hoopGM | Bumbling Should Never Be Rewarded
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Nathan Larsen has been a long time participant in fantasy basketball. He has always sought more interesting ways to play and has never been afraid to question tradition. His iconoclastic style is bound to make you think.
My colleague has given tips as to how to play the game of fantasy basketball. I will skip that. I have my thoughts, but since I have never won the league, though I have only finished out of contention three times in 12 years (at least 3 second place finishes), I will spare you my thoughts on winning. I am far more concerned with the systems of play.
I have found all fantasy systems to be something of a disappointment. I especially find one year leagues to be incredibly boring after the first week. Once you find out who is on your team you cease to be interested. Oh yea, I am categorically opposed to any form of drafting, so the draft is even uninteresting for me on principle.
I have never agreed with rewarding poor management. Why, oh why has the NBA let young promising talent after young promising talent go to the Clippers? It is not that the Clips are poor judges of talent; rather they are poor nurturers of talent. I believe in letting players choose what team they want to go to, not letting dumb lottery luck and poor management do the deciding for them. Why do American sports leagues think that the best way to nurture young talent is to put them on the worst teams? These teams are in the cellar for a good reason. Why give a career death knell to a player before he has even shot his first professional basket by forcing him onto a bad team?
Much can be said about J.D. Drew, but I appreciate what he did. He did not want to be on the Phillies, who are underachieving, so he exercised his right to not sign with them. The thing that bothered me was that he had to loose a year of his career because he did not want to be forced onto a poor performing team. Why should teams have all of the say as to where young professionals end up? Shouldn’t we let these people decide where they want to play?
I know what you are going to say. We need a draft to ensure proper competition. I disagree, we allow young players to decide what college they want to attend, and there is plenty of diversity in the successful college programs. Sure there are traditional powerhouses, but that is not bad, as there are plenty of them. These programs become powerhouses because they are able to train up good players over and over again. They have earned the right to attract good talent. I believe that is the reason that teams should be able to get good players on their rosters, because they have proved themselves able to nurture talent, they have proved themselves winners. I want players to have freedom to choose their own career path.
What does this all mean for fantasy basketball, well that is debatable, but what I have attempted to do is to push our system away from reliance on a draft. What I want is a system that is relying on money management and speculation on talent instead of a system that rewards poor management with the potential of the best player in the draft.
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