The general team concept was formed mainly because KAJ was the 1st pick. Have a good big, pair him with a wing, and put a couple shooters out there. This team has a great half-court offense with KAJ in the inside, Brand being able to hit jumpers and low post, TMac with his play making and ability to ISO, Jesus Shuttlesworth with is GOAT shooting, and Porter with his also excellent shooting and off-ball ability.

STARTERS





BENCH





ADDITIONAL PLAYER NOTES





STRATEGY

OFFENSE - Spurs Offense with some Triangle



DEFENSE





ROTATIONS

Depends on the match-up...

ElGee wrote:I'm curious how I should interpret the "3-year peak" when evaluating a team...?

The 3 year peaks were used to weed out the one year wonders. You should evaluate them on their average play across those 3 years. So that eliminated one season of very high play and other seasons of low/average play. Usually all 3 seasons would be comparable, but nevertheless, its the average of the 3 years.

Oh my god finally!

Are non-participants allowed to comment in the threads?

kayess wrote:Oh my god finally!

Are non-participants allowed to comment in the threads?

Yup.

MisterHibachi wrote:

ElGee wrote:I'm curious how I should interpret the "3-year peak" when evaluating a team...?

The 3 year peaks were used to weed out the one year wonders. You should evaluate them on their average play across those 3 years. So that eliminated one season of very high play and other seasons of low/average play. Usually all 3 seasons would be comparable, but nevertheless, its the average of the 3 years.

Thanks. I find this to be a bit awkward (to say the least) -- you're asking me to imagine a Tracy McGrady that never existed...do I keep his accurate 3-point jumper from 2003? Or do I just scale back that one skill to attain an average?

In other words, how do you take an average of skills when the skills don't keep the same proportions to each other over the 3 years? There are guys that played at the same overall level over 3 year periods where they are adding in 3 areas to offset the loss in 3 other areas...

-

ElGee wrote:

MisterHibachi wrote:

ElGee wrote:I'm curious how I should interpret the "3-year peak" when evaluating a team...?

The 3 year peaks were used to weed out the one year wonders. You should evaluate them on their average play across those 3 years. So that eliminated one season of very high play and other seasons of low/average play. Usually all 3 seasons would be comparable, but nevertheless, its the average of the 3 years.

Thanks. I find this to be a bit awkward (to say the least) -- you're asking me to imagine a Tracy McGrady that never existed...do I keep his accurate 3-point jumper from 2003? Or do I just scale back that one skill to attain an average?

In other words, how do you take an average of skills when the skills don't keep the same proportions to each other over the 3 years? There are guys that played at the same overall level over 3 year periods where they are adding in 3 areas to offset the loss in 3 other areas...

-

Well you aren't just evaluating 03 Tmac. You are evaluating him on a 3 year period. How did he perform over those 3 years. He had a hot 03, similar to how some player may have a hot January. But in the end you evaluate him over 3 years, same way you evaluate a guy over the entire season, not just that one hot month. I realize its kinda awkward, since its one series, and we are taking 3 years of a guy to evaluate him in one series, but its just simply averages. If one player had a hot year and he dropped off in the other years, that's gotta be counted in. Most drafted players had a relatively even level of play over the 3 years, but some varied and you gotta account for that drop off/jump in play.

I would just recommend evaluating this in the same way you evaluate a guy in any given season for one game. Some players have ridiculously hot months or hot weeks or stretches. If you look back on their season and you wanna know, on average, what kind of performance they're gonna give you for any given game, you gotta take their yearly numbers, not just their hot/cold stretch cuz that skews it a lot. If you wanna evaluate 03 Tmac and how he performed that season on average, you're gonna take his yearly numbers, not his numbers from a hot stretch of weeks because its not representative of his whole season. I think its similar to how you would evaluate a 3 year stretch.

Any bystanders interested in filling this ballot out?

Steal of the draft:
Reach of the draft:
He should have been drafted:
He should NOT have been drafted:
Best offensive team:
Best defensive team:
Strongest core (top 3 picks):
Match up you wanna see in the playoffs:
Top 3 teams:
Favourite to win the playoffs:
Any other categories you wanna comment on that I missed:

mistype

Too many threads on PC board. They should be moved to Fantasy Basketball board, where they belong.

With my first round pick, I selected Hakeem Olajuwon. I settled on him because during his three year peak, he really did not have a significant weakness in his game. I guess some would say he wasn't an awfully good rebounder for a center, but that shouldn't be a huge problem for this team. He's one of the best defensive centers in the game since Russel, with his ability to not only protect the paint and the rim, but also be quick enough to move out of the paint and bother guards. His post game is one of the best in the history of the sport, but is undoubtedly the most beautiful to watch. He was adept at distributing the ball when posted up, and also had a bit of a mid range jumper. He also was not a liability at the line and thus immune the Hack-a-Shaq. Given his success with Drexler, I also knew that I could pair him up with a star wing player to great effect. Hakeem seemed like an easy-mode pick, simply because he has perfect portability, really. He is a complete player, and I figured that I'd rather go with Hakeem over LeBron because I'm more worried about running into a dominant C than I am any of a number of solid wing players.

With my second round pick I selected Paul Pierce. I was really unsure of what I was going to do with my second pick, and figured I'd just wait and see how things shook out. I was kind of hoping for Grant Hill or Tracy McGrady to be there, because you just have to love/feel bad for guys with their talent who don't do anything wrong but just get screwed by injuries. But when I looked at it, I knew I needed a top end wing talent to be a top offensive option, I couldn't just leave it all to Hakeem. I also knew that spacing would be hugely important, so the guy had to be able to shoot. I finally decided to go for Truth because he just brought so much to the game. Not only could he stroke it from deep, but he's got all sorts of crafty ways to get the ball in the hoop. He was an excellent trash talker (good for getting guys off of their game, like Payton with Jordan), and even managed to give LeBron some trouble while he was still young. He's got a fantastic reputation with people. I don't think you could find many guys who don't like or at least respect Pierce. Plus, for people who believe that being clutch is a thing, the Truth certainly brings loads of that. He seemed to me to be the best wing player (with good range) left.

Originally I was targeting a Sid the Squid for my third round pick, because I liked his excellent defense and solid offensive game, and I already had Truth to cover up his drop off in the postseason. I honestly didn't think that Chauncey would go as high as he did, because I certainly was interested in him too. I ended up settling on Rodman because I believed that he was the best player available at that point. His absurd rebounding would be appreciated by those who thought Hakeem didn't do enough there, and together they would provide incredible defense, shutting down pretty much anybody. He was also a former Piston, and I kind of wanted one after missing out on Grant Hill and Chauncey.

Other guys I considered heavily were Jason Kidd and John Stockton. This was a pair of really excellent point guards, with loads of advantages. Stockton was super-efficient and handed out an absurd number of assists. He could space the floor and was perfectly happy to let other guys shoot, and he player pretty good, dirty defense, raking up steals to boot. Kidd provided me with a great playmaker and defender to put on Jordan, Kobe, or Wade. But I decided to wait on them because PG was probably the least important position, and I just hoped one of them might slip to my next pick. No such luck, but even more to my dismay, Sheed was gone. I really did not think he was so well thought of, but he really was a perfect fit-could space the floor, play good defense, post up, rebound, and play center very well whenever I moved Hakeem to the bench. So I decided to get another PF, since I planned on using Rodman as a SF with regularity and wanted a real offensive PF in case things got bogged down with Worm on the floor. This lead me to select Chris Bosh. He's shown that he's very willing to accept being a 3rd option on offense, hit midrange shots and score inside, plays solid defense and can give me a small-ball center.

My next pick was pretty much set, I wanted Air Canada. I viewed Vince Carter as the best remaining player, and a cut above my remaining options at SG. I wasn't going to wait any longer to fill that spot.

After that I decided on a pair of excellent defenders to round out my backcourt, Mookie Blaylock and Michael Cooper. I was so settled on this that I didn't even think Cooper wouldn't be there, but he was drafted (seriously, you have Jordan and you wanted a defensive role playing SG? gah), and I sort of panicked and selected a good SG I could think of who played good d, and that was Arron Afflalo. I haven't forgiven Joe Dumars for dumping him, and the past two seasons he's shown how effective he can be on offense, but here he'll be confined to being a role player, coming off the bench, hustling hard, spacing the floor and playing tough defense. Blaylock was a guard who I felt fit my needs at PG too, played excellent defense, could shoot the 3 at a decent clip, and was very good at taking care of the basketball. Plus, after he spent many years basically watching Nique do all the scoring, you know he'd have no problem giving up the ball to the rest of my superior offensive options.

I was disappointed to see Sampson go, because I liked the idea of being able to pair him with Hakeem again, but I already had two PFs and despite his height Sampson did really play as a PF. I went with Jason Terry because I wanted a sixth man. Mookie and Afflalo are not explosive offensive guys, and most of my backups were better defenders than scorers. JET had some excellent shooting seasons and provides a real spark off the bench.

I then selected Ron Artest. I knew that I couldn't select him at his best, but I figured such a legendary character and defender would not be available for much longer. Even though I'm getting Rockets/Lakers version, Artest was still an excellent defender at SF, and in the seasons available was at least a competent 3 point shooter, so he wouldn't murder spacing with Rodman at PF. Plus, if someone is really giving me trouble, Ron can just lose his mind on the guy, hurt him so he won't be available, and I'll be okay because Rodman, Pierce and Carter can soak up minutes at SF anyways. Artest won't get too much burn though.

With my last pick, I wanted a real backup center for Hakeem, so I wouldn't be forced to go small ball with regularity if I didn't want to. I thus selected Tree Rollins, who was an good rebounder and paint protector, and excellent shot-blocker. I don't lose much on defense with him in. Plus, he tried to bite off Danny Ainge's finger once, so along with Rodman and Artest, I have a nice collection of all time crazies/fighters in my backup frontcourt. If anyone wants to start anything, they'll be going home with a lot of stitches.

Steal of the draft: Derrick Rose
Reach of the draft: Marques Johnson
He should have been drafted: Brad Daugherty
He should NOT have been drafted: Gheorghe Muresan
Best offensive team:
Best defensive team:
Strongest core (top 3 picks):
Match up you wanna see in the playoffs:
Top 3 teams:
Favourite to win the playoffs: -

When I mentioned that Thunder Dan's team and my team are very similar, he agreed, so I think there's not really that much to be added to his description.

My team is also led my a great defensive center (Alonzo) who can score 20 PPG on very good efficiency, but his advantage over Dwight is the fact that he could knock down 15 footers fairly consistently, and he's a significantly better FT shooter. Both guys were really poor as passers, so that's a weakness that can potentially be exploited, but it's not really that big of an issue, because you can just limit their touches, or limit how many times they pass out of the low post, so they wouldn't have the opportunity to make a bad pass. Instead, they can attack the rim and try to draw fouls, or even finish and-1's, because both are so strong that it's hard not to let them overpower you under the basket.

Our leaders are also similar in terms of the caliber of player they were - Bird and Kobe are both among the most skilled offensive players ever, and both were crazy competitors who would do anything in order to win. I'd really like it if Kobe could cut down on his FGAs, 16-18 FGA per game would be the number of shots from the field that I'd like him to take. That's already less than Kobe has ever taken in his prime. There's no reason for him to shoot more, because I also have two others 25 PPG scorers - Alex English and Chris Mullin. I went with 2007-09 Kobe, and by 2007, he was already so frustrated by playing with scrubs (except Odom), that after the 2007 playoffs ended for the Lakers, he said that he would rather play on Pluto than with them. I'm sure he'd appreciate having such talented teammates like English, Mullin or Zo. Both guys (Mully and English) were really unselfish and proved that they could coexist with other high-octane scorers (English played with Kiki Vandeweghe in the three seasons that I selected - 1982-84, and Mullin obviously played for the Warriors during the Run TMC era, with Mitch Richmond and Tim Hardaway), so I'm sure they'd be fine with less FGA. I'd like both to take 14-16 shots per game. The reason I selected 1982-84 English, even though it might not have been his peak just yet, is because who was a lower USG% player than he'd eventually become later on in his career. He was still good enough to be chosen to the All-NBA Second Team twice during this stretch, and when you consider what kind of opposition he had to play against at the SF spot, that's very impressive.
English also averaged well over one steal and one block per game during that timespan, and he was a very good athlete capable of making chasedown blocks and disrupting opponents' offensive schemes because he could jump into the passing lanes and use his very long arms pretty well in this situation.

Chauncey Billups is just a perfect complement for these guys, because he could be very effective without dominating the ball. He had excellent post game and moved without the ball very well. He was also an All-Defensive caliber player, and was actually chosen to the All-D 2nd Team twice, one of them was in 2006, so that's a year which is a part of the stretch that I chose.

Buck Williams should be a great complement for Zo because he was a very athletic, relentless, tenacious rebounder and an excellent defender.

Lamar Odom was an amazingly versatile player, capable of everything from running a team as a point forward, rebounding and playing good man defense, to knocking down jumpshots. He's a PERFECT player for a fantasy draft team.

Brad Miller was an excellent passing bigman, solid defensive rebounder, and a very good shooter with excellent range (he could even knock down an occasional 3 pointer)
Darrell Armstrong and Doug Christie were two bulldogs on defense, and also really capable of being useful and productive on offense. Christie was an elite man defender, one of the toughest opponents Kobe ever faced (well, now he won't have to worry about guarding Bryant ). He was an excellent passer and a really solid shooter (37% from the 3 point land on almost 3 attempts per game, and 85% from the FT line!!!). I think he was a better player than Shane Battier and Bruce Bowen, so I'm really happy about nabbing him.

My second unit (Miller, Odom, Mullin, Christie, Armstrong) is tailor made for playing the Princeton offense, so I'm sure I'll try to take advantage of that quite a bit. Mullin could also easily beat his man off the dribble, or create a high percentage midrange shot by throwing him off balance. Mullin/Odom pick and rolls and pick & pops are something that I'm really looking forward to run.

I want to always have two of my top 3 wing players (Kobe, English, Mullin) on the floor, so one of them will be resting on the bench, while the other two will take care of my offense. This way I won't lose anything in terms of my offensive efficiency and productivity (Kobe and English are 57+ TS% scorers, and Mullin was over 60%TS, so good luck leaving any of them uncovered on the perimeter ).


*copied from the old discussion thread, just like you ordered Hibachi. It's absolutely not a complete strategy breakdown, as you can see, but you can get a clue how my team looks.

DavidStern wrote:Too many threads on PC board. They should be moved to Fantasy Basketball board, where they belong.

We wanted to do this draft here on the PC board because there's a totally different environment (ie. posters) on the Fantasy Basketball board, and we felt like the kind of people that there are on the PC board would be more fitting to an exercise that requires a lot of knowledge about historical players, as there are many people with good understanding of the 80s or 90s here, and the average age of the posters seems to be significantly higher than on other forums. At least that's how I feel about it.

MisterHibachi wrote:Any bystanders interested in filling this ballot out?

Steal of the draft:
Reach of the draft:
He should have been drafted:
He should NOT have been drafted:
Best offensive team:
Best defensive team:
Strongest core (top 3 picks):
Match up you wanna see in the playoffs:
Top 3 teams:
Favourite to win the playoffs:
Any other categories you wanna comment on that I missed:

I'm not exactly a bystander here, but I'll try to answer in an unbiased manner:

Steal of the draft: John Stockton, absolutely. He was drafted at #50, in the beginning of the 4th round, and there were a few clearly worse players drafted before him. Derrick Rose and Alex English kind of go in a different category because seemingly no one was willing to draft them, and they were eventually drafted 'just to be drafted' or because someone wanted to pay a tribute to them, if you will. HeartBreakKid also had a HUGE steal with Kevin Johnson at #82. Now he has Stockton and KJ as his point guards.

Reach of the draft: Dominique Wilkins at #74, considering the fact that he was drafted much higher than superior players like Bernard King (91), Alex English (152) and Adrian Dantley (undrafted).

He should have been drafted: Adrian Dantley, absolutely. Brad Daugherty as well. These are clearly the two guys that sticks out to me.

He should NOT have been drafted: Hard to say, because there are players like Allen Iverson, who are supremely talented, but don't really fit well in any role here, and poor overall players with one or two elite skills (like Bruce Bowen, or Kyle Korver). Role players are necessary for a team to succeed (at least in my humble opinion), so all of these picks seem to be justifiable. Gheorghe Muresan provides A LOT of size and he could be really useful in some matchups, even if he's less than a superstar talent.

Best offensive team: ardee (Dirk, Nash and Rice in the starting five, and Parker off the bench) and whitehops (Barkley, CP3, Pau Gasol and Harden).

Best defensive team: CaliBullsFan (Duncan, Payton, Moncrief and Marc Gasol in the starting lineup ) and Bruh Man (Garnett, Pippen, Kidd and Hibbert). Honorable mention - O_6 with Ewing and Sheed inside, Dennis Johnson, Shane Battier and Terrell Brandon off the bench.

Strongest core (top 3 picks): RSCD3_ (LeBron, McHale, Yao), HeartBreakKid (Dr. J, Karl Malone, Artis Gilmore) and O_6 (Durant, Ewing, Penny).

Match up you wanna see in the playoffs: Quotatious vs CaliBullsFan - we disagree on almost every topic on the forums, so whoever wins should feel really good about kicking the other's ass here. Quotatious vs ThunderDan9 as well, because our teams are built in a very similar way.

Top 3 teams: ThunderDan9, ardee and HeartBreakKid. I really like Narigo's and Sagittaron's teams as well. Not overly stacked, but a great fit.

Favourite to win the playoffs: ThunderDan9, slightly over HeartBreakKid and ardee. Take any of the three teams, all are great.

Most stacked team (not necessarily in a good way tho) - this is my own category, and I nominate DHodgkins - he has five 25 PPG or so scorers in his starting lineup, and three of them are clearly below 55% TS (Isiah, Dominique and C-Webb). They would've been fun to watch on the court together, no doubt, but first - we're not seeing them actually play, it's just a fantasy, 'numbers basketball', and second, I don't really see them succeeding as a unit. It really would've been an anarchy. He also has inefficient scorers like Antoine Walker (seriously, this guy?), Latrell Sprewell and Alvin Robertson, all of whom need a lot of touches and field goal attempts...

Don't get me wrong man - I think your team is tremendously talented, but literally no one on your team is a really dependable first option (D-Rob and Clyde are the most dependable and efficient, but even they declined against tougher defense in the postseason, more often than not), and I really don't like the fit. It looks more like an All-Star team, to be honest. And I'm not hating on you, not in the slighest.

Suggestion. Clear the threads and restart just having 2 matchups (1 east and 1 west) at a time. Takes a lot longer but builds suspense and the other players look in and comment instead of being monofocused on their own matchups. That and easier on the judges

penbeast0 wrote:Suggestion. Clear the threads and restart just having 2 matchups (1 east and 1 west) at a time. Takes a lot longer but builds suspense and the other players look in and comment instead of being monofocused on their own matchups. That and easier on the judges

Alright that's good with me. Problem is I'm not on a computer right now lol and have no way of saving my write up and don't lose it (along with all the comments). Do you, as a mod, mind locking all threads except the 1-8 match ups in each conference? That way we can keep the write ups already posted along with the comments. We can then open the threads when the time comes for them.

What's the deal with all of these matches? I thought we were pushing it when we posted 4 at a time.

Keep in mind that we have to evaluate 20 players all in hypothetical situations, figuring out their rotations, as well as rebuttals and strategies from the GMs. There is no way the judges will be able to do everyone's match.

I think we should just do 2-4 matches at a time, leave the thread open for say 3 days (starting after when both GMs have posted their initial strategies).

That's my piece.