Fantasy Drafthelp: NBA Draft Features

NOTE: These features are serialized from the forthcoming draft guide PRO HOOPS DRAFTOLOGY 2011.

2011 NBA Draft Overview

After a truly abysmal NBA Draft in 2010, this year’s edition offers a bit more hope, even if much of it may taste like tangy Euro Kool-Aid.

The consensus top player is Duke PG Kyrie Irving, who lost most of his only NCAA season to a foot injury, but appears fine now. On a tier just below, most analysts slot Arizona PF/SF Derrick Williams, a skilled player who dominated in big games, but who must prove he is not a tweener at the next level. On the final tier before opinions start to wildly diverge are Kentucky PG Brandon Knight and his would-be teammate from 2010-11, PF/C Enes Kanter.

The next tier is very wide-open, but includes UConn’s hero, PG Kemba Walker, San Diego State SF Kawhi Leonard, BYU PG/SG/folk hero Jimmer Fredette, SG Klay Thompson and Big Twelve prospects SF/PF Marcus Morris of Kansas, PG/SG Alec Burks of Colorado and PF Tristan Thompson and SG/SF Jordan Hamilton. There are also some international players in the mix: athletic Czech SF/PF Jan Vesely and Lithuanian PF/Cs Donatas Motiejunas and Jonas Valanciunas. Now, remember this about the Euros: after seeing international players go first in 2002, 2005 and 2006 (Yao Ming, Andrew Bogut and Andrea Bargnani, respectively), lottery representation from this sector has been very sparse since the draft banned high school players in ‘06. Only three international players without college experience have gone in the top ten from 2006-10 and that tally should be matched or beaten with the 2011 class alone.

This year’s draft will be held in the shadow of a looming lockout. However, you can follow The 21st Century Media Alliance for coverage of this last big event before the ugliness via liveblogging, simulcast at TheFDHLounge.com, OutsideTheBoxScore.blogspot.com and other associated websites as we break down the process as only we can.

Strength of Draft by Position

Outstanding: none

Very Good: Point Guard

Good: Power Forward

Average: none

Not So Good: none

Poor: Shooting Guard, Small Forward, Center

Horrible: none

Team Needs

1 LA Clippers (NOTE 1st-round pick belongs to Cleveland): SF, PG

2 Minnesota: C

3 New Jersey (NOTE: 1st-round pick belongs to Utah): SF, PF, SG

4 Cleveland: SF, C, SG, PG

5 Toronto: SF

6 Washington: SF, C, SG, PF

7 Sacramento: SF, SG

8 Detroit: C, SF, PF, PG, SF

9 Charlotte: PF, C, PG, SF

10 Milwaukee: PF, SF

11 Golden State: C

12 Utah: SF, SG

13 Orlando (NOTE: 1st-round pick belongs to Phoenix): PF, SF

14 Houston: SF, PG, C

15 Indiana: SG, PF, C

16 Philadelphia: C

17 New York: C

18 Atlanta (NOTE: 1st-round pick belongs to Washington): PG, SF, C

19 New Orleans (NOTE: 1st-round pick belongs to Charlotte): SG, C, SF

20 Memphis (NOTE: 1st-round pick belongs to Minnesota): none

21 Portland: C, PG

22 Denver: SF, C

23 Phoenix (NOTE: 1st-round pick belongs to Houston): C, SF

24 Oklahoma City: PF, C

25 Boston: C, SG

26 Dallas: SG, C

27 LA Lakers (NOTE: 1st-round pick belongs to New Jersey): PG, SF

28 Miami (NOTE: 1st-round pick belongs to Chicago): C, PG

29 San Antonio: C, SF

30 Chicago: SG

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Fantasy Drafthelp: 2011 NFL Draft Recap

This week, we bring you our 2011 NFL Draft post-selection analysis, with PRO FOOTBALL DRAFTOLOGY 2011 serving as our baseline for pre-draft expectations.

NUMBER OF FIRST-ROUND PICKS CORRECT

Rob Rang of CBS Sports 9

Mike Mayock of NFL Network 8

Mike O’Hara of Fox Sports 8

Pat Kirwin of NFL.com 7

Michael Lombardi of NFL Network 7

Walter Football 7

FDH Managing Partner Rick Morris 6

Mel Kiper of ESPN 6

Todd McShay of ESPN 6

Adam Caplan of Fox Sports 5

John Crist of Scout.com 5

Peter Schrager of Fox Sports 5

FDH Senior Editor Jason Jones 4

Chad Reuter of CBS Sports 4

Steve Wyche of NFL.com 4

Brian Billick of Fox Sports 3

NUMBER OF PLAYERS CORRECTLY TABBED AS FIRST-ROUND PLAYERS

John Crist of Scout.com 29

Brian Billick of Fox Sports 28

Mel Kiper of ESPN 28

Todd McShay of ESPN 28

Mike O’Hara of Fox Sports 28

Rob Rang of CBS Sports 28

Pat Kirwin of NFL.com 27

Mike Mayock of NFL Network 27

Chad Reuter of CBS Sports 27

Peter Schrager of Fox Sports 27

Walter Football 27

Steve Wyche of NFL.com 27

FDH Managing Partner Rick Morris 26

Adam Caplan of Fox Sports 26

Michael Lombardi 24

FDH Senior Editor Jason Jones 22

FDH Draft Winners

1 New York Giants

2 Tampa Bay

3 Atlanta

4 New Orleans

5 Detroit

Honorable Mention: Dallas, St. Louis, Oakland

FDH Draft Losers

1 Seattle

2 Minnesota

3 Cleveland

4 San Francisco

5 Carolina

Points Accrued By Teams According to FDH Senior Editor Jason Jones’ Top 50 Overall

1 Denver 192 (3 players)

2 Tampa Bay 172 (4 players)

3 New Orleans 168 (3 players)

4 Dallas 154 (2 players)

5 Buffalo 148 (2 players)

6 Detroit 130 (2 players)

7 New England 128 (3 players)

8 Baltimore 122 (2 players)

9 New York Giants 118 (2 players)

10 Arizona 114 (2 players)

11 Washington 108 (2 players)

12T Tennessee 96 (2 players)

12T Cincinnati 96

14 St. Louis 92

15 Houston 90 (3 players)

16 Atlanta 84

17 Miami 78

18 Minnesota 74 (2 players)

19 Jacksonville 70

20 Chicago 66 (2 players)

21 Oakland 64

22 San Francisco 52

23 Indianapolis 34

24 Carolina 32

25 Pittsburgh 26

26 Philadelphia 24

27 Kansas City 20

28 Green Bay 14

29 New York Jets 12

30T Cleveland 0

30T San Diego 0

30T Seattle 0

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Fantasy Drafthelp: 2011 Stanley Cup Playoff Draft Board

OVERALL

1 Daniel Sedin

2 Alex Ovechkin

3 Claude Giroux

4 Henrik Sedin

5 Dany Heatley

6 Alexander Semin

7 Nicklas Lidstrom

8 Roberto Luongo

9 Henrik Zetterberg

10 Dan Boyle

11 Ryan Kesler

12 Danny Briere

13 Jeff Carter

14 Steven Stamkos

15 Christian Erhoff

LEFT WING

1 Daniel Sedin

2 Alex Ovechkin

3 Alexander Semin

4 Milan Lucic

5 Alexandre Burrows

6 Ville Leino

7 Scott Hartnell

8 Chris Kunitz

9 Ray Whitney

10 Thomas Vanek

11 Sergei Kostitsyn

12 Michael Cammalleri

13 Tyler Ennis

14 Andrei Kostitsyn

15 Ryan Smyth

CENTER

1 Henrik Sedin

2 Henrik Zetterberg

3 Ryan Kesler

4 Danny Briere

5 Jeff Carter

6 Steven Stamkos

7 Pavel Datsyuk

8 Mike Richards

9 Joe Thornton

10 David Krejci

11 Patrick Marleau

12 Jonathan Toews

13 Nicklas Backstrom

14 Patrice Bergeron

15 Anze Kopitar

RIGHT WING

1 Claude Giroux

2 Dany Heatley

3 Johan Franzen

4 Martin St. Louis

5 Patrick Kane

6 Ryan Clowe

7 Corey Perry

8 Marian Gaborik

9 Teemu Selanne

10 Bobby Ryan

11 Mikael Samuelsson

12 Brad Boyes

13 Shane Doan

14 Nathan Horton

15 Jason Pominville

DEFENSE

1 Nicklas Lidstrom

2 Dan Boyle

3 Christian Erhoff

4 Brian Rafalski

5 Zdeno Chara
6 Lubomir Visnovsky

7 Brent Seabrook

8 Tomas Kaberle

9 Duncan Keith

10 Drew Doughty

11 Keith Yandle

12 Dennis Wideman

13 Shea Weber

14 Kris Letang

15 Ryan Suter

GOALIE

1 Roberto Luongo

2 Tim Thomas

3 Jimmy Howard

4 Antti Niemi

5 Marc-Andre Fleury

6 Ilya Bryzgalov

7 Sergei Bobrovsky

8 Ryan Miller

9 Jonathan Quick

10 Michal Neuvirth

11 Pekka Rinne

12 Corey Crawford

13 Carey Price

14 Henrik Lundqvist

15 Dwayne Roloson

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Fantasy Drafthelp: Last-Minute Baseball Tips

This week, we bring you last-minute baseball draft/auction tips from FDH Managing Partner Rick Morris.

At the end of any draft prep season, I always like to bring the focus back to the basics. Having had the auction for my keeper league on Saturday and the draft for my non-keeper league next Saturday, I can mix in my own perspectives to make my points even clearer.

^ Above all, stay focused on value above all else. You win by squeezing value more effectively than anyone else, period. It’s repetitive on our part, but I make no apologies for that, because it’s the sole non-negotiable element of your draft prep and it’s something that far too many people lose sight of at the worst times. Now, for those who are looking to scratch an excitement itch or don the wheeler-dealer garb, this may not be fun and fulfilling. As for me, I get my fun and fulfillment from winning (12-team mixed non-keeper league title last year, 20-team mixed keeper league title the year before). Hopefully it’s not seen as a jerk move to drop those credentials, because there is a point here. Even with the ’09 title, even being the one person in the league actively participating in the fantasy industry via the FDH brand, I was delighted to see on Saturday that I can still lurk in the weeds because my moves are boring and decidedly un-flashy relative to many of my competitors. And frankly, if I can still lurk at this point and not have the target on me that my flashier league-mates do, then I’ll always be able to since I will never change the playbook. Advantage, me. Let others try the attention-grabbing attempts to reinvent the wheel. Steady wins the race.

^ The previous point is not to suggest abandoning all efforts to find more effective means of accomplishing your goals – just to keep value in mind when doing so. I’ll furnish another example from Saturday’s auction. Top minor league players in our league get picked over well before they first make the bigs, due to the fact that you can hang on to them for up to 10 years with our format – which calls for five auction rounds, followed by a straight draft in which players can be procured for only $1. In recent years, not only are the top prospects snarfed up even before their minor league peaks in the draft rounds, they are also subject in many instances to insane bidding in the auction rounds. Truly, it is difficult to carry a player for a few years at $20 or above before they even make their major league debut, so I have tried at all costs to avoid this necessity. Although I tried to get some top minor league players in the draft rounds on Saturday, I was unsuccessful – so I went all-in on a strategy I have dabbled in before: I took five prospects who will be in this June’s draft, four college players and one high-school baller. Will they all pan out? Probably not; the burn rate on prospects is significant. But they’ve all got high ceilings and they won’t cost me an arm and a leg if I have to cut them. This was the kind of creativity we endorse.

^ Think about the specifics of your situation ahead of time as much as you can, not merely the league rules and parameters (one would hope you don’t need me to drill that part into your heads!), but any other relevant features. In the case of my auction, I familiarized myself with not only my cap number and needs going into Saturday, but those of all of my leaguemates so that I would know who my biggest threats were for the holes I had to fill. For this Saturday’s draft, my co-owner and I are able to spend the week contemplating the realities of our draft position (7 – and on a personal note, I really hate being 6^th or 7^th in a 12-team league since you can’t anticipate your next pick very well and that just bothers me) and the players most likely to drop to us in the early rounds. Look at the possibilities (including tendencies of your fellow owners, which I know very well in both of my leagues from many years of jousting with them) and just spend some time picking apart some options from different angles. For example, it’s no secret that FDH is higher on Tulow than most in the industry this year. He was critical to our title last year and given our competitors’ tendencies, we feel that we have a good shot to get him at 7. If we do, then we fill a need at the shallowest position and move on from there. If not, we’ll go with a Plan B or Plan C that we hatch during the week. Ruminate on all the angles. You wouldn’t be playing this game if you didn’t love it. Enjoy – and go take some caysh from your friends!

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Fantasy Drafthelp: Hoops Brackets & Draft Game

College Hoops Bracket Draft

It's that time of year again as FDH brings you our college hoops bracket draft.

First, here's the guidelines:
^ 2 points for an opening-round win
^ 4 points for a second-round win
^ 6 points for a third-round win
^ 8 points for a regional championship win
^ 10 points for winning a national semifinal game
^ 12 points for winning the national championship

Also, there are bonus points for having lower seeds win:
^ 2 points for each win by a team seeded 5th through 9th in a region
^ 5 points for each win by a team seeded 10th through 16th in a region

We recommend a six-team draft with a nine-round standard serpentine draft.

College Hoops Bracket Draft Board

TOP TIER

1 Kansas

2 Ohio State

3 Florida

4 UConn

5 Duke

6 Notre Dame

7 Purdue

8 Syracuse

9 North Carolina

10 Utah State

11 Pittsburgh

SECOND TIER

12 San Diego State

13 Kentucky

14 Texas

15 Kansas State

16 Gonzaga

17 Louisville

THIRD TIER

18 Michigan State

19 Butler

20 BYU

21 Xavier

22 Vanderbilt

23 St. John’s

24 West Virginia

25 Belmont

26 Arizona

27 George Mason

28 Wisconsin

29 Penn State

30 Illinois

31 Missouri

32 Georgetown

33 Temple

34 Texas A&M

35 Washington

36 UNLV

37 Old Dominion

38 Georgia

39 Villanova

40 Florida State

41 Cincinnati

42 Tennessee

43 Michigan

44 Marquette

45 UCLA

FDH Managing Partner Rick Morris’ Bracket

EAST REGION

FIRST ROUND

1 Ohio State over 16 UTSA or Alabama State

8 George Mason over 9 Villanova

5 West Virginia over 12 UAB or Clemson

4 Kentucky over 13 Princeton

6 Xavier over 11 Marquette

3 Syracuse over 14 Indiana State

7 Washington over 10 Georgia

2 North Carolina over 15 Long Island

SECOND ROUND

1 Ohio State over 8 George Mason

4 Kentucky over 5 West Virginia

3 Syracuse over 6 Xavier

2 North Carolina over 7 Washington

THIRD ROUND

1 Ohio State over 4 Kentucky

3 Syracuse over 2 North Carolina

REGIONAL FINAL

1 Ohio State over 3 Syracuse

WEST REGION

FIRST ROUND

1 Duke over 16 Hampton

9 Tennessee over 8 Michigan

5 Arizona over 12 Memphis

4 Texas over 13 Oakland

11 Missouri over 6 Cincinnati

3 UConn over 14 Bucknell

10 Penn State over 7 Temple

2 San Diego State over 15 Northern Colorado

SECOND ROUND

1 Duke over 9 Tennessee

4 Texas over 5 Arizona

3 UConn over 11 Missouri

2 San Diego State over 10 Penn State

THIRD ROUND

1 Duke over 4 Texas

3 UConn over 2 San Diego State

REGIONAL FINAL

3 UConn over 1 Duke

SOUTHWEST REGION

FIRST ROUND

1 Kansas over 16 Boston U

9 Illinois over 8 UNLV

5 Vanderbilt over 12 Richmond

4 Louisville over 13 Morehead State

6 Georgetown over 11 USC/VCU

3 Purdue over 14 St. Peter’s

7 Texas A&M over 10 Florida State

2 Notre Dame over 15 Akron

SECOND ROUND

1 Kansas over 9 Illinois

4 Louisville over 5 Vanderbilt

3 Purdue over 6 Georgetown

2 Notre Dame over 7 Texas A&M

THIRD ROUND

1 Kansas over 4 Louisville

2 Notre Dame over 3 Purdue

REGIONAL FINAL

1 Kansas over 2 Notre Dame

SOUTHEAST REGION

FIRST ROUND

1 Pittsburgh over 16 UNC-Asheville or Arkansas-Little Rock

8 Butler over 9 Old Dominion

12 Utah State over 5 Kansas State

13 Belmont over 5 Wisconsin

11 Gonzaga over 6 St. John’s

3 BYU over 14 Wofford

10 Michigan State over 7 UCLA

2 Florida over 15 UCSB

SECOND ROUND

1 Pittsburgh over 8 Butler

12 Utah State over 13 Belmont

11 Gonzaga over 3 BYU

2 Florida over 15 UCSB

THIRD ROUND

12 Utah State over 1 Pittsburgh

2 Florida over 11 Gonzaga

REGIONAL FINAL

2 Florida over 12 Utah State

NATIONAL SEMIFINALS

Ohio State over UConn

Kansas over Florida

NATIONAL FINALS

Kansas over Ohio State

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